UK Broadcaster Wins Injunction To Stop Reddit Moderator Sharing Pirated TV Shows (torrentfreak.com) 45
Sky TV, one of the largest broadcasters in the UK, has won a court injunction to prevent links to its TV shows from being illegally shared online. The interim order targets a man who moderated several TV-focused communities on Reddit while raising funds through Patreon and PayPal. TorrentFreak reports: According to an action filed by Sky in a Scottish court, Cherzo1 was the moderator of three sub-Reddits -- r/UKTVLAND, r/notapanelshow, and r/UKPanelShowsOnly -- which together had more than 51,000 subscribers. Cherzo also had a YouTube channel with more than 95,000 subscribers. According to Sky, all of these platforms were used to infringe the company's copyrights. In evidence to support its action, Sky states that Cherzo1 was motivated by money, receiving payments from fans and followers via Patreon and directly into his PayPal account. [...]
In order to curtail Cherzo1's activities, Sky asked the court to hand down an "interdict ad interim," a term used in Scotland to describe an interim injunction. The broadcaster asked the court to order Cherzo1 to stop uploading copies of broadcasts, stop posting hyperlinks to shows on Reddit and anywhere else on the Internet, and forbid him from assisting any third party to do the same. A court will grant an interim interdict if it believes there is a prima facie case against the defendant. [...] Anyone found breaching such an order could be subjected to a fine or even imprisonment.
In order to curtail Cherzo1's activities, Sky asked the court to hand down an "interdict ad interim," a term used in Scotland to describe an interim injunction. The broadcaster asked the court to order Cherzo1 to stop uploading copies of broadcasts, stop posting hyperlinks to shows on Reddit and anywhere else on the Internet, and forbid him from assisting any third party to do the same. A court will grant an interim interdict if it believes there is a prima facie case against the defendant. [...] Anyone found breaching such an order could be subjected to a fine or even imprisonment.
quick... (Score:1)
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someone on slashdot has to blame someone else for this...
Trump or Fauci?
Re: quick... (Score:2)
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No legal way outside UK (Score:5, Insightful)
Sky doesn't provide a way for anyone outside the UK to watch their shows. I'd guess some things are on Acorn or Britbox or other US streaming services, but not the show I want (the Artist of the Year series).
Maybe most of Cherzo's audience are actually in the UK and just don't want to pay for Sky. I don't know but a reasonable guess. Hard to imagine most people who *paid* Cherzo are in the UK though.
I'd gladly pay Sky, but I can't.
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Any reasonable hit would presumptively be up for sale to American companies for a rewrite to make an American show of it. Letting the cat out of the bag by the show being seen online devalues that, as all the cool bits that made the show great are now known.
And not just America anymore. Hit game shows are cloned across all countries now.
Re:No legal way outside UK (Score:4, Informative)
Re:No legal way outside UK (Score:5, Funny)
Having the Americans do their own version devalues the show. Pretty [much] every time they do, it's shit; with a very, very few exceptions.
Yea. Ok But just wait'll you see the Amercanized "Dr Who". Staring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. The show will feature plenty of obvious product placements for Coke, Facebook, Amazon and Johnson & Johnson. Woo-hoo!! We rock!
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Don't forget that the companions would all be Playboy Playmates wearing skimpy outfits and the show would feature lots of slow-motion running towards the camera like Baywatch...
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Yea. Ok But just wait'll you see the Amercanized "Dr Who". Staring Dwayne âoeThe Rockâ Johnson.
I have a tremendous amount of respect for Mr. Johnson.
But this concept has brought me closer to considering suicide than anything since my teens.
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Orrrr, hear me out, they could make double money by showing both the British original AND the version made locally. Double the episodes for the same effort!
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Since the Murdoch family encouraged pirating of non sky tv - read murdochs pirates by neil chenoweth and they had satellite dishes surely a local box and dish pointing in the right place used to work might still?
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4chan is leaking...
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Are you claiming 4chan is a radioactive pool of toxic waste in Florida?
Re:No legal way outside UK (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, blame the people who make the shows. They sell Sky a license to show it in the UK only (actually, probably UK mainland, so Falklands are out, for example). They also only get to do so for (say) a year, and maybe only via broadcast, or maybe only online or in many cases both. Outside of that contract, Sky aren't allowed to do it. That's not normally too much of an issue because Sky's satellites are designed to only "beam" over mainland UK (although of course there's overspill elsewhere - but by then the signal strength is lower than designed, and if you get crappy signal, Sky don't care).
Sky makes its own shows in some cases, but even still they are probably contractually complex. They'll use other TV and film companies to do parts of the work for them, so again, may enter in limiting contracts. If Sky happens to be the big guy in the room then it's them that gets to dictate the terms. Even still though, since Sky isn't in many other countries, they probably use their UK-specificness to cut contracts that benefit them (ie. "we'll do what we want with this in the UK, but you get a year to show it on broadcast in guatamala. In return for this gift to you, we'll have a 25% discount on your bill for animators").
I suspect in this case, Sky was getting heat from some of the content providers saying "our stuff is getting pirated via Sky". Sky probably have contractual terms saying they'll take due care to avoid such problems, but even if they don't, the reciprocal nature of their business means it's in their interest to help out (so they get help from others when they need it).
As for you - as I say, Sky can't sell this stuff to you, even if they want to. Or rather, it would make it so ruinously expensive for them to buy content on terms that allow them to sell it to you, that they can't actually run their business like that.
when the UK was in the EU sports where being (Score:2)
when the UK was in the EU sports where being bypass by pubs and being paid to an non UK but EU satellite system and under EU laws contractual stuff can be limited
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> but not the show I want (the Artist of the Year series).
But does wanting something give you the ethical right to have it?
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But does wanting something give you the ethical right to have it?
No, but neither does merely not wanting someone else to have something give you an ethical right to prevent them from acquiring it elsewhere at no cost to yourself.
Wanting it is sufficient motivation. As no one is harmed by the making of a copy, no further justification is necessary.
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"Sky doesn't provide a way for anyone outside the UK to watch their shows."
Just because you want something and its not available to you, it doesn't mean you have to right to get it via illegal means. Shouldn't a company have the right to only offer its goods in a certain geographic region?
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Shouldn't a company have the right to only offer its goods in a certain geographic region?
It doesn't harm them. They already paid to make it. They don't even want to sell it to him anyway. Why would they care? They can't even make any money in this situation if they wanted to.
I'll quote you AC to highlight this excellent response.
This is not a "good". This is a series of 1s and 0s. It costs nothing to copy, they can't make money on it, and by doing nothing they were growing their fanbase.
The broader question is if this guy can make money doing this why Sky isn't doing it themselves? I get that the contracts they have in place probably prevent that, but this is absolutely solid evidence for them to go back and renegotiate those contracts.
If you're a business and someone finds a n
Re: No legal way outside UK (Score:2)
You can only sue someone if they caused real financial damage to you.
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Not only outside the UK, but in the last year, they have started blocking access to NowTV (Sky's streaming service) from datacenters in the UK .
Stream swapping (Score:2)
No I'm not linking...
Another mole whacked. Hope it makes Sky feel good (Score:1)
As long as their lawyers get paid, it's all good.
Not targetted for sharing,... (Score:2)
...but for making money from it and not for Sky ...
This is awesome (Score:1)
Hard to Have Sympathy (Score:2)
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>Nobody should give a shit what a bunch of thieves think about piracy.
Yes, but sadly the MPA and RIAA have enough power that they make the news anyway.
Before even the Before Times, there were DVDs (Score:2)