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from the Don't-blame-$foo.-Blame-$foo-misuse. dept.
In an interview with Variety, the Motion Picture Association of America's CEO Chris Dodd spoke out about the growing popularity of Kodi open source media player:
While torrent sites have been a thorn in the side of the MPAA for more than a decade, there's a new kid on the block. Speaking at the Berlin Film Festival, MPAA chief Chris Dodd cited the growing use of the Kodi platform for piracy, describing the problem as the "$64,000 question."
[...] Legal battles over the misuse of the platform are ongoing, mainly in the UK and the Netherlands, where test cases have the ability to clarify the legal position, at least for sellers of so-called "fully loaded" devices. Interestingly, up until now, the MPAA has stayed almost completely quiet, despite a dramatic rise in the use of Kodi for illicit streaming. Yesterday, however, the silence was broken.
In an interview with Variety during the Berlin Film Festival, MPAA chief Chris Dodd described the Kodi-with-addons situation as "new-generation piracy". "The $64,000 question is what can be done about such illegal use of the Kodi platform," Dodd said.
While $64,000 is a tempting offer, responding to that particular question with a working solution will take much more than that. Indeed, one might argue that dealing with it in any meaningful way will be almost impossible.
First of all, Kodi is open source and has been since its inception in 2002. As a result, trying to target the software itself would be like stuffing toothpaste back in a tube. It's out there, it isn't coming back, and pissing off countless developers is extremely ill-advised. Secondly, the people behind Kodi have done absolutely nothing wrong. Their software is entirely legal and if their public statements are to be believed, they're as sick of piracy as the entertainment companies are. The third problem is how Kodi itself works. While to the uninitiated it looks like one platform, a fully-modded 'pirate' Kodi setup can contain many third-party addons, each capable of aggregating content from dozens or even hundreds of sites. Not even the mighty MPAA can shut them all down, and even if it could, more would reappear later. It's the ultimate game of whac-a-mole.
Previously: XBMC Is Getting a New Name: "Kodi"
Middlesbrough Trader Prosecuted for Selling Streaming Boxes Preloaded With Kodi
Five Arrests in 'Fully Loaded' Kodi Streaming Box Raids
[Ed Note: This is the same Chris Dodd who served 30 years as a US Senator from Connecticut. Probably best known for the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by migz on Friday February 17 2017, @08:05AM
Where can I get non-pirated content? I have netflix for commercial stuff.
But I would prefer to watch public domain stuff. You tube is full of junk, of questionable origin. There is some "free" stuff on YouTube - student films - fan films etc.
What we need is curated public domain TV. I would be happy to subscribe to a service that had a huge archive of black and white and otherwise public domain material. There is some stuff on archive.org but it's not friendly.
I see scope for a non-profit dedicated to human culture. It could even lobby to repeal the ridiculous copyright terms. And generate own content. LibreVox style to start with.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17 2017, @08:15AM
You described archive.org and then threw it out for whatever reason. It's a non-profit dedicated to human culture which has lobbied successfully for DMCA exemptions.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17 2017, @09:54AM
The archive.org plugins for Kodi have been broken for years. :,(
(Score: 1) by Pax on Friday February 17 2017, @07:28PM
you sure about that? it works just fine on mine....
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17 2017, @11:17PM
Pretty sure.
The official Internet Archive addon [kodi.wiki] available in the repositories has not been updated since 3 years ago [github.com], and it broke long ago when the Internet Archive changed the format.
And the MetalChris forks have version/repo/code sync problems also. :(
(Score: 4, Insightful) by migz on Friday February 17 2017, @10:13AM
Archive.org don't do new content. And I don't want DMCA exemptions, I want copyright abolition, but I would gladly take any reduction in copyright. But I want good legal content now, not arguments or discussions about how sucky copyright law is.
I just want to route around the problem.
(Score: 2) by RedGreen on Friday February 17 2017, @11:00AM
"But I want good legal content now, not arguments or discussions about how sucky copyright law is."
Good luck with that because of the never ending extensions to copyright every time Mickey comes up for entering the public domain nothing is ever going to enter the public domain again. Believe it is coming up again in few years here then the content mafia parasites will be out in force telling us how hard done by Disney is by only having had 100 years of protection so they need another 100 to fully recover their costs.
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
(Score: 2) by migz on Friday February 17 2017, @11:13AM
I don't need Mickey. I refuse to watch anything Disney btw. I have SOME morals (Between school and The Church I think I might have managed to stash some away somewhere). It's much harder to begrudge Marvel though.
I'll take whatever is already in or has been committed to the PD.
(Score: 2) by RedGreen on Friday February 17 2017, @11:33AM
"I'll take whatever is already in or has been committed to the PD."
Well that leaves you anything made before the 1920-40 range then I think it is, forget where the cut off line is at at the moment and too lazy to search for it. That is the state of copyright at this point and time since every one of the extensions is retroactive nothing as I said is EVER going to enter the public domain again unless the author pro-actively gives up their rights for it to happen.
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday February 17 2017, @06:27PM
Not really. if you're in the US copyright doesn't cover any foreign film published before sometime around (or after) 1970. Probably other countries have some similar status, only favoring THEIR local film studios.
P.S.: Remember why Hollywood is in California? It was so that they couldn't be pestered over legalities like patents by people in New York. (Were copyrights involved? I can't quite remember.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17 2017, @01:19PM
Oh, just Let It Go
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17 2017, @01:46PM
You missed the main point. Whenever Micky Mouse nears the end of it's copyright protections Disney successfully lobbies to get copyright extended for ALL works, sometimes even grabbing up material that was previously in public domain. It's extra absurd when you realize Disney ripped off the majority of their characters and content from other works. Micky Mouse is a near direct copy of Steam Boat Willy, all the fairy tales are far older, etc... but Disney managed to make them their own. Go try to make a Steam Boat Willy cartoon (which is in public domain) and Disney will murder you in the court room because it's too similar to Micky Mouse.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday February 17 2017, @04:12PM
Steamboat Willie is a 1928 American animated short film directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. It was produced in black-and-white by Walt Disney Studios and was released by Celebrity Productions.
