Hollywood's International War on Kodi Plugins And Video-Streaming Boxes (eff.org) 57
An anonymous reader quotes the EFF:
In the past few years, the sale of pre-configured Kodi boxes, and the availability of a range of plugins providing access to streaming media, has seen the software's popularity balloon -- and made it the latest target of Hollywood's copyright enforcement juggernaut. We've seen this in the appearance of streaming media boxes as an enforcement priority in the U.S. Trade Representative's Special 301 Report, in proposals for new legislation targeting the sale of "illicit" media boxes, and in lawsuits that have been brought on both sides of the Atlantic to address the "problem" that media boxes running Kodi, like any Web browser, can be used to access media streams that were not authorized by the copyright holder...
The difficulty facing the titans of TV is that since neither those who sell Kodi boxes, nor those who write or host add-ons for the software, are engaging in any unauthorized copying by doing so, cases targeting these parties have to rely on other legal theories. So far several legal theories have been used; one in Europe against sellers of Kodi boxes, one in Canada against the owner of the popular Kodi add-on repository TVAddons, and two in the United States against TVAddons and a plugin developer... These lawsuits by big TV incumbents seem to have a few goals: to expand the scope of secondary copyright infringement yet again, to force major Kodi add-on distributors off of the Internet, and to smear and discourage open source, freely configurable media players by focusing on the few bad actors in that ecosystem.
The EFF details the specific lawsuits in each region, and concludes that their courts "should reject these expansions of copyright liability, and TV networks should not target neutral platforms and technologies for abusive lawsuits."
The difficulty facing the titans of TV is that since neither those who sell Kodi boxes, nor those who write or host add-ons for the software, are engaging in any unauthorized copying by doing so, cases targeting these parties have to rely on other legal theories. So far several legal theories have been used; one in Europe against sellers of Kodi boxes, one in Canada against the owner of the popular Kodi add-on repository TVAddons, and two in the United States against TVAddons and a plugin developer... These lawsuits by big TV incumbents seem to have a few goals: to expand the scope of secondary copyright infringement yet again, to force major Kodi add-on distributors off of the Internet, and to smear and discourage open source, freely configurable media players by focusing on the few bad actors in that ecosystem.
The EFF details the specific lawsuits in each region, and concludes that their courts "should reject these expansions of copyright liability, and TV networks should not target neutral platforms and technologies for abusive lawsuits."
Re:I see both sides here (Score:5, Insightful)
> There's nothing wrong with watching a movie via torrent, if you have a license to watch that movie otherwise, eg having bought a DVD. There's nothing wrong with watching your local TV station's stream.
Morally, Yes; Legally, No.
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It has been 20 years since pirates started making media files available practically on demand, yet the Music And Film Industry Associations still - don't - get - it: They still insist on any form of market segmentation that they can think of. They still carve out regions. They still want "exclusive" content. Do they understand the word? Exclusive means it excludes people from consuming the product. You can still not enter the title of a movie you want to see and just watch it. First you have to figure out w
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That's why you have Pirates of the Caribbean and not Her Majesty's Ships of the Caribbean.
And once more reality (shows) [channel5.com] are stranger than fiction...
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The racism is missing for some reason.
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Please don't conflate differing issues. You just confuse people who already are struggling to make sense of all the things activists are asking for.
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Stop conflating piracy, net neutrality, and now somehow you managed to add a 3rd irrelevant issue: spectrum allocation.
On your last topic: where are we now? What FM station is repressed? I mean you're talking like the entire scenario has concluded with a dramatic cover-up of free speech rather than an isolated period which was rolled back shortly after and (I can't stress this enough) has fuck all to do with the topic at hand.
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And since you did come right out and say it, its not an IF any more.. you really ARE fucking retarded.
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Says the person bringing up the FCC in a Hollywood lawsuit. Does your carer know you escaped your special needs school?
You can have my plugins... (Score:1)
Re: Simple solution (Score:2, Insightful)
You got modded down because you are full of shit.
I can pirating and that's not going to influence anyone so piracy still exists.
Your solution is pointless, it expects people to actually follow a good example when you know that's not how modern anything works.
Also, you expect the whole world to follow USA law. That's just bonkers.
Re:Simple solution (Score:5, Insightful)
I support creators of content, but not middlemen who geofence it, region-block it, or herd it into bundles that require me to subscribe to a ludicrous number of different streaming services. For that reason I Kodi when I find I can't rent a single view of content because of one of these mechanisms.
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They used to make money off record sales too. The music is now smaller and there simply are fewer new national bands.
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Middlemen were a vital part of the entertainment supply chain in the days when music and movies were physical goods. When a movie was marketed in a new country, someone had to arrange for physical distribution of film cans to theaters. This required trucks, security, permits and checking for product wear over time. Advertising meant billboards and posters all over the place in each new locale. When was the last time your band sold its music from card tables full of cassettes?
All of this goes away when the p
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For many people, the alternative to pirating content is to not have it at all.
While we end up reading about it online and seeing adverts or discussions about it but cannot obtain it legally via any means short of flying to another country to buy it.
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> There's a simple solution to make this problem go away completely. Stop pirating stuff
These are the same people that sue you for developing tools to use the physical media we BOUGHT from them.
"Not pirating" really isn't going to help.
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Coming at it from the opposite direction... between 2000 and now, there's been less than 10 movies coming from the big studios that I actually wanted to watch (I'm including movies to be released later this year). I don't have an issue paying for engaging content I actually want to watch, unfortunately the studios seem hellbent on not producing that. So I watch what they produce for free when it trickles down to the TV.
Ban the sale of knife sharpeners ... (Score:2)
some people use them to sharpen blades before murdering people!
Just because some people use something for a purpose that you do not like, does not give you a valid reason to stop them being made. However: big media is rich and can afford expensive lawyers who speak with forked tongues.
I don't give a damn (Score:5, Interesting)
Let them ban preloaded Kodi boxes... I don't really care.
Smarter folk just use a Raspberry Pi with OpenElec/Kodi and their choice of add-ons anyway.
The fewer store-bought preloaded Kodi boxes there are, the quicker my streams will start :-)
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It is not about copyright it is all about the establishment of content distribution monopolies. They do not want content creation and distribution competition, it will send them and their crap marketing driven content bankrupt. This is all about creating publishing monopolies on the internet to censor all expression that can not pay millions of dollars to be accessible to the public, the old model.
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first by ending up with a horrible reputation for being consumer aggressive
Since when has that stopped any company?
Itâ(TM)s really simple (Score:2)
If you have developed bittorrent, you could succesfully argue that you have a general purpose tool that CAN be used for unlawful purposes and you walk away. When you develop a tool whose ONLY purpose is illegal in most jurisdictions, well... good luck with that. In case thatâ(TM)s still news to somebody: âfacilitationâ or âenablingâ is an actual crime in many places. Yes, little details matter.