Studios Sue Dragon Box in Latest Crackdown on Streaming Devices (variety.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: Netflix and Amazon joined with the major studios on Wednesday in a lawsuit against Dragon Box, as the studios continue their crackdown on streaming devices. The suit accuses Dragon Box of facilitating piracy by making it easy for customers to access illegal streams of movies and TV shows. Some of the films available are still in theaters, including Disney's "Coco," the suit alleges. Dragon Box has advertised the product as a means to avoid paying for authorized subscription services, the complaint alleges, quoting marketing material that encourages users to "Get rid of your premium channels ... [and] Stop paying for Netflix and Hulu." The same studios filed a similar complaint in October against TickBox, another device that enables users to watch streaming content. Both TickBox and Dragon Box make use of Kodi add-ons, a third-party software application.

Comments

Don't let Sony off the hook

[Anonymous Coward]

For making it easy to pirate music by making CDs!

Re:Don't let Sony off the hook

[sirber]

cds with rootkits

Re:Don't let Sony off the hook

[technosaurus]

Pigeons can transfer terabytes of information short distances way faster than any network so far. Don't let pigeon handlers off the hook either. The ISP, telecom, hardware manufacturer, software developers, electricity providers, content producers and government officials also "facilitated". The only entity that _should_ be prosecuted is the one knowingly serving the data.

Re:Don't let Sony off the hook

[easyTree]

I'd pay to download movies using pigeons as a transmission medium; if the price is right.

Re:Don't let Sony off the hook

[Anonymous Coward]

If a laptop manufacturer said: "you can use this for piracy if you want", is it time to start the lawsuits?

Re:As someone who appreciates and pays for content

[i_ate_god]

Kodi can be installed on Windows so by your logic Windows facilitates piracy.

Re: As someone who appreciates and pays for conten

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool story bro. As someone who doesn't give a shit who you are or whether you pay for content. The FBI needs to shut you down.

Re:As someone who appreciates and pays for content

[JaredOfEuropa]

It's not Kodi but the plugins to access these streams that facilitate piracy. Kodi has legitimate use, it's what I use to get (legal) TV, movies and music around the house.

Re: Entitled...

[Anonymous Coward]

I love you how you feel entitled to live. You should be shut down.

Wrong people to sue

[Anonymous Coward]

They should be going after the people making the content available illegally - not the device makers who then allow those streams to be watched. Someone is hosting that stuff and paying for storage and bandwidth costs. Sure, it is a hydra - chop off one head and several more pop up. But that is where the real culpability lies. They never seem to go after it though. I guess it is easier to sic lawyers on a company with an actual address and actual products.

As someone who is trying to wipe out DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

People who pay for DRMed video content should be shut down. Your actions are making the world a worse place. Stop funding evil. Stop paying them. Please learn to pirate, so that your video habits will stop being used to legitimize the ridiculous idea that software shouldn't be end-user maintainable.

Re:As someone who is trying to wipe out DRM

[RobotRunAmok]

>>Please learn to pirate, so that your video habits will stop being used to legitimize the ridiculous idea that software shouldn't be end-user maintainable.

So a studio who paid $100M to create a movie should gift it to you in order that you are able to... do what with it exactly? Copy it onto a second device? A third? Your boyfriend's? Your D&D Club's server? The internet? Help me out with this one... Seems as though if every movie was distributed for free, the creators would lack motivation to give us nice things. What am I missing, I'm not getting the "ridiculous idea" part at all...

Re:As someone who is trying to wipe out DRM

[hackwrench]

Also important is the idea of derivative works, hampered by DRM.

Re:As someone who is trying to wipe out DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

So a studio who paid $100M to create a movie should gift it to you in order that you are able to... do what with it exactly? Copy it onto a second device?

They should sell it to me so that I can play it on the first device. I have an excellent computer that makes most home entertainment electronics looks like something out of the stone ages, and with non-DRMed files its quality and performance are unparalleled. It's a no-brainer way to watch TV. But it lacks the capacity to play anything DRMed because, like any person who has a modicum of common sense, I require that all software that I run on my computer, be accountable to me, must be maintainable and auditable, etc. So obviously, DRM can't/won't be done.

We know that it's possible to produce files that work, though, because pirates do it. Their products work perfectly.

But if the studio is unable or unwilling to do this simple, easy thing, then yes: they might as well gift it instead of selling it, because if it doesn't work with my equipment then I'm not paying anything. It doesn't matter how much they spent to make the movie; if they won't sell working files, then they aren't selling working files.

I don't get why some people get so uppity about consumers demanding stuff that works. We wave money in their faces, and they have the option of taking it or refusing it. For whatever reason, they refuse the money.

In any other industry, you would be laughing at the vendor, but for some reason, you make a glaring exception for this one special case, where you do everything backwards from the other 100% of your life, and you blame the consumer. If Black & Decker made defective power drills and people decided to stop buying their stuff and go with someone else's, you would be the first to shrug and say "well, duh!" It wouldn't even occur to you to cite how much they spent to develop a defective power drill. And once you found out that they spent extra money to break what otherwise would have been a working drill, you wouldn't ever take a Black & Decker spokesman seriously again. You'd say they're trying not to sell drills. You might even wonder if they're a mafia money-laundering tax-dodge front or something.

