Hollywood Tries To Cripple Several Alleged Pirate TV Services In One Lawsuit (arstechnica.com) 30
The major Hollywood movie studios last week filed a copyright infringement suit against Omniverse One World Television Inc., which provides streaming video to several online TV services. Omniverse claims to have legal rights to the content, but the studios say it doesn't. Ars Technica reports: The complaint was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California by Columbia Pictures, Disney, Paramount Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Universal, and Warner Bros. The studios previously used lawsuits to shut down the maker of a streaming device called the Dragon Box and another called TickBox. The studios' new lawsuit says that Omniverse supplied content to Dragon Box and to other alleged pirate services that are still operating.
Services using Omniverse content are advertised as "Powered by Omniverse." Besides Dragon Box, they include "SkyStream TV, Flixon TV, and Silicon Dust's HDHomeRun Service," according to the lawsuit. SkyStream, for example, offers more than 70 live TV channels for $35 a month, while pricier packages, according to the complaint, also include premium channels such as HBO. SkyStream's website says its service "is delivered In Cooperation with Omniverse One World Television." According to its website, Omniverse "partners with key distributors across the USA to empower end users with the ability to view their favorite TV channels with no contracts, no credit checks, and no long-term obligations." [T]he movie studios' lawsuit alleges that Omniverse has no rights to distribute their video content. While Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, YouTube TV, and other legitimate streaming services purchase rights to the content, Omniverse has not, the lawsuit said. The complaint asks for an injunction shutting the company down and damages of up to $150,000 for each infringed work. "Defendant Jason DeMeo and his company, Omniverse, stream Plaintiffs' copyrighted movies and television shows without authorization to an already large, and rapidly growing, number of end users," the lawsuit said. "Defendants are not, however, just an infringing, consumer-facing service, akin to Dragon Box. Defendants operate at a higher level in the supply chain of infringing content -- recruiting numerous downstream services like Dragon Box into the illicit market and providing them with access to unauthorized streams of copyrighted content. Defendants function as a 'hub' of sorts, with the enlisted downstream services as the 'spokes.' Omniverse's offering is illegal, it is growing, and it undermines the legitimate market for licensed services."
Services using Omniverse content are advertised as "Powered by Omniverse." Besides Dragon Box, they include "SkyStream TV, Flixon TV, and Silicon Dust's HDHomeRun Service," according to the lawsuit. SkyStream, for example, offers more than 70 live TV channels for $35 a month, while pricier packages, according to the complaint, also include premium channels such as HBO. SkyStream's website says its service "is delivered In Cooperation with Omniverse One World Television." According to its website, Omniverse "partners with key distributors across the USA to empower end users with the ability to view their favorite TV channels with no contracts, no credit checks, and no long-term obligations." [T]he movie studios' lawsuit alleges that Omniverse has no rights to distribute their video content. While Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, YouTube TV, and other legitimate streaming services purchase rights to the content, Omniverse has not, the lawsuit said. The complaint asks for an injunction shutting the company down and damages of up to $150,000 for each infringed work. "Defendant Jason DeMeo and his company, Omniverse, stream Plaintiffs' copyrighted movies and television shows without authorization to an already large, and rapidly growing, number of end users," the lawsuit said. "Defendants are not, however, just an infringing, consumer-facing service, akin to Dragon Box. Defendants operate at a higher level in the supply chain of infringing content -- recruiting numerous downstream services like Dragon Box into the illicit market and providing them with access to unauthorized streams of copyrighted content. Defendants function as a 'hub' of sorts, with the enlisted downstream services as the 'spokes.' Omniverse's offering is illegal, it is growing, and it undermines the legitimate market for licensed services."
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
Yes yes, that's all nice and untrue.
What does this have to do with the studios suing Omniverse?
Please, do try another distraction from preventing a discussion. That's a tactic only a fool uses.
Or Trump.
E
Re: (Score:2)
What does this have to do with the studios suing Omniverse?
A long shot, but here's a try:
If both the charges against President Trump and the charges against Omniverse are true, who would be penalized more?
Re: (Score:2)
Back in 2000, there used to be a Politics section of slashdot, but right now you're just a -1, Troll and Offtopic too.
Re: (Score:1)
Funny liberal shows it has no vocabulary.
Re: (Score:1)
*** + $150/month ***
Pesky pirates (Score:5, Funny)
In other words (Score:3)
You mean Pesky Pirates Probably Pruned Precipitously?
Re: (Score:3)
Possible plunder preempted: potentious precedent prevents popular peeping.
Contracts and webstreams... (Score:2)
These days, the computers that run a TV or cable network make it too easy to create a webstream of the network... TV Everywhere works by making sure you subscribe to the network on cable, then giving you a URL to the webstream.
Omniverse seems to the be collecting these webstreams, and sending the URL out all over the world without providing payment to the networks. This is a violation of US copyright law, but some other places love this. If the networks wanted this to stop, they just have to firewall their
Wait. Movies or TV? (Score:2)
"and Silicon Dust's HDHomeRun Service," (Score:2)
If this one is bundled into the same lawsuit, they'll probably lose.
SiliconDust's service requires:
1. HDHomeRun Hardware.
2. Active cable service.
3. A CableCARD.
4. A login.
5. Internet service.
6. A destination device.
It's basically a replacement for port forwarding - people using it still pay a cable bill. It's tough to use the Aereo case as an argument if users are paying for cable service as a prerequisite for using SD's offering, and if a login is intended to protect against mass sharing.