Apparently, even after the case was brough to court, he continued to sell the boxes but they were "clean" and he just advised people to install the various infringing addons themselves, which is going to go down really well with the judge.
With that kind of attitude, I certainly hope he gets a fairly hefty punishment.
I'd imagine he's fully aware of where the line is.
I don't know where the line is myself.
Content streaming is still legal under European law as far as I'm aware.
A plugin does nothing if the user doesn't use it.
So whilst I expect a judge to find in favour of the local council ( assuming they have any idea of what they're actually talking about) I am definitely curious to see this outcome.
As I edited above ... I wonder why FACT haven't wanted to touch this?
I don't know where the line is myself.
Content streaming is still legal under European law as far as I'm aware.
A plugin does nothing if the user doesn't use it.
So whilst I expect a judge to find in favour of the local council ( assuming they have any idea of what they're actually talking about) I am definitely curious to see this outcome.
As I edited above ... I wonder why FACT haven't wanted to touch this?
It's a fair point about FACT to be fair.
Although they apparently state that "..any site that “makes available or facilitates the availability” of rights-owners’ content without their permission is unlawful" which should cover this case but there are loopholes.
According to this article, it appears that if you're essentially streaming the content on your own, in the privacy of your own home, then it is legal.
But is streaming unlicensed content online illegal? Jim Gibson, director of the Intellectual Property Institute at the University of Richmond law school, told Business Insider that streaming online content breaks the law in two cases.
When the user downloads even part of a file — called "pseudo-streaming" — it counts as a copy of copyrighted material, which is illegal. And when the user streams content as a "public performance" — namely, when it's shown to a substantial number of people outside the normal family circle and its close acquaintances — it also constitutes a copyright violation.
Outside of these cases, accessing unlicensed streamed content is generally legal.
But then, at the end of the day, he's actively encouraging people to infringe copyrighted material so, personally, I don't think there's really any grey areas as far as this case goes.
Although they apparently state that "..any site that “makes available or facilitates the availability” of rights-owners’ content without their permission is unlawful" which should cover this case but there are loopholes.
What FACT state as fact and was is actually fact may not be the one and the same. :kitty:
I bought a fully loaded Kodi box off eBay last year. It was ok to start with but now I can barely watch any content. I'll go to one of the apps, find a movie or box set I want to watch, then after about 10 minutes of trying numerous streams, give up because none of them work.
I bought a fully loaded Kodi box off eBay last year. It was ok to start with but now I can barely watch any content. I'll go to one of the apps, find a movie or box set I want to watch, then after about 10 minutes of trying numerous streams, give up because none of them work.
Addons do come and go, but there are still ones with plenty of content out there, or so I am told.
I've walked past the shop in question and thought to myself he was asking for trouble by blatantly advertising products for use in watching illegal streams.
I'm surprised he lasted as long as he did.
There must have been a few people in Middlesbrough wanting to steal the sports channels for him to be able to make the venture survive.
But then, at the end of the day, he's actively encouraging people to infringe copyrighted material so, personally, I don't think there's really any grey areas as far as this case goes.
This is the point. He wasn't just selling the Android TV boxes, he was selling them for the intended purpose of committing copyright infringement, and marketed them that way.
If he just sold them without any of the "fully loaded" stuff (which from my own experience is pretty naff anyway) then he wouldn't be in this mess.
This is the point. He wasn't just selling the Android TV boxes, he was selling them for the intended purpose of committing copyright infringement, and marketed them that way.
If he just sold them without any of the "fully loaded" stuff (which from my own experience is pretty naff anyway) then he wouldn't be in this mess.
Well as i said a bit further back in the thread, he did sell "clean" boxes after his arrest but he also continued to encourage people to install the addons to allow them access to the "free" content so he certainly can't plead ignorant in that respect.
This is the point. He wasn't just selling the Android TV boxes, he was selling them for the intended purpose of committing copyright infringement, and marketed them that way.
If he just sold them without any of the "fully loaded" stuff (which from my own experience is pretty naff anyway) then he wouldn't be in this mess.
Indeed, that is the issue. Specifically advertising them to receive encrypted channels.
I don't know how the ebay auctions for gifts get away with it either.
I've just bought a fully loaded kodi box, but TBH I would have preferred it to have a clean install of Kodi as all the addons are just annoying and I don't use them anyway.
