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Sale of Android boxes To Obtain "Free TV" Is Now Illegal In Canada.

256K views 806 replies 78 participants last post by  Brontosaurus 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
#28 ·
This part is funny. :p

He also believes the case is actually working against the plaintiffs because it has made more people aware of the loaded Android boxes and what they offer.

"More people know about it and definitely more people are buying it," he says.

He reports some dealers not named in the case have stripped their websites of any promises of "free TV" and are enjoying increased sales.
I don't remember which thread it was on here but a link was posted about one of these dealers bragging about it. I remember thinking the BDU's won't let this go unchecked and it's incredibly stupid to expose yourself like that.
 
#30 ·
#29 ·
Here is the list of eleven additional sellers that have been added as defendants and are not allowed to advertise or sell set top boxes pre-loaded with copyright-infringing software:

A1 INK Rainbow INC.
SKYNET COMPUTERS INC.
SHOWPRO CORPORATION
RED RHINO ENTERTAINEMENT INC.
MORAT ISMET SAMIM dba MAC SPOT
Kamal Malik dba IPTVZOOM
2315807 Ontario Inc. dba ELECTRONICS PRO
TSUYUKI CORPORATION LIMITED dba G&G ELECTRONICS
Al Timini dba TV Box Hero
L3D DISTRIBUTING INC. dba INL3D
2322869 ONTARIO INC. dba OHM COMPUTERS

(dba means "doing business as")

If anyone wants to keep up with developments, you can use this link:
Federal Court of Appeal - Proceeding Queries - Recorded Entries Queries

For "Court Number" you can enter T-759-16 for the original trial or A-203-16 for the appeal. It may take a few days for new entries to be posted to the on-line database.
 
#33 ·
I have in the past, at many shows, markets, etc.. seen the guys selling units there.

With the latest injunction.. it may be harder for them to sell ONLINE.. where they could more easily be stopped then.
(or at min, forced to remove any mention of the illegal stuff).


With selling thing LIVE at places.. it would be much harder to be everywhere at once.. for people to be everywhere to stop them from selling.

Even if they have been forced to make sure that their boxes DONT come with the stuff on it...
Especially in a live environment... its very easy to SAY/Mention something without having any literature..
Slip you a little piece of paper with a link to somewhere else..
With a lot less likelyness of getting caught.


As well, while those companies are the ones being targeted.. all the 'shutdown' type of stuff may not have been fully actioned against them yet?
Trying to get a rush in of last minute sales, before they are.
 
#34 ·
I find it amazing that with the supreme court ruling that makes it illegal to import these boxes with the software preinstalled big companies like AMAZON.CA are allowed to get away with selling them yet everyone else has the law coming down on them like a ton of bricks. it seems that the power of money and buying power of someone like AMAZON can get away with it
 
#37 ·
I find it amazing that with the supreme court ruling that makes it illegal to import these boxes with the software preinstalled...
Just to clarify things, the case has not reached the Supreme Court. If you read the rest of the thread, you'll see that the only thing that has happened so far is that the Federal Court has issued an injunction to stop certain vendors from selling the boxes with software preinstalled. That case hasn't even gone to trial yet. After that case is decided, the losing party may appeal to the Supreme Court.

I just checked the status of the case (T-759-16) and saw that MTLFREETV.COM was ordered to pay a $15,000 fine today for contempt of court for ignoring the injunction plus $10,000 in costs to Bell, Rogers and Videotron.

It looks like a few more sellers have been added to the case, which has not gone to trial yet.

Recorded entry(ies) for T-759-16
 
#35 · (Edited)
Well, Amazon does not sell boxes with add ons which is illegal. I do not really see the law coming down on anybody.
Here in GTA many stores sell android boxes not only with add ons but iptv subscription with hundreds of Canadian, American and international channels.
Advertising it in front of the stores. All for $10 to $15 a month.
You can check Kijiji as well, hundreds of adds for iptv service, no wonder cord cutting has escalated.
 
#38 ·
cable are the real pirates

maybe if cable companies were not molesting peoples wallets people would not cut their cable and get these boxes. i deal with cogeco cable and i am thinking about getting on the band wagon cable companies are ripping people off. i often use the android box as a threat when i get into a stint with cogeco.
 
#40 ·
1) Cable is not a basic human need. If you think the price is too high, don't buy it and don't use it as an excuse to commit copyright infringement.

2) Android boxes like this are specifically configured to access unlicensed copyrighted content. You can bet that whatever Apple puts out, it'll only be configured to access properly licensed content.
 
