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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! Whether it's simply not making it available at all, or by forcing me to subscribe to 12 streaming services to get access to the content they are forcing the population back to piracy.
I realize that while there are some major douches out there who would pirate a movie if it cost only a dime, there are many of us who would happily pay if you stopped screwing us over.
Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
Since they aren't hosting any of the infringing content, isn't this still legal in Canada? ie. You can download but not upload content. That's what the blank CD/DVD media tax was supposed to address. Note: I'm not a lawyer, this isn't legal advice.
First impressions: ...). Seriously?
There is a typo on the homepage. (Turn you TV into a content filled home theatre system enjoying thousands of
It won't tell me how much the thing costs until I enter my email address, which makes me suspicious. Also I need to act fast, as the 40% discount won't last long, which just sounds like one of those late night shopping channel hucksters.
Apart from that, it looks like any one of hundreds of cheap Chinese Kodi boxes I can buy from Aliexpress or Banggood.
I actually built myself something similar for about $60 using an old Atom powered Acer box I bought second hand. It runs LibreElec and works pretty well.
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"
The old I'm morally justified in pirating, because I don't like the price-point.
Nice.