SPECIAL REPORT: Is Stealing the NEW WAY of watching TV?

[N6BY]

IMO, it's absolutely stealing. You can play with semantics about it and make it sound different, but if you, me, any of us, wrote a book, or coded a program, etc, with the intent of selling it for commercial profit and people obtained it for free without paying us, the viewpoint would be much different. Probably 100% of us would say it's stealing if it was us personally losing money from it.

It's irrelevant if the price is too high, the moon is blue, big corporations make too much or charge too much, whatever silly rationalization is made to justify it, it's stealing and if someone doesn't want to pay for the service, then go without.

Very well said.

I consider all copyrighted material as intellectual property. Since 1990 my income has come from selling software that I created (Natural Scene Designer and its predecessors). If you use my software without paying for it, you are stealing from me (in a cowardly and sneaky way). There is absolutely no excuse for it.

 

[Hall]

Agreed. Although I think that the consumers in this situation shouldn't be held responsible for the the theft, rather the sellers of the box. They are defrauding the public and should be held accountable.

Will not hold up in court. These boxes have completely legitimate uses (as well as "other" uses).

 

[Centex]

Will not hold up in court. These boxes have completely legitimate uses (as well as "other" uses).

True, but if the sellers insinuated that the buyers could get free tv legally when that actually is not the case, isn't that fraud? My point is that while the boxes may be legal to sell and own, the sales tactics that were used were not.

 

[Hall]

but if the sellers insinuated that the buyers could get free tv legally when that actually is not the case, isn't that fraud?

When the sales barker mentioned NFL Sunday Ticket for free - yeah, he's an absolute idiot for saying that. That could certainly cause a problem.

When they say free movies, TV channels, etc, like they are doing on their banners, there are plenty of them out there that are truly free.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Here is what I know and what I can say from what I know.

Because of my original post and photos in this thread...

1) The feds are now involved, it is my understanding they have been watching and taping. Will they take action? That's anyones guess. I was contacted by one person investigating this who told me that this was the most blatant public exhibition of piracy that they have ever seen.
2) I am told reps from the NFL were there on Sunday and saw the booths openly displaying live NFL games.
3) I am told two of the booths have stopped selling the boxes with them preloaded with the add ins which give instant access to the illegal content. And are now selling the box which includes the default version of KODI installed. (It is my armchair quarterback wild ass guess that this would make those boxes they are selling legal.) However I am also hearing that they are giving people a sheet of paper with instruction of how to add those add in's themselves.

I am also hearing that at least one company is working on technology which can place an invisible to the naked eye fingerprint on the screen so that they can identify and shut down cable and satellite boxes which may be illegally retransmitting content. I am hearing this technology is in testing now.

Finally I think this shows me (including some of the replies to this thread) the moral compass of people now a days. Some people feel even though they know it's illegal that its ok because they paid too much too long. I can only wonder how long this will go on before it starts affecting the quality of shows and movies made because they don't have the money they once did. Although looking at TV lately it seems that point may have already happened.

My intention of this original post was to get the attention of the satellite and cable companies who up until that post knew about these issues but never know the extent of how bad it was and were shocked by the open selling and advertising that I displayed here. This is no longer an underground problem, its now a mainstream issue.

Finally talking to one of my co workers, he son purchased one of these boxes at the fair and found that many of the movies and channels did not work. She also told me that he said while he was watching one movie that did play that the internet was acting funny upon checking things out it appeared the box was acting as a torrent server which was sending out the movie that he was watching to others who were looking for it. So if you have one of these boxes watch out.

The post has done what it was supposed to do, and I thank everyone for their comments. I will be closing this thread tomorrow so if you have any final comments (that fall within the rules of the site) then please make them now.

Thanks again.

 

[stardust3]

I'll say this last post here. If they truly want to fix this they need to go the top. Busting users and vendors doesn't fix anything other than bring in money for fines etc.

Edit: Added more

I will admit I'm a little bitter towards the whole situation. Being affiliated on the retail side sales ain't NOWHERE like they used to be. I attribute this completely to the high prices. Retail is nothing more than a part time income now. I don't blame people for seeking out cheaper ways to get tv.

Just the other day a guy called who I dealt with before. He said "I want to come back to Directv, got a flyer here that says for $29.99 you can get a free genie and up to 4 rooms free". Once I explained the fine print that was the end of that.

I will not deceive someone period to make a sale. I deal with folks that have been lied to daily doing fulfillment work.

Personally I feel if people have good choices that are reasonably priced they won't seek out this kind of stuff.

I'd sooner make a little money off a lot of people than a lot off a few. The blame rests soley on the providers, programmers and studios for the current situation.

