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Netflix, Amazon, Movie Studios Sue Over TickBox Streaming Device (arstechnica.com)
Movies studios, Netflix, and Amazon have teamed up to file a lawsuit against a streaming media player called TickBox TV. The device in question runs Kodi on top of Android 6.0, and searches the internet for streams that it can make available to users without actually hosting any of the content itself. An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The complaint (PDF), filed Friday, says the TickBox devices are nothing more than "tool[s] for mass infringement," which operate by grabbing pirated video streams from the Internet. The lawsuit was filed by Amazon and Netflix Studios, along with six big movie studios that make up the Motion Picture Association of America: Universal, Columbia, Disney, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, and Warner Bros.
"What TickBox actually sells is nothing less than illegal access to Plaintiffs' copyrighted content," write the plaintiffs' lawyers. "TickBox TV uses software to link TickBox's customers to infringing content on the Internet. When those customers use TickBox TV as Defendant intends and instructs, they have nearly instantaneous access to multiple sources that stream Plaintiffs' Copyrighted Works without authorization." The device's marketing materials let users know the box is meant to replace paid-for content, with "a wink and a nod," by predicting that prospective customers who currently pay for Amazon Video, Netflix, or Hulu will find that "you no longer need those subscriptions." The lawsuit shows that Amazon and Netflix, two Internet companies that are relatively new to the entertainment business, are more than willing to join together with movie studios to go after businesses that grab their content.
"What TickBox actually sells is nothing less than illegal access to Plaintiffs' copyrighted content," write the plaintiffs' lawyers. "TickBox TV uses software to link TickBox's customers to infringing content on the Internet. When those customers use TickBox TV as Defendant intends and instructs, they have nearly instantaneous access to multiple sources that stream Plaintiffs' Copyrighted Works without authorization." The device's marketing materials let users know the box is meant to replace paid-for content, with "a wink and a nod," by predicting that prospective customers who currently pay for Amazon Video, Netflix, or Hulu will find that "you no longer need those subscriptions." The lawsuit shows that Amazon and Netflix, two Internet companies that are relatively new to the entertainment business, are more than willing to join together with movie studios to go after businesses that grab their content.
I'd never heard of tickbox before, now the lawsuit is being reported in the media and drawing attention i expect their sales to go up.
Eventually they will lose the case and go under, but not before the owners have run off with a decent profit.
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Quit artificially limiting my access to media!
So true. By god, you are owed that media. It's your right as an American. Give me my content or, or give me death! I think that's how it went right?
Copyright should include an availability clause. Artificial scarcity in a digital word has got to be one of the most anti-consumer things I can imagine. I'd love to lock Disney's board's children in the fucking vault. If it's not available, it should not protected. Media's value should also not be exempt from going down with the cost of reproduction. Infinite copies with such little overhead should mean drastic reductions in cost (75% seems like a good place to start, not to mention recompense for consumer rights lost like resale or lending), like nearly every other industry.
Besides that, they've had 15 years to get their shit together and release globally, yet they continue their bullshit regioning, milking it to the last drop. What do they expect? I mean, if it is a global economy and all, shouldn't consumers be able to find the cheapest media like corporations find the cheapest labor?
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So true. By god, you are owed that media. It's your right as an American. Give me my content or, or give me death! I think that's how it went right?
I know you're trying to be funny/sarcastic, but you're actually correct.
Society in general benefits from access to media (books, stories, museums, etc).
Studies have shown that being exposed to more media (and therefore more characters and differing viewpoints) increases empathy and creates a society where people can get along easier and are more willing to help each other.
The point of copyright laws was to encourage people to create media for the public domain.
In exchange for that public service, they were granted a LIMITED monopoly so the creator could get a benefit.
Two hundred years ago, a 14 year copyright term seemed like enough time to distribute something using horses and boats.
In this day and age you can instantly distribute worldwide with the push of a button but the current copyright length has increased to effectively infinity.
The current copyright situation is an example of the rich few bribing politicians to rob from everyone. We are all harmed by this in hard to tell ways so that a relatively few people can become insanely wealthy.
Do you know why copyrights and patents were put in place? To allow people to make a profit before the majors simply copied their ideas.
You DO own your ideas. At least for a period of time.
Do you understand WHY they made it so you could profit from your ideas for a limited time? To promote the progress of science and the useful arts by the release of those works into the public domain. If the end goal wasn't for the works to become public domain they wouldn't have specified that the exclusive right is for a limited time.
So yes, those works are owed to the general public after a limited time. Copyright has been extended so far that for practical purposes it never becomes public domain. It is unconstitutional, it is the wholesale theft of the public domain.
Of course there will still be new movies! There _are_ other business models upon which movie makers can profit. This clinging to copyright is sheer greed, brought to us all by the same people responsible for the theft known as "Hollywood Accounting". They've fought nearly every technological advance, and lost, and the world is a better place for it. They tried to kill the player piano, AM radio, the cassette tape, and the VCR, among others. Now, 25 years into this revolution, they're still trying to figure out how to lock down or shut down the Internet, turn the clock back to the 1980s, but only for us, not for themselves. They happily use the fruits of technology to reduce their costs, while hypocritically still trying to charge us prices based on the wishful thinking that there haven't been any advances.
Take a moment to appreciate just how much copyright costs us all. We should have digital public libraries by now, which never run out of copies, can actually stay current instead of never having anything newer than 3 years old, are totally searchable, and which do not require lots of travel to utilize. Surf to the Library of Congress website, and download anything they have, any time, and don't worry about returning it. No more late fines. The content in an entire wall of books can fit on one hard drive. All that is huge, huge savings and far better and more usability, but thanks to copyright, we can't have it.
Instead, research we financed is locked behind the paywalls of dozens of academic publishers. Those scumbags charge $30 for a 10 page article, and pass along precisely zero of that to the researchers who actually produced the content they've locked away.
Keep copyright the way it is? Maybe even strengthen it? Might as well ask that we stick with horses and never upgrade to the automobile.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Yes, pretty much. Copyright is a government-enacted, granted, and termed restriction of people's rights to ideas.
Yes, pretty much like rape laws are government-enacted restrictions on people's rights to have sex with whoever they want, whenever they want. Good job, you just described every law on the book.
One of the subjective measure of the feasibility is precisely how willing people are to abide by it.
If you don't pay for your content, you're a leach. You are leaching off of everyone else that's paying for it. If other people didn't pay for it, then it wouldn't exist, and you wouldn't be able to leach it in the first place.
A great way to decide if an action is moral, or good for society. Imagine what it'd be like if everyone did what you are doing. I'd have to assume the OP likes the content and wants it to exist if he's taking the time to steal it.
Who knows.
I do. Common sense.
If movies couldn't be made without copyright, fine. I guess movies wouldn't be business model. There is no inherent right for government or society to protect a business model. When it *is* done, it's entirely up for debate how and why it's done. The default state is no idea ownership.
If you don't think or care that content exists, then why are you even participating in this thread? You don't have a dog in this fight.