DragonBox, Streaming Services, and Copyright

Dashrender

@dustinb3403 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@dustinb3403 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@dashrender said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@dustinb3403 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

I don't have one of these boxes, but this is priracy, hands down. Just because "you're" not downloading the content, providing an easy to use/find/stream content is theft.

The fact of owning a device that can participate in piracy does not make it piracy on it's own.

Granted - most people, probably like 99.9%+ are buying it intending to pirate, the device itself does nothing wrong.

This is like saying guns kill people. No, a gun sitting on a table without outside influence has never killed anyone.

The box is an accomplice to the pirating of the material, because it makes the theft easier. Just like the get-away driver is an accomplice to the bank robbery, even if they never went inside the bank.

Then the gun, the car, all humans, the air we breath, water... everything is an accomplice. That logic doesn't work. Once "something can be used for a crime", all things are accomplices. Literally, everything.

The box in this case can be equated (and likely will) to Napster. Sure they weren't providing the content, they were just making the content easily searchable and retrievable.

You're making a SAM argument here when there is already precedence in cases like this.

Precedence doesn't make it right. I mentioned Napster already, and know the bought and paid for courts are just bowing to big business.

DustinB3403

@dashrender said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@dustinb3403 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@dustinb3403 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@dashrender said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@dustinb3403 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

I don't have one of these boxes, but this is priracy, hands down. Just because "you're" not downloading the content, providing an easy to use/find/stream content is theft.

The fact of owning a device that can participate in piracy does not make it piracy on it's own.

Granted - most people, probably like 99.9%+ are buying it intending to pirate, the device itself does nothing wrong.

This is like saying guns kill people. No, a gun sitting on a table without outside influence has never killed anyone.

The box is an accomplice to the pirating of the material, because it makes the theft easier. Just like the get-away driver is an accomplice to the bank robbery, even if they never went inside the bank.

Then the gun, the car, all humans, the air we breath, water... everything is an accomplice. That logic doesn't work. Once "something can be used for a crime", all things are accomplices. Literally, everything.

The box in this case can be equated (and likely will) to Napster. Sure they weren't providing the content, they were just making the content easily searchable and retrievable.

You're making a SAM argument here when there is already precedence in cases like this.

Precedence doesn't make it right. I mentioned Napster already, and know the bought and paid for courts are just bowing to big business.

I get what you're trying to say, but precedence is the only item on which to balance these things. Damage is being done to the corporations (lost subscriptions) to this device.

They are entitled to restitution for this, which will likely put Dragon box out of business.

Dashrender

@dustinb3403 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@dashrender I understand your thought process, and yes the device could be used to watch purely free and OTA television.

The biggest issue with this (at least from the marketing) is that it is actively helping people watch things that are subscription based.

Now one could argue that the subscription services need to better protect their content, but the reality is there would be no way for them to do this.

So the only approach that they have is to shutdown services/businesses that enable / lighten the workload to steal their content.

Well, I don't really know what to tell you. Bad people exist. If you can't secure your business knowing this fact, then sadly, you don't deserve to be in business.

Dashrender

@dustinb3403 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@dashrender said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@dustinb3403 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@dustinb3403 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@dashrender said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@dustinb3403 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

I don't have one of these boxes, but this is priracy, hands down. Just because "you're" not downloading the content, providing an easy to use/find/stream content is theft.

The fact of owning a device that can participate in piracy does not make it piracy on it's own.

Granted - most people, probably like 99.9%+ are buying it intending to pirate, the device itself does nothing wrong.

This is like saying guns kill people. No, a gun sitting on a table without outside influence has never killed anyone.

The box is an accomplice to the pirating of the material, because it makes the theft easier. Just like the get-away driver is an accomplice to the bank robbery, even if they never went inside the bank.

Then the gun, the car, all humans, the air we breath, water... everything is an accomplice. That logic doesn't work. Once "something can be used for a crime", all things are accomplices. Literally, everything.

The box in this case can be equated (and likely will) to Napster. Sure they weren't providing the content, they were just making the content easily searchable and retrievable.