#43 ·
1) Cable is not a basic human need. If you think the price is too high, don't buy it and don't use it as an excuse to commit copyright infringement.
I agree with you. However Internet is becoming increasingly a basic need and the TV provider and internet provider are one and the same. They keep ripping us off with ridiculous internet prices. So stick it to them as much as you please I say!
 
#41 ·
@NeilN

Thats one thing that i completely agree with. While I still agree that the price it too high in most cases.. people have to remember that most of these things are EXTRAs. You dont need it to survive. Pay for what your capable for. If you really want specific things, you may have to pay for them.


There are 100 if not 1000s of devices, which can access completely legal TV content, sometimes even live depending on what that content is. Many are from direct apps from the channel itself, not requiring a cable sub, etc.


Even most android boxes and kodi right out of the box, are set up to access LEGAL content.
Its the specific apps, that need to be loaded on it, that access the illegaly uploaded content.
 
#42 ·
Jishan

The TV app in ios 10.2/tvOS ?? is just a way of having the Apple TV device become a hub for all the other streaming services with the exception of Netflix IIRC and the TV app is not available in Canada. Nothing illegal about it, it still requires a subscription to any of the services it is acting as a hub for.
 
#44 ·
Your idea to "stick it to them" is not properly directed. The service providers are rarely the content providers (although in some cases they are, but that's not what's usually pirated - it's usually movies or TV series).

If everyone didn't pay, nothing would be produced, so you're actually harming the people who are legitimate and paying because the content providers end up charging more because of piracy. I'm one of those people who dislikes pirates who try to legitimize theft in some way because they want to decide what something's worth, rather than paying the asking price, or not buying.

People don't walk into a store and steal oranges because the price of oranges is $2.00/lb. They either buy fewer oranges, or don't eat oranges. If they do steal oranges, they are thieves, pure and simple.
 
#47 ·
Your idea to "stick it to them" is not properly directed. The service providers are rarely the content providers (although in some cases they are, but that's not what's usually pirated - it's usually movies or TV series).



If everyone didn't pay, nothing would be produced, so you're actually harming the people who are legitimate and paying because the content providers end up charging more because of piracy. I'm one of those people who dislikes pirates who try to legitimize theft in some way because they want to decide what something's worth, rather than paying the asking price, or not buying.



People don't walk into a store and steal oranges because the price of oranges is $2.00/lb. They either buy fewer oranges, or don't eat oranges. If they do steal oranges, they are thieves, pure and simple.


This reminds me of satellite stackers. I know a lot of them and they call me the sucker for paying for my own account. They say it's the best thing going and that it's a way to always combat the constant price increases not thinking that it's because they have up to 6 people all paying on a single account that accounts for the increase but somehow I'm the sucker for paying on my own. Truly we don't stream in our house and I personally could very easily get by with just purchasing my shows on BD, movies on UHD-BD and OTA with a nice TiVo Bolt but I don't think the wife could do it hence why we have two satellite subscriptions.
 
#45 ·
I understand your point that the major internet providers are also the same TV providers that have been ripping us off for years. But the best and legal way to stick it to them is to use an alternate internet provider (Teksavvy/Netfox/whatever). I totally agree with 57 that theft is theft.
 
#48 ·
The problem is that finding alternatives requires work and patience. Work to find them and patience while waiting for them to show up on streaming sites like Netflix. Even then, not all content becomes available in all regions. When content owners make their products affordable and easily accessible for everyone, the piracy problem will be solved. They already understand this but insist on inflating prices with price fixing in more affluent regions. The studios practically gave away movies in China to combat piracy. Even when they explore more efficient ways to distribute their content in NA, they keep prices at artificially high levels and pocket the savings rather than passing them on to consumers.
 
#49 ·
I think that's more of an excuse than a reality at this point. It's hard to find a major movie or TV show, beyond Netflix and Amazon originals, these days which isn't available for purchase on Google Play Movies, a service which works on Roku, Chromecast, Android TV, Apple TV (via Airplay), and PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Wii U and most smart TVs (via the YouTube app) - basically every major platform. And even in those rare cases where something isn't on GPM, you have a fall-back option on almost every platform (iTunes, Cineplex, Microsoft and Sony stores, etc).

Yes, you sometimes do have to shop around and check the subscription services to make sure you're getting the best price, but that's hardly more arduous than figuring out which channel a new show you want to watch it airing on.

Yes, sometimes you do have to wait until a TV show is done airing a season before you can buy it, but other than HBO, with many shows you can now buy a season and watch each episode the day after it airs.

