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Netflix, Amazon and Hollywood Sue Kodi-Powered Dragon Box Over Piracy
Several major Hollywood studios, Amazon, and Netflix have filed a lawsuit against Dragon Media Inc, branding it a supplier of pirate streaming devices. The companies accuse Dragon of using the Kodi media player in combination with pirate addons to facilitate mass copyright infringement via its Dragon Box device. [...] In recent months these boxes have become the prime target for copyright enforcers, including the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), an anti-piracy partnership between Hollywood studios, Netflix, Amazon, and more than two dozen other companies.
After suing Tickbox last year a group of key ACE members have now filed a similar lawsuit against Dragon Media Inc, which sells the popular Dragon Box. The complaint, filed at a California federal court, also lists the company's owner Paul Christoforo and reseller Jeff Williams among the defendants.
According to ACE, these type of devices are nothing more than pirate tools, allowing buyers to stream copyright infringing content. That also applies to Dragon Box, they inform the court. "Defendants market and sell 'Dragon Box,' a computer hardware device that Defendants urge their customers to use as a tool for the mass infringement of the copyrighted motion pictures and television shows," the complaint, picked up by HWR, reads.
Also at Ars Technica.
Rights Holders Launch Landmark Case Against 'Pirate' Android Box Sellers
Rightsholders will tread new ground today when they attempt a private prosecution of 'pirate' Android box sellers in Singapore. In what many believe is a legal gray area, SingTel, Starhub, Fox Networks Group and Premier League will seek a win in order to suppress further sales in the region. [...] Today will see these rights holders attempt to launch a pioneering private prosecution against set-top box distributor Synnex Trading and its client and wholesale goods retailer, An-Nahl. It's reported that the rights holders have also named Synnex Trading director Jia Xiaofen and An-Nahl director Abdul Nagib as defendants in their private criminal case.
[...] The importance of the case cannot be understated. While StarHub and other broadcasters have successfully prosecuted cases where people unlawfully decrypted broadcast signals, the provision of unlicensed streams isn't specifically tackled by Singapore's legislation. It's now a major source of piracy in the region, as it is elsewhere around the globe.
Related: Middlesbrough Trader Prosecuted for Selling Streaming Boxes Preloaded With Kodi
Five Arrests in 'Fully Loaded' Kodi Streaming Box Raids
MPAA Chief Focuses Attention on the Kodi Platform
Kodi Panic in the UK and Popularity in North America
Kodi Add-on Library "TVAddons" Disappears After Lawsuit
Hollywood Strikes Back Against Illegal Streaming Kodi Add-Ons
Kodi Returns to its Roots With an Xbox One Release
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 15 2018, @04:25PM (5 children)
did you just now find out about the internet? noone is talking about not paying an artist for his/her/pronoun's work. what we are against is the digital slave trade whereby someone who thinks himself my master attempts to use technical means to take away my rights over what i buy. a musician can play a concert and get paid for it. an artist can be commissioned to make a piece of art. what these slavetrading music labels and other usurers want to do is use law to say once you buy something you can't share it, make a back up, etc. video companies could do paid live streams like concerts. they could get paid and then all the poor people could watch the copies later. that's not good enough for these scumbags though. they want to keep the rights locked away for ever and sit on their fat greasy asses selling copies for eternity. maybe they need to be set on fire and see how that grease pops and spits?
(Score: 2, Disagree) by bob_super on Monday January 15 2018, @06:51PM (4 children)
Cute tirade, but it's not the 50s anymore.
It now takes almost no investment to take one song/movie/stream and literally broadcast it to the whole world, within seconds of it being first made public.
If they don't keep stamping out the most obvious and egregious cases of instant free redistribution, how do you propose that the millions of people working in the entertainment industry will get paid?
(Score: 3, Touché) by Arik on Monday January 15 2018, @08:12PM
Most of them would have to (shock, horror) get a job I suspect.
Not the worst thing that could happen.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by vux984 on Monday January 15 2018, @08:32PM
" how do you propose that the millions of people working in the entertainment industry will get paid?"
Same way I do. They tell me what they want. I tell them how much it will cost. They pay me. I do it.
This is basically the kickstarter model. Or the Patreon model. Its also very common in software; and its how lots of in-house utilities, tools and websites are made. Payment up front. If the final result sucks, so be it, you got paid, and the customers will likely not pay as much or at all for your next project. If the final result is good, great, you can ask for more money for your next idea and probably get it.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday January 16 2018, @02:53AM
Arranging live performances for the artists?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by crafoo on Tuesday January 16 2018, @04:31AM
I'm pretty alright with them not getting paid, actually. There is no god-mandated reason for an entertainment industry to exist. Either they can exist in the reality of current technology or they cannot.
In the times of the Library of Alexandria the concept of restricting the copying and dissemination of knowledge and ideas was ludicrous. Demanding control of an idea, once it has left your head, is quite honestly the ramblings of a crazy person. Copyright probably should not exist. I'll compromise though and agree to the same terms as patents. More than reasonable.