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Netflix, Amazon, and Hollywood studios shut down maker of "free TV" box
The entertainment industry has scored a big victory over the maker of a "free TV" box that helped users watch pirated video.
Dragon Media Inc., whose "Dragon Box" device connects to TVs and lets users watch video without a cable TV or streaming service subscription, has agreed to shut down the Dragon Box services and pay $14.5 million in damages to plaintiffs from the entertainment industry.
Dragon Media was sued in January 2018 by Netflix, Amazon, Columbia Pictures, Disney, Paramount Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal, and Warner Bros. Dragon Media's lawyer initially predicted that the lawsuit would backfire on the entertainment industry, but the Dragon Box maker must have decided it had little chance of winning at trial.Netflix, Amazon, and major studios sue maker of "free TV" box"Free TV" box lawyer says video industry is "digging its own grave"
The plaintiffs and defendant filed a proposed settlement Monday at US District Court for the Central District of California.
The settlement requires Dragon Media to "cease all operation of the Dragon Box system" and related services within five days. Under the settlement, "[j]udgment shall be entered against Defendants and in favor of Plaintiffs on Plaintiffs' claims of copyright infringement, and damages shall be awarded to Plaintiffs in the amount of US $14,500,000," the document says.
Dragon Media, Dragon Media owner Paul Christoforo, and reseller Jeff Williams "[s]hall be further enjoined from operating any website, system, software, or service that is substantially similar to the Dragon Box service," the settlement says.
The settlement also prohibits the defendants from making its source code or other technology available to others.
[...] Dragon Media temporarily stopped sales after the lawsuit was filed last year but "later decided to change its business model, moving from a Kodi-addon platform subscription-based services," TorrentFreak wrote today. "First, it moved to 'BlendTV' and a few months later to 'My TV Hub.'"
However, the settlement requires Dragon Media to shut down both BlendTV and My TV Hub at the same time that it shuts down the Dragon Box service. The settlement defines the Dragon Box Service as "the hardware devices preloaded with copyright infringing software, addons, programs, applications, and all related services that Defendant marketed, promoted, sold, and supported." The settlement defines BlendTV as "the copyright-infringing software, programs, applications, and services that transmit or otherwise communicate television programs and motion pictures over the Internet that Defendant marketed, promoted, sold, and supported."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday February 04 2019, @03:59PM
1) Lawyers say shit to the media all the time that is not remotely true and this is legal. A smart lawyer does not mislead their clients as to what the law is or of expense and odds at trial.
2) Company makes promises that everyone knowledgeable knows are not possible to fulfill other than breaking civil law, company should not be surprised at being sued out of existence. (Advertise you're an assassin, don't be surprised to be stung.)
3) Saying "sorry our bad" usually doesn't remedy damages - someone may want payment.
4) Company acts in a manner of its fundamental business not being legal, company will have an extremely hard if not impossible time convincing others that it is now reformed. (Company started legal in the first place may not have been successful and crashed, too, though.) Maybe somebody will want the Dragon Box name someday, akin to Napster.
5) People believe a company making promises that are not possible to fulfill other than breaking the law should not be surprised when platform drops dead. Such people need to develop common sense.
6) If you're not already a streaming player with a well defined business model, do not be surprised that the big boys have already made it impossible for you to get meaningful revenue on an enterprise level, especially when you have most of an industry suing you.
7) Copyright law still exists. It still sucks. It is still the law.
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