Posts: 59
Joined: Apr 2012
Reputation:
6
The old "transient information" argument that never worked in any court, except when it comes to accidental viewing of transient material where no intent was given vs. downloading where intend is clearly given. (e.g. the RedTube streaming cases in the EU). The key here is unknowingly consuming copyrighted material.
They still try to fish for customers with that argument and natural mass media will pick it up as they have no understanding anyway as journalism these days is "copy and pasting something form the web with no fact checking".
Just installing such a "loaded" box or installing any of the banned addons is clear intent.
Well, the argument seems to work to sell Chinese Android boxes for 500%+ profit. Well every minute a sucker is born.
That no one goes after the consumers of illegal streams doesn't mean it's legal or in a grey area. If a lawyer say it is in a "grey area" just means, he is not aware of any big precendence / they will not come after the consumer.
But as the problem becomes more prominent and therefore copyright owners will become aware of the problem they will take legal steps. And their first target will be ppl. selling "loaded" boxes as they are an easy target. They make money with it, so copyright owners will go after them sooner or later. The story of cable boxes "loaded" with other software in the past will simply repeat here.
Strictly speaking: even using a VPN to watch legal streams in other countries in general is not legal or permitted by an EULA if you have some legal subscription.
Why it is possible? Because the one who licensed something only delivers directly to an IP within the US for example and is not in violation of licensing terms as these are not precise enough and still written in classical broadcast terms. All involved parties know, but its a way around established distribution chains.
Netflix for example could shut using their service over well known VPNs down in a second. They éven actually track it for internal metrics plus of course where the user is really located as most "bargain" VPNs leak the real IPs in one way or another anyway.
But they are not doing so because they are not iviolating their license. The country IP check is enough as their direct connection is withing the same country. But as said all involved parties know the truth.
They know and make a lot of money with it. In many countries Netflix has huge subscriber numbers even though their offering is really really small in that country and rarely updated with new stuff.. But well, you can use your subscription anywhere in the world and consume content licensed to be delivered to consumers (read IPs) in that country.
And let's face it, If the big streaming providers get away with it, then other want something of the profit as well. In this case selling cheap Android boxes at huge profit margins.
It really annoys me when I try to search something outside these forums in relation to Kodi I always end up on some piracy addon site or some guy in mom's basement hawking Android boxes. This so ticks me off, that I actually consider to switch to another product after many many years.
Kodi on Android currently equals "stream anything for free" for 90% of all ppl. Really sad for the project. If I were a Kodi dev I quit over this...
Posts: 31,445
Joined: Jan 2011
Do they not understand that it's still illegal even if the viewer can't be prosecuted? For example, I would say it is illegal for someone to pretend to be a doctor and try to treat people and take their money, but obviously the patients have not done anything wrong. The news isn't going to call that legal.
It's an important distinction. This isn't some protected right to get pirated TV, or some customer-friendly service. ISPs don't care if it's "streaming" or "downloading" in Canada, because it violates their EULA. They can shut off someone's intetnet if they wanted to. Maybe they wouldn't care, until they start viewing those customers as "bandwidth hogs", or until the ISP is on friendly terms with a movie studio.
Yet, there is CBC practically encouraging their readers to try this out.
A silver lining, they didn't mention Kodi! There's a screen shot with some d-bag showing off his overpriced box, but that's it. They still seem to miss the fact that the "box" is doing nothing special, and any phone or computer can access such content, etc, but at least it's not being referred to as some kind of "Kodi thing".
Posts: 441
Joined: Nov 2014
Reputation:
8
Sooner or later there will be law forcing NL ISP providers to hand over that kind of info.
