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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 15 2018, @09:12PM (3 children)
I've been feeling a similar sentiment for a while now.
I'm in the USA, and often I think to myself that if every single person who doesn't vote were to vote this year but instead vote either Libertarian or Green, we'd have a revolution on our hands.
Most people don't vote not because their precinct looks like one of those sob stories about 10 hour lines we hear every other November. Most people don't vote note because they can't fit it into their schedule or because they literally are scheduled to work somewhere the entire time the polls are open.
Most people don't vote for one very simple reason: the R and D teams are completely out of touch. Most people are simply fed up with both parties. Most non-voters I know gave up a long time ago when they realized that "3rd" parties could never "win." They've been trained their entire lives that the choices are D, R, or abstain. Now that there are enough disaffected voters that they could finally organize as a bloc and really shake things up, they don't. Caged animal's cage door is open now, and caged animal is too used to being in the cage.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Monday January 15 2018, @11:07PM (2 children)
The problem is that you need more than mass disaffection to make a change, you also need some organization, perhaps not in the hierarchical sense but certainly in the 'rally round the standard' sense, there has to be some sort of focal point to bring people together and motivate them to work together and compromise themselves. Virtually everyone can sense by now that the system is broken - but that does NOT mean there's anything like uniformity about how to fix it.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Tuesday January 16 2018, @10:05AM (1 child)
Another problem is that while people may agree that both R and D are not worth their vote, they cannot agree on what is worth their vote.
Some say "Vote Greens", others find them too distasteful. When the mainstream parties are abandoned, people usually go to extremes (left or right wing), which further divides their power.
If all who abstained would unite under one party/goal, then yes, they could be a political force to be reckoned with, but the fact they cannot agree on a direction prevents such unity, and by extension, much political power.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday January 16 2018, @11:24AM
Yes. Polarisation has been increasing steadily for years, and it's one of the key things that's kept e.g. the antiwar movement from being effective. When it was Clinton in office we were mostly libertarians/paleoconservatives and generally a little to the right. Under Bush suddenly the left rediscovers their distaste for war - but they don't want to join us. They organize rallies where we're not allowed to speak and spend 80% of the mic time ranting about period stains and 'social justice.' If you remember the old term 'big tent' it seems what they want is the smallest tent possible.
Now that Trump is in I was really hoping they would again remember that the left is supposed to be antiwar, but no such luck. The Democrats have completely abandoned that legacy and are now trying to make the Republicans look insufficiently hawkish in comparison instead.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?