Quit trying to cast Hollywood as serious/legitimate businesspeople. And don't treat 'em that way, and don'y buy power drills that you already know are defective.

Re:As someone who is trying to wipe out DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

pirating is the EXACT FUCKING BEHAVIOUR that encourages DRM. If you want to fight against DRM then don't buy and certainly don't pirate, simply refuse to consume content from those that distribute in methods you disagree with.

Re:As someone who is trying to wipe out DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, this is why nobody has ever created any content on YouTube and has no financial incentive to do so.

Re:As someone who is trying to wipe out DRM

[RobotRunAmok]

You are suggesting that Disney should release Avengers Infinity War and The Last Jedi on YouTube? Or are you suggesting that no movie be made that cannot recoup its costs via YouTube distribution?

Re:As someone who is trying to wipe out DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

So a studio that was given the copyright and the ability to make money by publishing their movie, should give nothing in return. There is nothing wrong with stripping DRM and preserving copies of unprotected movies to ensure they enter the public domain.

Re: As someone who is trying to wipe out DRM

[RobotRunAmok]

All companies should âoegive back.â Every person should âoegive back.â I âoegive back.â Do you? Do you NOT think that Disney gives back? I would wager Disney gives back more than most companies. Who TF are YOU to dictate exactly *how* they give back?

Thanks for the pointer

[OneHundredAndTen]

I had never heard of Dragon Box. Thanks for the pointer, major studios. And please become familiar with the Streisand Effect.

Re:Thanks for the pointer

[Anonymous Coward]

Where can I buy one??

Re:Thanks for the pointer

[davidwr]

Where can I buy one??

Where can I download the designs so I can build one from raw materials if I am so inclined?

Raw materials meaning oil, rock/surface minerals, etc, not pre-existing chips or ready-to-use silicon wafers.

Re:Thanks for the pointer

[Translation Error]

It doesn't matter if you've heard of them if they've been shut down through legal action.

Re:Thanks for the pointer

[reboot246]

If you want to build it from scratch, you must first invent the universe.

Tip of the hat to Carl Sagan . . .

Re:Thanks for the pointer

[davidwr]

If you want to build it from scratch, you must first invent the universe.

Well, I'll settle for building it with tools available in A.D. 2018 (factories, mining equipment, etc.) and "parts" available in 2018 B.C. (natural resources).

Why would you sue an Algebra app?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I didn't mistake one for the other. I'm just trollin'.

Dragon Box is a sham

[bluelip]

How can anyone take them seriously with statements such as "any units bought from eBay or Amazon from an unauthorized dealer will results in your IP and Mac Address blocked from our Server" on their website? Neither of those are hard to modify.

Re:Dragon Box is a sham

[Anonymous Coward]

No kidding. I have my Mac and ip address to reset everytime I login...

Re: Dragon Box is a sham

[Anonymous Coward]

The funny part is they're all about piracy until the tables are turned.

Re: As someone who appreciates and pays for conten

[Anonymous Coward]

And as someone who isn't an idiot, shutting down Kodi for piracy would be like shutting down Sony for making DVD players that can play DVD-Rs if you solder new parts in.

Re:As someone who appreciates and pays for content

[Anonymous Coward]

Most distros of Linux ship with Transmission, which facilitates piracy via torrent. Obviously Linux gives OSS a bad name and should be outlawed.

I am confused

[nashv]

Does DragonBox magically allow you to access Netflix and Hulu without paying for them ? Or is it simply the equivalent of a torrent client. This is the most stupid nonsense I've seen. And I am sad to see Netflix go the route of major channels and studios.

Re:I am confused

[will_die]

Netflix and hulu have original content so they are suing that that content was pirated.
DragonBox is basiclly a kodibox with all the piracy add-on included and the main dragonbox web site acting as an index.

Screw Big Content

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm paying a $65 per month for Internet without TV service. I usually watch 3-4 shows per television season, and once in a while a movie. All via bit torrent. Let Cox cable take $15 from my monthly bill and pay it to an organization like ASCAP or BMI to pay artists. That $65 is all they are getting from me.

Re:Entitled...

[fluffernutter]

Sounds kind of like companies who can't afford to pay taxes and so feel entitled to a 0.001% tax rate. Don't even get me started on Spotify or YouTube; which are successful companies due largely in part to helping themselves to pirated content. If companies aren't going to show respect for anyone, why should an individual?

Re:As someone who appreciates and pays for content

[nospam007]

"Kodi can be installed on Windows"

Thanks for the tip, I'm off to do it right now.

I guess those assholes shouldn't have sued and made people attentive.

Dragon Box web site is hilarious...