The Canadian Federal court has already introduced an interim ban on the sale of such boxes and the Judge clarified this by issuing the following statement.
“the only reason why many users have access to infringing content is because [preloaded] set-top boxes … make it extremely easy to do so.”
“While some consumers might have the desire and technical knowledge to seek out and download such applications, many others might not,” she said, adding that the defendants market their products as “plug-and-play.”
In the US, Congress is currently looking at introducing legislation to ban these boxes not only because they are widely used to acquire copyrighted material free but that they harm the manufacturers and suppliers of set top boxes for use of legitimate streaming services.
Amazon removed the Kodi App from their Fire Stick and Fire TV and have gone further by making it more difficult to sideload apps. They have however approved and support the forked Kodi App MrMc because it does not allow unofficial third party add ons.
For legitimate users of Kodi using it to stream their own media such as music, movies, photos etc it's a real pain because it could stifle future development. Plex and Emby may be good alternatives but rely on a server running on another computer and also need to be powerful enough to transcode on the fly, they aslo aren't free. Kodi can access your media from a simple external drive such as WDCloud on your network and cope with any file that you throw at it. Kodi has been for a long time the best media software program around, it is how it is used that is the problem not the program itself.
I've just bought a fully loaded kodi box, but TBH I would have preferred it to have a clean install of Kodi as all the addons are just annoying and I don't use them anyway.
You could have bought an Amazon Fire Stick and downloaded the forked Kodi App MrMC without all the add ons. Fire Stick was on offer recently for just £29 now £34.95 and the MrMc app for £4.13. I've used Kodi for years but I am thinking of adding another set top box in another room and will probably just add MrMC and save all the hassle of sideloading, I personally don't need any add ons, I just want to watch or listen to my own media easily.
The real pain is that the main players make life so difficult to do things legally. Amazon don't have an app on Nvidia Sheild or Apple which may seem they are protecting their sales but instead making it more difficult and expensive to download or stream their service. They will earn far more revenue from downloads and streaming Amazon Prime than what they do from their sticks or boxes. Plex have just announced that they are releasing a beta version of their cloud server, a brilliant idea but you can only use it through Amazon Cloud thus ignoring over 80% of the cloud services that people use.
On a wider point the most frustrating point of content is that it should be available to be accessed "legally" wherever you live, territorial restrictions should have been abolished years ago. My wife is an avid fan of NCIS, she 'll probably have to wait until FOX UK decide to show season 14 just started in the US, probably like the last series about 2-3 months behind. Why? What do they gain? More pirates? Game of Thrones was the most pirated show over the last two years but at least HBO make it available to everyone at the same time whether they live in the UK or the US. You won't curb piracy but you shouldn't deprive people who want to pay just because they live outside your region.
You could have bought an Amazon Fire Stick and downloaded the forked Kodi App MrMC without all the add ons. Fire Stick was on offer recently for just £29 now £34.95 and the MrMc app for £4.13. I've used Kodi for years but I am thinking of adding another set top box in another room and will probably just add MrMC and save all the hassle of sideloading, I personally don't need any add ons, I just want to watch or listen to my own media easily.
Thanks for the advice, I went for SPMC as it was free. Thankfully it doesn't have any addons but it does scrape for media, do anyone know how to stop media scraping?
I bought a fully loaded Kodi box off eBay last year. It was ok to start with but now I can barely watch any content. I'll go to one of the apps, find a movie or box set I want to watch, then after about 10 minutes of trying numerous streams, give up because none of them work.
When you buy a fully loaded box you are paying someone to install free apps for you. It's a little more convenient for you in the short term but leaves you clueless in the long term.
A bit like paying someone to fill your car up with petrol then after a few hundred miles you come rolling and chugging to a stop and just sit there in your car because you don't know what to do.
Thanks for the advice, I went for SPMC as it was free. Thankfully it doesn't have any addons but it does scrape for media, do anyone know how to stop media scraping?
I love Kodi not because it's free but because of the team and community behind it. The downside of all these "Kodi" boxes is that the sellers are abusing a brilliant platform. Kodi is already struggling to find enough Android developers to keep pace with the Android eco system. I think MrMc does have a legitimate place because some of the original team are involved and they are trying to encourage services such as Amazon to carry their app and make it easy for everyone to download and work seamlessly with their media.