You're making a SAM argument here when there is already precedence in cases like this.

Precedence doesn't make it right. I mentioned Napster already, and know the bought and paid for courts are just bowing to big business.

I get what you're trying to say, but precedence is the only item on which to balance these things. Damage is being done to the corporations (lost subscriptions) to this device.

They are entitled to restitution for this, which will likely put Dragon box out of business.

DragonBox is the wrong place to go after - go after the real criminals - the people who are stealing the service.

DustinB3403

@dashrender said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@dustinb3403 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@dashrender I understand your thought process, and yes the device could be used to watch purely free and OTA television.

The biggest issue with this (at least from the marketing) is that it is actively helping people watch things that are subscription based.

Now one could argue that the subscription services need to better protect their content, but the reality is there would be no way for them to do this.

So the only approach that they have is to shutdown services/businesses that enable / lighten the workload to steal their content.

Well, I don't really know what to tell you. Bad people exist. If you can't secure your business knowing this fact, then sadly, you don't deserve to be in business.

So if I know how to get free gas and electric (bypassing everything the local service provider does to stop my theft) that service provider should just close up shop? When many other people are doing things legally.

You're condoning theft, plain and simple.

DustinB3403

@dashrender said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@dustinb3403 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@dashrender said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@dustinb3403 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@dustinb3403 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@dashrender said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@dustinb3403 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

I don't have one of these boxes, but this is priracy, hands down. Just because "you're" not downloading the content, providing an easy to use/find/stream content is theft.

The fact of owning a device that can participate in piracy does not make it piracy on it's own.

Granted - most people, probably like 99.9%+ are buying it intending to pirate, the device itself does nothing wrong.

This is like saying guns kill people. No, a gun sitting on a table without outside influence has never killed anyone.

The box is an accomplice to the pirating of the material, because it makes the theft easier. Just like the get-away driver is an accomplice to the bank robbery, even if they never went inside the bank.

Then the gun, the car, all humans, the air we breath, water... everything is an accomplice. That logic doesn't work. Once "something can be used for a crime", all things are accomplices. Literally, everything.

The box in this case can be equated (and likely will) to Napster. Sure they weren't providing the content, they were just making the content easily searchable and retrievable.

You're making a SAM argument here when there is already precedence in cases like this.

Precedence doesn't make it right. I mentioned Napster already, and know the bought and paid for courts are just bowing to big business.

I get what you're trying to say, but precedence is the only item on which to balance these things. Damage is being done to the corporations (lost subscriptions) to this device.

They are entitled to restitution for this, which will likely put Dragon box out of business.

DragonBox is the wrong place to go after - go after the real criminals - the people who are stealing the service.

Restitution is paid by the money (in this case the business involved). There is no money in chasing the users, or even the people who are uploading the content to be viewed, be it live or an online recording.

scottalanmiller

@dustinb3403 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@dustinb3403 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@dashrender said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@dustinb3403 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

I don't have one of these boxes, but this is priracy, hands down. Just because "you're" not downloading the content, providing an easy to use/find/stream content is theft.

The fact of owning a device that can participate in piracy does not make it piracy on it's own.

Granted - most people, probably like 99.9%+ are buying it intending to pirate, the device itself does nothing wrong.

This is like saying guns kill people. No, a gun sitting on a table without outside influence has never killed anyone.

The box is an accomplice to the pirating of the material, because it makes the theft easier. Just like the get-away driver is an accomplice to the bank robbery, even if they never went inside the bank.

Then the gun, the car, all humans, the air we breath, water... everything is an accomplice. That logic doesn't work. Once "something can be used for a crime", all things are accomplices. Literally, everything.

The box in this case can be equated (and likely will) to Napster. Sure they weren't providing the content, they were just making the content easily searchable and retrievable.

You're making a SAM argument here when there is already precedence in cases like this.

And going after Napster was unethical and they had no legal basis for it based on the tech alone. If, and I don't know, Napster had stuff built in to point them to illegal stuff or advertised that they should use it that way, that's illegal. But just having the Napster tech has nothing wrong with it in the slightest.

scottalanmiller

@dashrender said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@dustinb3403 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@dashrender I understand your thought process, and yes the device could be used to watch purely free and OTA television.

