3 Count: Kodi Breaker

Cracking the Kodi...

3 Count LogoHave any suggestions for the 3 Count? Let me know via Twitter @plagiarismtoday.

1: EU Court Rules Selling Pre-Loaded Pirate Boxes is Illegal

First off today, Matt Brian at Engadget reports that the European Court of Justice has ruled that “fully loaded” Kodi boxes are illegal as they greatly aid in piracy.

The case pits the Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN against the one-person business Filmspeler. Filmspeler sold “fully loaded” Kodi boxes, streaming boxes that came preloaded with open source software enables the users to access illegal streaming services. Such boxes have been extremely popular but also extremely controversial as, in the U.S., Amazon just banned such devices for sale on its service.

In the EU, the issues as to whether such boxes infringed copyright hinged upon whether such boxes amounted to “communication with the public” of copyright-protected works. A district court in the Netherlands referred the case to the European Court of Justice, which has now found that it is indeed a communication, making them illegal.

2: YouTuber Faces Jail Time for his Movie Parodies, as Angry Studios Say His Videos Hurt Sales

Next up today, Yi Shu Ng at Mashable repots that Taiwanese YouTuber Chung Wei-ding, better known as AmoGood, is being sued by film distributor AutoAi Design, for copyright infringement over his parodies of major films.

AmoGood’s videos, done in a style similar to CinemaSins and other popular U.S. YouTube channels, parodies films by recapping the plot in a very short period of time and adding in extra jokes, observations or research. However, several studios have been upset with such channels saying that they give away the plot of the film and hurt sales.

Though, in the U.S., such YouTubers would have a strong fair use claim, Taiwan law does not recognize paordy as a fair use. Though the law does consider other factors, AmoGood’s case is much more difficult to make. To make matters worse for him, if he is found to have infringed, he will not only face civil penalties but could face up to 5 years in prison.

3: Facebook Lets Content Owners Claim Ad Earnings of Pirated Videos

Finally today, Josh Constine at TechCrunch reports that Facebook has launched an update to its Facebook Rights Manager Tool, this one allowing copyright holders to “claim ad earnings” on other user’s uploads if they contain copyrighted material used without permission.

The move makes Facebook’s Rights Manager closer in feature set to YouTube’s Content ID, which has provided such earnings for years. The tool works by having content creators upload copies of their work into a database, which is then matched to Facebook users’ uploads. Rights holders are notified and then can take action.

Facebook Rights Manager was launched following a controversy over “freebooting”, which was where users would download popular videos on YouTube or other services and reupload them to Facebook as a means of gaining large amounts of views.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today. We will be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

The 3 Count Logo was created by Justin Goff and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

Want to Reuse or Republish this Content?

If you want to feature this article in your site, classroom or elsewhere, just let us know! We usually grant permission within 24 hours.

Click Here to Get Permission for Free