If you're waiting for a single all you can consume service (a la Netflix) that will have everything you want as soon as it's available for one flat price, that's already here. We call it "cable TV." If you want to pick and pay for only the content you want on demand, that option is largely available too, but you have to be willing to actually pay for it.
 
#50 ·
That may be almost true in the US but it's a gross exaggeration for Canada. Even if it were true, it would require half a dozen streaming boxes and half a dozen service subscriptions to even get close to what you are claiming. Then there is the issue of paying up to $60 per TV season or $30 per movie to buy items that may or may not be available for streaming at a later date.

I'm not condoning piracy or making excuses. I'm just explaining why human nature causes some people to pirate content when cartels conspire to unnecessarily restrict its availability. (Not even governments can successfully restrict the availability of what people want. All they do is create organized crime.) Do people want to spend hours searching for a show or movie to watch or do they just want to find a show easily and enjoy some TV? Legitimate service providers are still making the latter too difficult and unreasonably expensive. The fact that piracy is so prevalent is proof of that.
 
#52 ·
That may be almost true in the US but it's a gross exaggeration for Canada.
For purchasing individual content, there is almost no difference between Canada and the US. Again, Google Play Movies, which works on almost every platform available, has almost every major movie or TV show available. There are some exceptions, but most TV shows are $30-50 per season or less, and most movies are $10-20. There are also regular sales. It is not necessarily cheap, but this stuff isn't cheap to produce, and if people aren't going to be sharing the burden via large cable bills, then the economics dictate that individual costs need to be higher. If you are a heavy user of TV, then you should subscribe to cable, you'll get good value from it.

Yes, there is the risk that you could buy something and then it turns up on Netflix the next day, but that's hardly new. 10 years ago you could buy a movie on DVD and have it air on TV for free the next day. This is the risk you take when you buy media. If you want to wait and see instead, that's your choice.

I cut my cable years ago. For the last few years I've had nothing but Chromecasts, Google Play Movies, Netflix, occasionally various sports streaming services, and (more recently) CraveTV. If there's something I want to watch, I check Netflix and Crave, and if it's not there I buy it on Google Play - again, no more difficult than finding the right channel on TV. I have only once found a TV show I wanted which was not on Google Play, so I bought it on blu-ray. One device, three services (plus sports), very straight forward. Other than CraveTV, which is totally non-essential to this setup, it would work on pretty much every platform available.
 
#51 ·
My biggest beef is geoblocking. If we had subscription access to content such as Hulu or Netflix USA's library there would be less piracy going on. We subscribe to PBS in our cable package. One day an episode was missed or did not record correctly and the Mrs. decides to go the the PBS website to watch it. She was geoblocked. KODI overcomes geoblocking without having to resort to a VPN service. A lot of content is legal, some not.

Undesirable behaviour can be mitigated by the CRTC and the BDU's. Instead they choose to continue to promote an oligarchy, allow exclusivity of American offerings (and hence a monopoly), and other support of Canadian re-broadcasters (network show rebroadcasting and sim-subbing).

Personally, I subscribe to a large cable package and have an Android Box and a Roku. Recent CRTC rulings have not opened up the Canadian marketplace the way the public was hoping as companies continue to throw up barriers to cheaper cable bills. So, as far as I'm concerned the CRTC can either open up the nation to cable/satellite competition; or force the BDU's hand with further regulation; or the general public will go to streaming via whatever methods are available.
 
#53 ·
We watch most TV series and movies once. Later viewings, if at all, are a year or more later. About half of them we stop watching after one or two episodes or as little at 15 minutes. Does anyone want to spend $20 or $50 for 15 minutes of viewing displeasure? Buying is not an option, especially since modern formats may not allow viewing 5 years or even 1 year later. At least my meager collection of DVDs still play after 5 or 10 years but there is no such guarantee for highly encrypted content.

I've tried Netflix. Sorry, that's also not a good option. There is enough new content to keep me happy for about 1 or 2 months a year. I tried looking for crime dramas in December. About 90% of the results consisted of low budget Spanish movies with only 2 new movies worth watching. The same goes for stand up comedy which is missing a lot of US titles and has a lot of low budget Australian and Canadian filler. Netflix has turned into yet another Canadian specialty Canadian station filled with low budget junk. Some of their original content is quite good but like many specialty stations, there is not enough to warrant a high priced year long subscription.
 
#54 ·
Then buy a single episode. They're almost all available for $2-3 each. Watch some previews first - most TV shows have trailers on Google Play right where you buy them, but you can also find them on Youtube and elsewhere. That is certainly not an unreasonable investment of time or money to test a single show.