The biggest issue with this (at least from the marketing) is that it is actively helping people watch things that are subscription based.

Now one could argue that the subscription services need to better protect their content, but the reality is there would be no way for them to do this.

So the only approach that they have is to shutdown services/businesses that enable / lighten the workload to steal their content.

Well, I don't really know what to tell you. Bad people exist. If you can't secure your business knowing this fact, then sadly, you don't deserve to be in business.

I don't agree here. They are still the victims.

scottalanmiller

@dashrender said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@dustinb3403 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@dustinb3403 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@dashrender said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@dustinb3403 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

I don't have one of these boxes, but this is priracy, hands down. Just because "you're" not downloading the content, providing an easy to use/find/stream content is theft.

The fact of owning a device that can participate in piracy does not make it piracy on it's own.

Granted - most people, probably like 99.9%+ are buying it intending to pirate, the device itself does nothing wrong.

This is like saying guns kill people. No, a gun sitting on a table without outside influence has never killed anyone.

The box is an accomplice to the pirating of the material, because it makes the theft easier. Just like the get-away driver is an accomplice to the bank robbery, even if they never went inside the bank.

Then the gun, the car, all humans, the air we breath, water... everything is an accomplice. That logic doesn't work. Once "something can be used for a crime", all things are accomplices. Literally, everything.

The box in this case can be equated (and likely will) to Napster. Sure they weren't providing the content, they were just making the content easily searchable and retrievable.

You're making a SAM argument here when there is already precedence in cases like this.

Precedence doesn't make it right. I mentioned Napster already, and know the bought and paid for courts are just bowing to big business.

Right, the real criminals in most US cases are the courts and the industry associations.

DustinB3403

@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@dustinb3403 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@dustinb3403 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@dashrender said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@dustinb3403 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

I don't have one of these boxes, but this is priracy, hands down. Just because "you're" not downloading the content, providing an easy to use/find/stream content is theft.

The fact of owning a device that can participate in piracy does not make it piracy on it's own.

Granted - most people, probably like 99.9%+ are buying it intending to pirate, the device itself does nothing wrong.

This is like saying guns kill people. No, a gun sitting on a table without outside influence has never killed anyone.

The box is an accomplice to the pirating of the material, because it makes the theft easier. Just like the get-away driver is an accomplice to the bank robbery, even if they never went inside the bank.

Then the gun, the car, all humans, the air we breath, water... everything is an accomplice. That logic doesn't work. Once "something can be used for a crime", all things are accomplices. Literally, everything.

The box in this case can be equated (and likely will) to Napster. Sure they weren't providing the content, they were just making the content easily searchable and retrievable.

You're making a SAM argument here when there is already precedence in cases like this.

And going after Napster was unethical and they had no legal basis for it based on the tech alone. If, and I don't know, Napster had stuff built in to point them to illegal stuff or advertised that they should use it that way, that's illegal. But just having the Napster tech has nothing wrong with it in the slightest.

Here is the court summary for the A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc., 239 F.3d 1004 (2001).

DustinB3403

Here is an important part of the ruling.

The court then turned to the three uses Napster identified as fair use in the
conduct of its users:
1. sampling, where users make temporary copies of a work to sample it
before purchase, which the District Court found to be a commercial use
even if a user purchases the work at a later time. Sampling was deemed to
A&M Records, Inc. v Napster Inc. (2001)
not be a fair use, because the "samples" were in fact permanent and
complete copies of the desired media.
2. space-shifting, where users access a sound recording through the Napster
system that they already own in audio CD format; here the District Court
found that neither of the shifting analyses used in the Sony or RIAA v.
Diamond Multimedia cases applied in this case because the "shifting" in
neither case included or enabled distribution. The space-shifting argument
did not succeed because, while the shift to a digital format may have been
a personal storage use, it was accompanied by making the file available to
the rest of the system's users.
3. permissive distribution of recordings by both new and established artists
who have authorized their music to be disseminated in the Napster
system, which the District Court ruled was not an infringing use and could
continue, along with chat rooms and other non-distributory features of
Napster.
By contrast, the court found that the owners of Napster could control the
infringing behavior of users, and therefore had a duty to do so. The Ninth Circuit
affirmed this analysis, finding that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed in proving
that Napster did not have a valid fair use defense.

