Yes, much of the web is hosted on Linux servers, and only growing as more and more people start playing around with self hosting projects.

The Playapod website mentions a web player, does the web player happen to sync with your app on the phone? If so maybe you can extract it through the web player on a desktop.

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In regards to your question about hidden methods to catch people, back before digital each film print sent to a theater had a unique “CAP Code” printed directly onto the 35mm film. This was a series of dots in a unique pattern that would show up several times on screen. So when a cam rip would show up somewhere this could be used to narrow down which theater it was recorded at and identify trends after several films.

I don’t know if this was ever successfully used to prosecute anyone though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coded_anti-piracy

Viewing distance and bitrate are most important. Sitting too close will make many things look bad.

For a 32 inch display you want to be 4 and a half feet back, and for a cinematic view you want 3 feet back.

https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/by-size/size-to-distance-relationship