EU court rules it's illegal to sell streaming boxes pre-configured for piracy

[Jos]

The European Court of Justice has ruled that selling streaming boxes pre-loaded with software specifically configured to facilitate access to pirated content is illegal. The case specifically involved Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN and local online store Filmspeler.nl, but is expected to have far-reaching repercussions across the EU for businesses selling piracy-enabled set top boxes.

Filmspeler is one of many services selling Android-based set-top boxes equipped with software like Kodi. While Kodi is a neutral open-source platform that isn’t ilegal by itself, many add-ons are publicly available from third parties to deliver pirated sports, TV and movie streams.

Filmspeler owner Jack Frederik Wullems had argued that it had no involvement in the development of such add-ons and that they were already publicly available. However, the court found that Wullems knowingly added infringing add-ons to Kodi devices, with hyperlinks to content published by known ‘pirate’ sites, and further advertised the players as ways to watch content without paying.

Furthermore it said that “it cannot be disputed that the multimedia player is supplied with a view to making a profit” by offering direct access to protected works without the consent of the copyright holders.

The Filmspeler case will now head back to the Dutch court where the lawsuit was originally filed for a definitive ruling. This is expected to set a precedent for other European courts and have an immediate effect on pending cases involving the sale of pirate boxes and illicit streaming.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/69101-eu-court-rules-illegal-sell-streaming-boxes-pre.html

 

[yRaz]

Well start selling content in a way that people want to consume it and I'm sure piracy would drop significantly. I don't like pirating content of shows or sports that I love, but I'm not going to pay $200 a month for cable to watch maybe 15-20 hours of TV a month. And that's during hockey season, after that it drops to less than 5 hours a month

 

[amstech]

Well start selling content in a way that people want to consume it and I'm sure piracy would drop significantly. I don't like pirating content of shows or sports that I love, but I'm not going to pay $200 a month for cable to watch maybe 15-20 hours of TV a month. And that's during hockey season, after that it drops to less than 5 hours a month

Some of the big companies are coming around a little bit, not much.
In my area (Upstate NY) TimeWarner got bought out by Charter, so now we can switch from TimeWarner Cable to Spectrum.
I did.
With TwC I was paying $80 for 20mbps down, no TV. (Most steam would download at is 2.5)
With Spectrum now I pay $70 for 60 mbps down, no TV. (Steam downloads at 7.0MB - 8.5MB now, or over 80mpbs).
It would be $98 total (another $28 monthly) to add in the smallest TV package, think its around 100 channels.

 

[Phr3d]

Well start selling content in a way that people want to consume it and I'm sure piracy would drop significantly. I don't like pirating content of shows or sports that I love, but I'm not going to pay $200 a month for cable to watch maybe 15-20 hours of TV a month. And that's during hockey season, after that it drops to less than 5 hours a month

Humbly offer that your price will Not improve - with the legion of cable-cutters that subsidized your bill now missing, there are fewer (And fewer) paying for any content, let alone premium/sports.

Dunno how it will shake out eventually, but definitely worse before it gets better. Personally take what I can get live-sports OTA (small city-4 channels), netflix provides more shows than we can watch at OUR convenience vs hours willing to veg and live games we care about (do wish they'd consider offering games of the week).

Cable TV is gone,gone,gone (RE $28 over cost of internet @ smallest package - my ability to avoid the painful commercials on the wretched-remainder channels of that tier make it anything but desirable, let alone tempting).