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Middlesbrough Trader Prosecuted for Selling Streaming Boxes Preloaded With Kodi

posted by takyon on Tuesday September 27 2016, @08:16PM   Printer-friendly
from the streaming-pile-of-justice dept.

stormwyrm writes:

Brian Thompson, a Middlesbrough trader, has been prosecuted for selling set-top boxes running Android that come pre-installed with the Kodi/XBMC open source media centre software.

A Middlesbrough trader is set to make legal history as the first person to be prosecuted for selling Android boxes. Following an 18-month investigation, Brian Thompson has been told Middlesbrough Council is taking him to court in what could prove a landmark case.

The council claims the boxes are illegal, but Brian said: "I am pleading not guilty and I'm going to fight this."

The kit - also known as a 'Kodi box' - allows viewers to watch copyright material like Premier League football and Hollywood movies for free. As such there are major question marks over both their legality, and exactly just what people can safely watch.

What seems to be at issue here is that some traders, perhaps Thompson, were selling these set-top boxes preloaded with third-party Kodi add-ons that permit access to media in violation of copyright law. More coverage at the BBC.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by NotSanguine on Wednesday September 28 2016, @04:45AM

    by NotSanguine (285) <{NotSanguine} {at} {SoylentNews.Org}> on Wednesday September 28 2016, @04:45AM (#407196) Homepage Journal

    Facilitating copyright infringement is a crime in the US, and this would fall under that gigantic umbrella.

    Yup. That's why all those guys from Napster and Grokster are serving long prison terms, right? Oh, wait. Not so much.

    From this article [columbia.edu]:

    Copyright infringement is a tort. So is enabling or inciting another to infringe, at least when the enabler knows that her conduct will result in infringement. Decisions dating back several decades recognize that one who supplies the means to infringe, and knows of the use to which the means will be put (or turns a blind eye), can be held liable for contributory infringement. [emphasis added]

    Tort (n) [law.com]:

    from French for "wrong," a civil wrong or wrongful act, whether intentional or accidental, from which injury occurs to another. Torts include all negligence cases as well as intentional wrongs which result in harm. Therefore tort law is one of the major areas of law (along with contract, real property and criminal law) and results in more civil litigation than any other category. [emphasis added]

    --
    No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 28 2016, @11:47PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 28 2016, @11:47PM (#407675)
    But that's not for lack of trying. The *AA's and their allies would very much like to see copyright infringement criminalised as it is in certain places in the world, because that would mean that they wouldn't have to pay their own lawyers to prosecute, nor expend resources investigating themselves, because the government would then have to use its own lawyers to prosecute, and they would have all the powers of the police at their disposal to investigate infringement. Odd that the government of the USA hasn't capitulated to the copyright lobby this far yet.

  • (Score: 2) by EvilSS on Sunday October 02 2016, @05:24PM

    by EvilSS (1456) Subscriber Badge on Sunday October 02 2016, @05:24PM (#409110)

    You should ask Kim Dotcom or Richard O'Dwyer about that. I'm willing to bet they and their lawyers would disagree that it's not a criminal issue. Or look up 18 U.S.C. § 371 and 18 U.S.C. §§ 2, 2319 since those are the criminal statute used in the Mega Upload case.

    18 U.S.C. § 371—Conspiracy to Defraud the United States

    18 U.S. Code § 2319 - Criminal infringement of a copyright