If you need your content to be available forever, or if you somehow don't trust that Google Play or iTunes will still be around in a year, then buy it on DVD or Blu-ray. Many - I'd argue most - people can accept that the "purchase" model mostly just means that you can watch it at your leisure and multiple times over, not that you'll literally be able to watch it ad infinitum. I could still watch the DVDs I bought years ago, but I got rid of most of them because I had no interest in watching low-definition content, and they were cluttering up my home. The same will happen with the TV I've bought digitally.

As for Netflix being a "high priced year long subscription," that's beyond ludicrous. For one, Netflix is a monthly subscription, not yearly. You can always subscribe for a month, watch as much as you want, and then cancel when there's nothing left you want to watch. I keep my subscription active because Netflix has enough original content regularly being added that I feel I get my money's worth, but you certainly do not have to do this.

Two, Netflix is available for as little as $8/month (or $10 for HD). Even if there's just one season of one show that you want to watch, if you consider $10 to be "high priced" then there is never going to be a model that works for you.

Honestly, there are real drawbacks (varying availability timelines, incomplete back-catalogues, lack of local news/events and sports) to this system, but you're missing them in favour of the same lame arguments consistently trotted out by pirates who have no interest in paying for anything no matter what.

Again, if you want to pay one flat rate and have access to everything, then you can do that right now through your local telecom. If you want to only pay for the things you want to watch, on demand, you can do that right now on almost every TV platform. If you want unlimited access to everything and have it cost next to nothing, then you're always going to be a pirate.
 
#55 ·
What I want to do is watch new content commercial free and for a small fee at the same time as it is released on TV or at the theater. That can be on a series, episode or subscription basis. That is rarely available. It's a model that would not be difficult to implement. I believe HBO does this with their US service and Netflix essentially does it with their original content. The studios have experimented with this in the past but it's not widely available. Now that most older adults have abandoned movie theaters and younger adults are not to subscribing traditional broadcasting services, it makes sense. As usual, the broadcasting industry is years behind modern trends. It's just too bad that many people resort to piracy to fill the gap. Broadcasters and studios should be developing ways to turn this into a marketing opportunity, not a way of punishing people who want to consume their products.
 
#57 ·
What I want to do is watch new content commercial free and for a small fee at the same time as it is released on TV or at the theater. That can be on a series, episode or subscription basis. That is rarely available.
We're already almost there with TV. Many (most?) TV shows are available less than 24 hours after they air on broadcast TV - hardly an unreasonable timeline, I think. I bought Season 2 of Mr Robot in HD for $22.49 the day before the first episode aired. When a new episode became available (the day after it aired on TV) I was notified on my phone that a new episode was available for me to watch. I was able to watch it, ad-free, pretty much anywhere I wanted. I still have access to it. And, because I have a family library set up, my extended family are able to easily, legally, and legitimately watch the content I purchased.

There's definitely room for improvement - it doesn't always work that nicely. I would like every show to be available to purchase the day after it aired. I still can't watch Westworld, which is annoying. I would like every purchasing service to be much more comprehensive, with full back-catalogues available, but I have faith that that's only a matter of time.

We've come a long, long way already, and there's lots of reason to believe that things will continue to rapidly improve. Like HBO, CBS is also making available content on the same day as broadcast in the US (and also working on original content for streaming only). Netflix is making a point of acquiring international rights for content now. Amazon is no longer licensing international rights to their shows.

There will continue to be holdouts. I don't think we'll see HBO commoditizing themselves by releasing individual seasons for purchase in advance on iTunes or Google Play any time soon. But I could see a year from now where HBO, Netflix, and Amazon are the only major holdouts from that system. And I do see Bell launching a streaming only service for current HBO content.

But even today, the system might not be perfect, but it's hardly unusable. As long as you're willing to pay for the things you want, there are good options available.
 
#58 ·
There's some recycled piracy is theft discussion here. To use the stealing oranges analogy, it's comparing apples to oranges. Stealing an orange is theft that can lead to a criminal charge but streaming an apple is at most a copyright infringement, that's a civil not criminal charge. Philosophically, we can see the difference: if I steal an orange and eat it, no one else can eat that orange. If I stream a video about apples, it still exists for the owner and others to watch. Intellectual property deserves compensation but it isn't in the same class of property as a physical object.
 
#60 ·
You are right it is not in the same class. If you still an orange the loss to the store could be around 50 cents but if you pirate a movie, a show or live channel over pirate iptv and make it available world wide for free, the loss could be in millions of dollars.
 
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