[HDBaseT]

Meta did, numerous Meta IP's appeared in the torrent swarms.

The problem with using the torrents is they are slow, most of the larger sets have <3 seeders, with many dropping in and out, on home or slow connections. I would imagine other companies have learned from Meta's mistake and don't want to appear in the swarm either, which is why direct access is preferred. 100k for unlimited books access is nothing compared to the other costs these labs incur.

[Cider9986]

I'm under the impression that hiding IP addresses is easier than financial transactions, but both should be easy for a trillion dollar company. But I suppose they could use a shady intermediary company with a don't ask don't tell policy which would make high-speed access the final result.