DustinB3403

Which to summarize means, if you have a way to prevent theft as a service provider (Napster, DragonBox etc) it is your responsibility to discourage or stop such behavior.

Actively enabling this behavior means that there is intent to cause harm.

DustinB3403

I equate this act to be nothing different than what Napster did back then.

DustinB3403

The only difference in this case (maybe) is that DragonBox may not have a network to which all of the DragonBoxes are connecting and getting their content.

They may be going to each individual website / stream to watch this content. Which then makes DragonBox an accomplice to sharing copyrighted material, rather than a conduit for such content.

Which there is precedence in this matter as well..

DustinB3403

@dustinb3403 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

The only difference in this case (maybe) is that DragonBox may not have a network to which all of the DragonBoxes are connecting and getting their content.

They may be going to each individual website / stream to watch this content. Which then makes DragonBox an accomplice to sharing copyrighted material, rather than a conduit for such content.

Which there is precedence in this matter as well..

AKA they are the get-away driver, while the users are robbing the bank.

DustinB3403

Even the about page on the website is fishy to say the least.

Everything on the page says not the intended use, but it's all available online in "open formats", including PPV, Red Zone, UFC fights, Boxing, Sports etc which again goes to the Napster scenario of.

Yeah all of this music is available on the internet, but we just pool it all for easy listening.

Dashrender

@dustinb3403 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@dashrender said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@dustinb3403 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@dashrender I understand your thought process, and yes the device could be used to watch purely free and OTA television.

The biggest issue with this (at least from the marketing) is that it is actively helping people watch things that are subscription based.

Now one could argue that the subscription services need to better protect their content, but the reality is there would be no way for them to do this.

So the only approach that they have is to shutdown services/businesses that enable / lighten the workload to steal their content.

Well, I don't really know what to tell you. Bad people exist. If you can't secure your business knowing this fact, then sadly, you don't deserve to be in business.

So if I know how to get free gas and electric (bypassing everything the local service provider does to stop my theft) that service provider should just close up shop? When many other people are doing things legally.

You're condoning theft, plain and simple.

I am not condoning theft.. but I am saying it's the business' responsibility to secure their stuff. Period. If they go out of business because they are unable to stop the theft and can't survive, then they suffer the consequences and go out of business. This is what I am saying.

DustinB3403

@dashrender said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@dustinb3403 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@dashrender said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@dustinb3403 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@dashrender I understand your thought process, and yes the device could be used to watch purely free and OTA television.

The biggest issue with this (at least from the marketing) is that it is actively helping people watch things that are subscription based.

Now one could argue that the subscription services need to better protect their content, but the reality is there would be no way for them to do this.

So the only approach that they have is to shutdown services/businesses that enable / lighten the workload to steal their content.

Well, I don't really know what to tell you. Bad people exist. If you can't secure your business knowing this fact, then sadly, you don't deserve to be in business.

So if I know how to get free gas and electric (bypassing everything the local service provider does to stop my theft) that service provider should just close up shop? When many other people are doing things legally.

You're condoning theft, plain and simple.

I am not condoning theft.. but I am saying it's the business' responsibility to secure their stuff. Period. If they go out of business because they are unable to stop the theft and can't survive, then they suffer the consequences and go out of business. This is what I am saying.

How would you propose a company stops people from hijacking their content (when there can literally be billions of people hijacking said content?)

Obsolesce

You can't. If it's software, you just can't realistically stop it.

DustinB3403

@tim_g said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

You can't. If it's software, you just can't realistically stop it.

That's the root of the problem, the businesses in this case literally can't do enough to prevent things from being stolen. The only option that is available is to go after businesses that enable/trivialize the theft.

Which is what they are doing here.