For the record I personally wouldn't use this but could care less if someone else does.

 

[TheKrell]

I am also hearing that at least one company is working on technology which can place an invisible to the naked eye fingerprint on the screen so that they can identify and shut down cable and satellite boxes which may be illegally retransmitting content. I am hearing this technology is in testing now.

I don't understand how that can get back to the content owner (or anybody else).

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Without giving too much away, I guess when implemented and working they will use special software to view the stream they can view an invisible digital watermark that is on screen with the receiver ID number.

 

[Hall]

he son purchased one of these boxes at the fair and found that many of the movies and channels did not work.

Surprise, surprise.... If I'm not mistaken, this isn't much different than the "private channels" that you can access through a Roku. I've looked through various listings and may have tried a couple (this was a few years ago) but I don't recall any of them working. I don't have any of them saved on my Roku today either.

...the internet was acting funny upon checking things out it appeared the box was acting as a torrent server which was sending out the movie that he was watching to others who were looking for it.

Doubtful. These are streaming boxes. The movies, TV shows, etc aren't stored on the box so they can't act as torrents.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Doubtful. These are streaming boxes. The movies, TV shows, etc aren't stored on the box so they can't act as torrents.

The boxes do have storage in them.

 

[fred555]

Maybe they are acting as proxies in some strange way?
Maybe to shield the originators?
Box owners would get in trouble this way too.

 

[Ronnie-]

The boxes do have storage in them.

They do, but enough to store movies to act in this manner? None I have seen have more than 8 gb or so.

Edit: the newest ones are coming with 16

 

[Ronnie-]

I wonder how long if they go after this it will be before they pull them on amazon. I see many of the same boxes advertised as pre loaded, and the sale is prime eligible and fulfilled by amazon themselves.

For instance.

Amazon product ASIN B00TEEXJQA

 

[Hall]

They do, but enough to store movies to act in this manner? None I have seen have more than 8 gb or so.

I don't know anything about where these movies come from but if it's from some servers out there on the internet, the movies are likely pretty compressed MP4 files. A 2-hour movie may only be 1gb in size while a 30-minute TV show can be less than 300mb. You can't watch a video (TV show or movie) that's coming in as a torrent either until the entire file is downloaded. Torrents are rec'd in many, many chunks and not in any logical or sensible order.

If the movies are truly streamed, there is nothing, or next to nothing, stored on the device (when done properly, of course). Personally, I believe that is done for copyright and/or licensing reasons. It's why on some streaming devices, generally previous generations of them, that even things like rewinding is so sluggish. They aren't rewinding into their buffer, they are re-downloading what you've already seen because it's gone from the device.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

These boxes have 16 GB and you can add storage by plugging in a USB drive. In fact the guy was talking about the fact you can make a library of every move you ever loved with this box...

 

[Titanium]

Many services and add-ons use client and multi-client sharing. Naive to suggest otherwise. Add this to the list of other misinformation provided by the sellers.

Surprised?

 

[KE4EST]

I use Kodi a lot and enjoy it. Only use it for the legal stuff. Have tried the quazi-illegal stuff and too unreliable and a mess.
Some of the add-ons are very questionable about other stuff they do besides streaming illegal content, so I just leave them alone.

 

[N6BY]

...
I am also hearing that at least one company is working on technology which can place an invisible to the naked eye fingerprint on the screen so that they can identify and shut down cable and satellite boxes which may be illegally retransmitting content. I am hearing this technology is in testing now.....

Civolution is one of the companies working on forensic watermarking with its NexGuard product. HiSilicon will be integrating this technology into their STB chipsets.

More about NexGuard here:
http://www.nexguard.com/2015/09/10/...c-watermarking-with-its-set-top-box-chipsets/

 

[trojan67]

Here is what I know and what I can say from what I know.



I am also hearing that at least one company is working on technology which can place an invisible to the naked eye fingerprint on the screen so that they can identify and shut down cable and satellite boxes which may be illegally retransmitting content. I am hearing this technology is in testing now.

You are referring to Nagra Anycast, which was announce last year September

 

[harshness]

unfortunately the cablecos could care less whether you pay them for pay TV services or for increased bandwidth for streaming content. When you own the whole pipe it really doesn't matter what flows through it.

If you're legally streaming, you're paying for the content. Cable doesn't like it one bit as they likely make more profit on the resale of content. They support net neutrality only to the point that it hurts their competition more than it hurts them.

All the while, cable is slowly creeping prices up for many of us. Sure, they throw is a bone every once in awhile, but we have to remember that they DON'T own a good chunk of the Internet and they're only offering their end while pretending that they span the globe.