I haven't used SPMC so can't help you regarding scraping but I do believe that MrMc allows you to manually control scraping in the same way Kodi does. Another star for Kodi as it has a very extensive list of settings to cope with different users. Even though I may not use MrMc fully for £4.13 it's worth sticking it on my other box and hope it has the same extensive list of settings that Kodi has.
I hope it works out for you, it's all trial and error but the good thing is that these apps/software don't cost much so it's great to explore the one that fits best. I hated Plex when it was first introduced and was light years behind Kodi but they are very close now and Plex has the advantage of accessing media away from home or others sharing your library but Kodi beats it still for playing difficult files and has a better subtitle program which I use a lot.
When you buy a fully loaded box you are paying someone to install free apps for you. It's a little more convenient for you in the short term but leaves you clueless in the long term.
A bit like paying someone to fill your car up with petrol then after a few hundred miles you come rolling and chugging to a stop and just sit there in your car because you don't know what to do.
You'd be surprised how many people that are either too lazy to google how to do something and try it themselves or are just completely clueless when it comes to anything techy. Seriously some people don't even attempt to try. That's probably why these 'fully loaded' boxes are so popular.
Also these 'fully loaded' boxes are usually cheaper than the android tv boxes from the bigger brands like Amazon fire stick, fire tv or even nvidia shield.
I love Kodi not because it's free but because of the team and community behind it. The downside of all these "Kodi" boxes is that the sellers are abusing a brilliant platform. Kodi is already struggling to find enough Android developers to keep pace with the Android eco system. I think MrMc does have a legitimate place because some of the original team are involved and they are trying to encourage services such as Amazon to carry their app and make it easy for everyone to download and work seamlessly with their media.
I haven't used SPMC so can't help you regarding scraping but I do believe that MrMc allows you to manually control scraping in the same way Kodi does. Another star for Kodi as it has a very extensive list of settings to cope with different users. Even though I may not use MrMc fully for £4.13 it's worth sticking it on my other box and hope it has the same extensive list of settings that Kodi has.
I hope it works out for you, it's all trial and error but the good thing is that these apps/software don't cost much so it's great to explore the one that fits best. I hated Plex when it was first introduced and was light years behind Kodi but they are very close now and Plex has the advantage of accessing media away from home or others sharing your library but Kodi beats it still for playing difficult files and has a better subtitle program which I use a lot.
Yes SPMC worked out great and I've sorted out the media scraping.
So now I can bypass the installed Kodi and all its addons.
Comments
With that kind of attitude, I certainly hope he gets a fairly hefty punishment.
He seeks clarification on where the line is actually drawn.
Probably only get a fine and costs anyway.
edit - I find it strange that this case was brought by his local council.
I guess FACT didn't want to touch this.
I'd imagine he's fully aware of where the line is.
Content streaming is still legal under European law as far as I'm aware.
A plugin does nothing if the user doesn't use it.
So whilst I expect a judge to find in favour of the local council ( assuming they have any idea of what they're actually talking about) I am definitely curious to see this outcome.
As I edited above ... I wonder why FACT haven't wanted to touch this?
It's a fair point about FACT to be fair.
Although they apparently state that "..any site that “makes available or facilitates the availability” of rights-owners’ content without their permission is unlawful" which should cover this case but there are loopholes.
According to this article, it appears that if you're essentially streaming the content on your own, in the privacy of your own home, then it is legal.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/are-streaming-sites-legal-2014-4
But then, at the end of the day, he's actively encouraging people to infringe copyrighted material so, personally, I don't think there's really any grey areas as far as this case goes.
Addons do come and go, but there are still ones with plenty of content out there, or so I am told.
I'm surprised he lasted as long as he did.
There must have been a few people in Middlesbrough wanting to steal the sports channels for him to be able to make the venture survive.
If he just sold them without any of the "fully loaded" stuff (which from my own experience is pretty naff anyway) then he wouldn't be in this mess.
Well as i said a bit further back in the thread, he did sell "clean" boxes after his arrest but he also continued to encourage people to install the addons to allow them access to the "free" content so he certainly can't plead ignorant in that respect.
How is it free if you're paying for a VPN?
Indeed, that is the issue. Specifically advertising them to receive encrypted channels.
I don't know how the ebay auctions for gifts get away with it either.
“the only reason why many users have access to infringing content is because [preloaded] set-top boxes … make it extremely easy to do so.”