[Kenja]

It has a warning about buying a third party "dragon box" which would be using their proprietary Android implementation. So they don't want people pirating their stuff that they sell to people to pirate other peoples stuff.

pigeons

[davidwr]

Pigeons can transfer terabytes of information short distances way faster than any network so far

Other animals, bazookas, and even potato-guns are probably faster.

What is the TB-meter-per-second and maximum effective distance of a trebuchet-launched container filled with high-density SSD devices?

boycott, don't pirate

[davidwr]

Please learn to pirate, so that your video habits will stop being used to legitimize the ridiculous idea that software shouldn't be end-user maintainable.

If you can live without it, vote with your wallet and do without.

With few exceptions such as people who review movies for a living, people do not need to watch any specific movie that comes out of Hollywood.

Re:boycott, don't pirate

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can live without it, vote with your wallet and do without.

That's an option. But you should compare the merits and flaws of that option, with the idea of "vote with your wallet and also pirate it."

Pirating it comes with more advantages and fewer disadvantages. Doesn't it seem like a pretty obvious improvement on your proposal?

With few exceptions such as people who review movies for a living, people do not need to watch any specific movie that comes out of Hollywood.

Of course. This entire discussion is within the context of entertainment. Concepts such as "need", "entitle" etc are completely irrelevant when you look at the big picture. But it makes sense to say things like "if you want my money, you need to sell a file that actually works" or "I need something that works with standard equipment." It's understood that the word "need" is within the relatively unimportant situation where someone is trying to make money on movies.

It's the same as any other industry. You don't need to have a car. But if you have a car, the manufacturer needs to make sure it can be refueled, the brakes work, etc. If they want to sell it to you, that is. (If they're leaving it abandoned at the side of the road for anyone to take for free, then you can probably argue the bar is lower.) Would you buy a car that doesn't wor-- oh, sorry about your Dodge story.

Re:boycott, don't pirate

[gravewax]

pirating has a fuck load of disadvantages, it fails to punish the studio, shows them people want their stuff and all they have to do is put stricter and tighter controls and DRM on it. vote with your wallet, you are only kidding yourself if you think pirating is helping your cause, it is the worst possible thing to do if you want them to back off on the draconian restrictions.

Get rid of your premium channels ...

[PPH]

Stop paying for Netflix and Hulu.

They are going to sue book publishers?

Right...

[Locke2005]

... and we should also go after lock pick manufacturers for burglaries, gun manufacturers for gun deaths, and car manufacturers for accidents, because if they didn't make these things, it wouldn't facilitate unlawful behavior. How about they go after the web sites actually sourcing the video?

Re:Right...

[Rockoon]

The site that get scraped for the pirated content arent exactly hiding either. These sites have full web front ends and only a browser is needed to view the content. The kodi pirate scripts are literally just scraping these sites.

But even the sites that are being scraped arent hosting the videos.

Re:Right...

[jonwil]

The difference is that the Dragon Box product is specifically designed and marketed for the purpose of downloading illegally copied content.

Companies who make products that are specifically marketed to users as a way to commit illegal acts SHOULD be hit with lawsuits and action to shut down their products.

Re:Right...

[gravewax]

any lockpick or gun manufacturer that advertises and markets their product specifically for use in criminal activities will most definitely be shut down. not sure why the fuck you would compare accidents, it would be more any car manufacturer that advertises a feature to evade police cars so you can drive home drunk or avoid being caught after commiting a robbery and likewise they would be in deep shit real fast.

Signs

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it's, ya know, a sign that people are generally fed up with needlessly exclusive content?

Maybe studios should begin suing TV manufacturers

[SilverBlade2k]

With more and more TV's coming out with the Android TV OS, which you can easily install Kodi and the addons onto it, shouldn't they also be a target for the studios?

I read this as

[easyTree]

Studios use their considerable influence to inform everyone that DragonBox are a thing.

Thanks very much for the heads-up.

Million-card monte

[UnixUnix]

I just picked a couple of movies and TV shows one would have to pay for and put them in Google and other search engines. Leaving torrents aside, out came reams and reams of websites (some have "...locker" in their URL, others don't). Each of them does not actually store the material in question, they just provide dozens of other sites, some .com, others .io, .me or other TLDs. Clicking on, and after the occasional Captcha or stray ad that escaped my blockers, I eventually get to streaming, again under totally different and obviously auto-generated URLs.

So I ask you, what can the poor righteous Plaintiffs do, play whack-a-mole or win in million-card monte trying to come up with the dastardly crooks who store and stream House of Cards or whatever? Being practical (?) people they go after the easy targets e.g. Dragon Box (which I had never heard of before... hey, do you suppose its sales will go down now, or up?) -- which rather clearly does not actually store any pirated material.

Disclaimer: I did not actually watch anything, far be it from me to sully my purity by feasting my eyes on INFRINGING MATERIAL, the horror the horror.

Re:As someone who appreciates and pays for content

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not Kodi it is the add-in's developed by others. Kodi is just a platform.

Virtually

[Anonymous Coward]

Retarded.