Roku sales banned in Mexico over widespread use of pirate channels

[Jos]

Roku is one of the few streaming boxes that allows users to add custom channels outside the Roku Channel Store. Unsurprisingly, this has led to a huge market for third-party pirate channels, offering access to premium content from a number of networks for a small fee.

Deals are often made through WhatsApp messaging, where people are given an account to make their payment and they receive an URL for the custom channel along with an activation code in return. Pirate channels offer access to live TV programming as well as on demand content from premium networks like HBO and even pay per view sporting events.

Apparently this has become such a problem in Mexico that a court has now ordered local retailers to stop importing and selling Roku media players.

The lawsuit was brought forward by Cablevision, the cable TV operator owned by Mexican media giant Televisa. Cablevision first obtained a court order temporarily blocking the sale of the device last month. Roku won a suspension last week and that suspension has now been overturned.

Cablevision recognizes that it isn’t Roku themselves aren’t facilitating pirated content, but because of how their software works, they are enabling it — as opposed to more locked down options like the Apple TV. “Cablevision cannot allow the content that it licenses from domestic and foreign companies to be illegally used,” a spokeswoman told Reuters. “We would also like Roku Inc to better supervise the use of its software so that it’s not used inappropriately.”

Roku for its part says that it’s not enabling the channels distributing pirated content on its platforms, and is taking them down when found or reported. The company intends to fight the ruling.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/69965-roku-sales-banned-mexico-over-widespread-use-pirate.html

 

[Adhmuz]

Here's an idea for you Mexico, how about going after actual criminals and trying to make a real difference in the lives of your people. I'd honestly think Mexico has far bigger problems then trying to keep people from watching content peacefully in their homes.

 

[sac39507]

When I think of Mexico, I just think of drug cartels and poverty. What is the percentage of the population that could afford a Roku and its services? Ok ok..so I guess this is why pirating is an issue.

 

[EClyde]

Mexico....Centuries of failure at civilization

 

[captaincranky]

Here's an idea for you Mexico, how about going after actual criminals and trying to make a real difference in the lives of your people. I'd honestly think Mexico has far bigger problems then trying to keep people from watching content peacefully in their homes.

The answer to this question, is the same as the current US government's stance on opioid addiction These are big issues in PA an NJ at present. And the only conclusion which can be drawn is this, authorities have been a complete and utter failure at removing heroin and its dealers from the streets. So they backpedal, and blame doctors for writing too many prescriptions for oxy. Doctors are generally a harmless bunch, certainly not as armed and dangerous as the average street dealer. Gov. Christie is a particularly useless, corrupt and duplicitous piece of political defecate, so hence he's leading the charge in NJ, in what one can only assume is a diversionary tactic.

So Mexico, (if we are to believe the headlines), has an even worse issue with drugs and police corruption than the US. Hence, attacking Roko, is a safe and easy path for their deceitful, diversionary, lazy and self serving miserable excuse for police work.

I'm often struck by the hate for the US, which members from other countries display, in large measure, by "the way the US was formed".

Guess what? South America was conquered almost exclusively by the Spanish, accompanied by wholesale slaughter of the native populations, beginning with tens of thousands of Aztecs in Mexico itself.

The prog rock band, Procol Harum paid "tribute" to these Spanish "conquistadors", with this song way back in 1972: