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This topic comprises 4 pages: 1 2 3 4
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Author
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Topic: MPAA: Kodi Abusers Are Growing Video Piracy Threat
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 10-09-2017 05:48 PM
I'm not so worried about the proper archival of movies, in the case of a drastic reduction of copyright terms.
In the past, private collectors and independent film archives have often proven to do a better job at preserving film than those studios have been. Actually, if you're running a film archive, copyright might actually be a hindrance.
The only way a film archive can recoup some money is either by doing restaurations paid for by third parties or by lending out the content in their archive. The latter part can still be problematic for any content covered by active copyrights.
Also, studios tend to go bust, split themselves up, have themselves taken over, merged back again and raised from the death from time to time. The underlying copyrights, especially for the more obscure content nobody really cares about, often remain in limbo. Even the more popular content can become stuck in limbo, as they fight over who actually owns it.
With the exception of only a select few, movies usually end up having a commercial value of close to zero after 20 or more years. The intellectual property in the movie itself is something different though. If you look at an extreme example like Star Wars, you'll see that almost all the IP inside those movies has been trademarked and kept active for the last 40 years, so those rights never expired.
So, if the copyright on a movie would expire after 20 years, nobody would be able to make a movie using Star Wars characters that wasn't sanctioned by LucasFilm/Disney, yet we would never have to pay 20th Century Fox again for the privilege of running it.
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Martin Brooks
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 900
From: Forest Hills, NY, USA
Registered: May 2002
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posted 11-02-2017 07:10 PM
quote: Martin McCaffery
Just to be contrarian, if we cut the copyright to 20 years, how do get movie studios or other holders of copyrighted movies, to preserve, restore and re-release old films?
Not saying I agree with the current copyright law, but we have lost so much of film history as it is and I don't think the LOC is up to that degree of restoration and preservation.
Absolutely agree. Having copyrights expire sooner would counter-intuitively not help the distribution of that work. Quite the opposite and we can see this in book publishing, where with a few exceptions (like Shakespeare, Alexandre Dumas and other works that are taught in schools), out of copyright books are generally not published because as soon as a publisher does so, another publisher can come along and charge a dollar less with a competitive edition.
There were numerous examples of works that fell out of copyright because they weren't renewed and all you could buy were really crappy VHS or DVD editions of them because no one would put any money into them. I think "It's A Wonderful Life" was one of those works.
For works other than sound recordings, these are the rules for works registered or first published the U.S.:
Published works before 1923 are generally now in the public domain.
Published 1923-1977:
Without copyright notice: in the public domain.
Published 1923-1963:
With copyright notice, but not renewed: in the public domain
With copyright notice and renewed: 95 years from publication date
Published 1964-1977:
With copyright notice: 95 years from publication date.
Published 1978 to 3/1/89:
Without notice and without registration within 5 years: in the public domain
Without notice but with registration within 5 years or created after '77 and published with notice: 70 years after death of author. If corporately owned, earlier of 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation.
Created before 1978 and published with notice in specified period: the later of above or 12/31/2047.
Published 3/1/1989 to 12/31/2002:
Created after 1977: 70 years after death of author. If corporately owned, earlier of 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation.
Created before 1977: the later of above or 12/31/2047.
Published after 2002:
70 years after death of author. If corporately owned, earlier of 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation.
Anytime: Works prepared by an officer or employee of the U.S. Government as part of that person's official duties no copyright
The rules vary for works first published outside the U.S. Too many to detail here.
Sound recordings (but not the underlying published works which use the above rules) have separate rules, which I won't detail here, but any sound recordings fixed prior to February 15, 1972 are only subject to state common law protection until 2067, although there are cases still being fought in the courts over this.
One of the reasons Congress kept extending copyright terms was because of lobbying by Disney. Disney told Congress that if copyright didn't get extended, someone could take Mickey Mouse and make porn cartoons, a quite ridiculous argument, but Congress bought it anyway. This when when Steamboat Willie was about to lose copyright protection. Back in 1909, copyright was 28 years + a 28 year renewal period. It's been extended many times since by Congress.
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Greg Routenburg
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 178
From: Toronto, ON, Canada
Registered: May 2003
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posted 01-04-2018 12:45 PM
I think a large part of the problem that no one seems interested in exploring is, why people do it in the first place. It's all well and good to say that people do it because it's free but why are people looking for a free alternative in the first place? Here in Canada, a very large percentage of the folks I know that own and operate illicit streaming boxes do so because it's all they can afford while working their two or three minimum wage jobs to support themselves and their families. As a society, we've deprived them of their free time and a reasonable wage so who do we think will sacrifice what little time & financial resources they have left to go pay for a movie at a cinema? I can't think of many.
I agree that content owners should be paid for their hard work and investment. The solution isn't to create steeper fines or increase jail time for those who use these devices though. That's the same thinking as cutting off a person's hand for stealing a loaf of bread from a market cart. Who think's that's reasonable?
DRM doesn't work either. The overhead for the content owner is very high and every DRM scheme that's been released for the home market so far has been defeated. Once's it's broken, it creates an avalanche of piracy that can't be stopped. It's a bad idea that's never worked.
No, the solution is to create an economy for middle class people to thrive in. There will always be a small number of people who choose to pirate things anyway. Interestingly enough, it's not always the super poor. It's often the very wealthy who are cheap and feel entitled. For the most part though, people like to go out. People like to have fun with their friends. People like to buy good quality products and get a good experience if it is within their means. If given a fair chance, people will support a fair economy. Let's stop treating the symptoms of the problem and attack the cause.
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Harold Hallikainen
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 906
From: Denver, CO, USA
Registered: Aug 2009
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posted 01-31-2019 09:57 AM
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/01/free-tv-box-maker-agrees-to-shut-down-and-pay-14-5m-to-copyright-holders/?comments=1
Netflix, Amazon, and Hollywood studios shut down maker of “free TV” box
Per settlement, Dragon Box will pay $14.5M and close piracy-enabling services.
JON BRODKIN - 1/30/2019, 9:50 AM
The entertainment industry has scored a big victory over the maker of a "free TV" box that helped users watch pirated video.
Dragon Media Inc., whose "Dragon Box" device connects to TVs and lets users watch video without a cable TV or streaming service subscription, has agreed to shut down the Dragon Box services and pay $14.5 million in damages to plaintiffs from the entertainment industry.
Dragon Media was sued in January 2018 by Netflix, Amazon, Columbia Pictures, Disney, Paramount Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal, and Warner Bros. Dragon Media's lawyer initially predicted that the lawsuit would backfire on the entertainment industry, but the Dragon Box maker must have decided it had little chance of winning at trial.
The plaintiffs and defendant filed a proposed settlement Monday at US District Court for the Central District of California.
The settlement requires Dragon Media to "cease all operation of the Dragon Box system" and related services within five days. Under the settlement, "[j]udgment shall be entered against Defendants and in favor of Plaintiffs on Plaintiffs' claims of copyright infringement, and damages shall be awarded to Plaintiffs in the amount of US $14,500,000," the document says.
Dragon Media, Dragon Media owner Paul Christoforo, and reseller Jeff Williams "[s]hall be further enjoined from operating any website, system, software, or service that is substantially similar to the Dragon Box service," the settlement says.
The settlement also prohibits the defendants from making its source code or other technology available to others.
Plaintiffs previously shut down “TickBox”
The plaintiffs in the case are part of the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), which has been trying to stamp out piracy of its members' content.
"ACE is pleased the agreement will ensure the immediate shutdown of the illegal Dragon Box system," an ACE spokesperson said, according to Variety. "The theft of creative content is a pervasive threat to the dynamic legal marketplace for movie and television content, and ACE will continue its global efforts to advance creativity."
In September 2018, ACE members scored another favorable settlement over the maker of a similar streaming device called the TickBox, winning a permanent injunction and $25 million in damages.
Before agreeing to settle, Dragon Media argued that it was merely facilitating access to online content rather than providing pirated TV itself. The entertainment industry plaintiffs' complaint provided a much different description, saying that Dragon Media provided custom software to help users of its device obtain pirated content. The complaint said:
When a customer selects "DRAGON MEDIA" for the first time, the device prompts the customer to download the "DragonBox" software. After clicking through the guided "Media Setup," the device downloads and installs the latest version of Dragon Media.
Once the Dragon Media software application has been downloaded and installed onto the Dragon Box device, the customer is presented a multi-page home screen that presents the customer with categories to select. These categories include "Sports," "4Kids," "Videos," "IPTV," and "TV Shows," among others... In total, Defendants provide customers with over 80 add-ons as part of their suite of Dragon Media add-ons to access all of the "Unlimited Shows, Movies, [and] Live Sporting events."
Dragon Media temporarily stopped sales after the lawsuit was filed last year but "later decided to change its business model, moving from a Kodi-addon platform subscription-based services," TorrentFreak wrote today. "First, it moved to 'BlendTV' and a few months later to 'My TV Hub.'"
However, the settlement requires Dragon Media to shut down both BlendTV and My TV Hub at the same time that it shuts down the Dragon Box service. The settlement defines the Dragon Box Service as "the hardware devices preloaded with copyright infringing software, addons, programs, applications, and all related services that Defendant marketed, promoted, sold, and supported." The settlement defines BlendTV as "the copyright-infringing software, programs, applications, and services that transmit or otherwise communicate television programs and motion pictures over the Internet that Defendant marketed, promoted, sold, and supported."
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Though this is not "Kodi box," it is similar. Also read the comments at the end of the article. Finally, I heard recently that about 95% of pirated content includes the forensic watermark indicating the serial number of the media block that was used to play back the content along with the time of playback. 5% does not include a watermark.
Harold
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