It's extra absurd when you realize Disney ripped off the majority of their characters and content from other works. Micky Mouse is a near direct copy of Steam Boat Willy, all the fairy tales are far older, etc... but Disney managed to make them their own.
Er...can you rip off yourself? I don't like what WD is doing to copyright either, but come on.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Tuesday February 21 2017, @04:53AM
Call it 4Chan Willie and Disney won't go near it.
1702845791×2
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17 2017, @02:04PM
I don't get why they even need this. Can't they just trademark Mickey?
It's not like they need to worry about the sales of old black'n'white cartoons - I haven't seen any for sale.
Could it be that the real worry is the "retroactively censored" racist cartoons?
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Friday February 17 2017, @02:56PM
Mickey Mouse is trademarked. But under the ruling in Dastar v. Fox [wikipedia.org], trademarks and other exclusive rights under the Lanham Act cannot be used to extend the effective term of U.S. copyright in a particular work. This means that in 2024, when copyright in the original trilogy of Mickey Mouse short films (Plane Crazy, The Gallopin' Gaucho, and Steamboat Willie) is set to expire, Disney will have no grounds to block creation, distribution, and exhibition of derivative works of said trilogy so long as their authors do nothing to imply their endorsement by Disney.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Pino P on Friday February 17 2017, @02:50PM
never ending extensions to copyright every time Mickey comes up for entering the public domain
That was a fluke caused by the coincidence of three things: work in the 1970s toward aligning U.S. copyright statutes with the Berne Convention, a 1990s recognition of twentieth century health care advances, and when the copyright in works first published in the late 1920s would have expired under the 1909 Act.
The original rationale for the copyright term under Berne was that copyright ought to extend for the life of those heirs who knew the author personally, as they'd be most qualified to carry out the author's will. This is called "life of grandchildren" or the "three-generation principle". It was set at 50 years after the death of the author because of life expectancies a century ago, and the Copyright Act of 1976 implemented the same term in the United States as a step toward that country's joining Berne in the late 1980s. But over the twentieth century, the life expectancy of the author's grandchildren increased dramatically, and copyright no longer covered the life of grandchildren. So the European Union extended the copyright term by 20 years in 1993, and the U.S. followed suit in 1998 because it too saw an increase in life expectancy. (Source [copyrightalliance.org])
When the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the 1998 extension in Eldred v. Ashcroft (2003), it accepted the excuse of harmonization to Europe, but the opinion of the Court was careful to distinguish harmonization to Europe's life expectancy adjustment from "legislative misbehavior" intended to circumvent the Constitution's "limited Times" restriction. Yet in the following years, analysts with only part of the story characterized the record as such "misbehavior", calling it "perpetual copyright on the installment plan" and fearing a third successive extension before 2024, when U.S. copyright in early Mickey shorts and Pooh books is set to expire under current law. But as far as I'm aware, they haven't explained what arguments will be used to distinguish such a third extension from "legislative misbehavior."
If you want to attack the life of grandchildren term, attack it directly.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday February 17 2017, @06:31PM
The legal arguments are the legal arguments, and not necessarily (or even usually) the underlying reason. Blaming Disney is totally appropriate. It's POSSIBLE (hah!) he wasn't behind the original extension, but he certainly lobbied hard in favor of later extensions. Sometimes directly and sometimes through the MPAA.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17 2017, @09:37AM
There is tons of public domain video material on archive.org, including old movies that are in the public domain.
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Friday February 17 2017, @12:43PM
Not sure how it is in the US. In Germany, there are several great, free tv-shows available as podcast. Until recently the pages worked well with podget, last November that unfortunately stopped. But manual download is still no problem. The genres are mainly
- political satire ("Die Anstalt", "Neo Magazin Royal", ...)
- education ("Wissen macht Ah", ...)
Youtube is also not generally bad, just subscribe to high-quality channels:
Jonathan Pie [youtube.com]
Chaos Computer Club [youtube.com] (German club, but most videos available in English)
For entertainment:
SMBC Theater [youtube.com]
Cyanide and Happiness [youtube.com]
There are plenty more, those channels are IMO good examples.
And iirc, it was decided that ripping your own DVDs is now also considered fair use in the US? So you could will the box with films from existing DVDs, for convenience and in case they get scratched.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Friday February 17 2017, @07:49PM
I don't have Kodi right now but on my Roku I watch PBS almost exclusively. I did have to specify my zip code to say which PBS station specifically I subscribe to.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday February 17 2017, @07:50PM
It depends on what you're looking for.
I find all kinds of fascinating things on YouTube on my 60 inch screen in my living room.
All sorts of Clojure conference videos.
I can be entertained and inspired by looking at videos of what others do with Arduino and Raspberry Pi.
There is a set of interesting videos that are an introduction to higher math. Starting with groups, rings, etc. Easy to understand. Look for: bill shillito
There are interesting MIT artificial intelligence lectures on YouTube. Just search for: mit 6.034
Want to understand FFT - YouTube.
Etc.
If you like Netflix then you might find that Starz and HBO streaming are a nice supplement. A Roku box or stick can get all of those. If you watch movies, or tv series, then you might find those appealing at a reasonable subscription price. Basically the total cost is less than many cable packages, with greatly superior content. Even Hulu without ads has interesting things.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.