“While some consumers might have the desire and technical knowledge to seek out and download such applications, many others might not,” she said, adding that the defendants market their products as “plug-and-play.”
In the US, Congress is currently looking at introducing legislation to ban these boxes not only because they are widely used to acquire copyrighted material free but that they harm the manufacturers and suppliers of set top boxes for use of legitimate streaming services.
Amazon removed the Kodi App from their Fire Stick and Fire TV and have gone further by making it more difficult to sideload apps. They have however approved and support the forked Kodi App MrMc because it does not allow unofficial third party add ons.
For legitimate users of Kodi using it to stream their own media such as music, movies, photos etc it's a real pain because it could stifle future development. Plex and Emby may be good alternatives but rely on a server running on another computer and also need to be powerful enough to transcode on the fly, they aslo aren't free. Kodi can access your media from a simple external drive such as WDCloud on your network and cope with any file that you throw at it. Kodi has been for a long time the best media software program around, it is how it is used that is the problem not the program itself.
You could have bought an Amazon Fire Stick and downloaded the forked Kodi App MrMC without all the add ons. Fire Stick was on offer recently for just £29 now £34.95 and the MrMc app for £4.13. I've used Kodi for years but I am thinking of adding another set top box in another room and will probably just add MrMC and save all the hassle of sideloading, I personally don't need any add ons, I just want to watch or listen to my own media easily.
The real pain is that the main players make life so difficult to do things legally. Amazon don't have an app on Nvidia Sheild or Apple which may seem they are protecting their sales but instead making it more difficult and expensive to download or stream their service. They will earn far more revenue from downloads and streaming Amazon Prime than what they do from their sticks or boxes. Plex have just announced that they are releasing a beta version of their cloud server, a brilliant idea but you can only use it through Amazon Cloud thus ignoring over 80% of the cloud services that people use.
On a wider point the most frustrating point of content is that it should be available to be accessed "legally" wherever you live, territorial restrictions should have been abolished years ago. My wife is an avid fan of NCIS, she 'll probably have to wait until FOX UK decide to show season 14 just started in the US, probably like the last series about 2-3 months behind. Why? What do they gain? More pirates? Game of Thrones was the most pirated show over the last two years but at least HBO make it available to everyone at the same time whether they live in the UK or the US. You won't curb piracy but you shouldn't deprive people who want to pay just because they live outside your region.
Thanks for the advice, I went for SPMC as it was free. Thankfully it doesn't have any addons but it does scrape for media, do anyone know how to stop media scraping?
A bit like paying someone to fill your car up with petrol then after a few hundred miles you come rolling and chugging to a stop and just sit there in your car because you don't know what to do.
I love Kodi not because it's free but because of the team and community behind it. The downside of all these "Kodi" boxes is that the sellers are abusing a brilliant platform. Kodi is already struggling to find enough Android developers to keep pace with the Android eco system. I think MrMc does have a legitimate place because some of the original team are involved and they are trying to encourage services such as Amazon to carry their app and make it easy for everyone to download and work seamlessly with their media.
I haven't used SPMC so can't help you regarding scraping but I do believe that MrMc allows you to manually control scraping in the same way Kodi does. Another star for Kodi as it has a very extensive list of settings to cope with different users. Even though I may not use MrMc fully for £4.13 it's worth sticking it on my other box and hope it has the same extensive list of settings that Kodi has.
I hope it works out for you, it's all trial and error but the good thing is that these apps/software don't cost much so it's great to explore the one that fits best. I hated Plex when it was first introduced and was light years behind Kodi but they are very close now and Plex has the advantage of accessing media away from home or others sharing your library but Kodi beats it still for playing difficult files and has a better subtitle program which I use a lot.
You'd be surprised how many people that are either too lazy to google how to do something and try it themselves or are just completely clueless when it comes to anything techy. Seriously some people don't even attempt to try. That's probably why these 'fully loaded' boxes are so popular.
Also these 'fully loaded' boxes are usually cheaper than the android tv boxes from the bigger brands like Amazon fire stick, fire tv or even nvidia shield.
I don't pay - I use Zenmate free account.
Yes SPMC worked out great and I've sorted out the media scraping.
So now I can bypass the installed Kodi and all its addons.
Neither is watching streams :cool:
https://torrentfreak.com/watching-pirate-streams-isnt-illegal-eu-commission-argues-161001/
Read the link again, they haven't ruled on it yet.