[HN Gopher] EU Opinion: Streaming Services Are Not Liable for VP...
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       EU Opinion: Streaming Services Are Not Liable for VPN 'Pirates'
        
       Author : gslin
       Score  : 19 points
       Date   : 2022-10-28 20:04 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (torrentfreak.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (torrentfreak.com)
        
       | sschueller wrote:
       | Geo blocking is streaming and content companies living in the
       | past. They are creating this issue them selves but are too stupid
       | or old to stop selling exclusive rights to TV and streaming
       | services in other countries. At the same time these foreign
       | companies need to stop wasting money on something that will
       | eventually go away.
       | 
       | How stupid is it for HBO to sell exclusive rights in part of
       | Europe for their shows to Sky streaming when HBO can deliver this
       | content directly. This isn't 90, people are hardly watching cable
       | TV.
       | 
       | This whole thing reminds me of blockbuster that didn't want to
       | lose that small percentage of late fees in order to switch to a
       | Netflix type model. Just no competing system at the moment.
       | 
       | I guess it's easier to sell a shit show to a single entity then
       | trying to convince your subscribers to watch it.
        
       | dontbenebby wrote:
       | >One of the key questions for the CJEU is whether online
       | streaming services are liable for copyright infringement if their
       | subscribers use VPN services to bypass geo-blocking efforts. EU
       | Advocate General Maciej Szpunar shared his advice on the matter
       | this week... The opinion of AG Szpunar compares the current case
       | to existing EU jurisprudence on hyperlinks, concluding that a
       | streaming service doesn't violate the law when subscribers bypass
       | its geo-blocking efforts.
       | 
       | Why do EU folks use malware laden streaming services that harm
       | the earth (wastes electricity) rather than torrent stuff as
       | needed then hold onto it in the medium term?
       | 
       | Aside from being worried about leaving... extreme content...
       | behind on the hard drive... it doesn't make sense to stream over
       | and over, especially if it's an unreliable source like some shady
       | streaming service that's probably got all sorts of weird
       | javascript lurking alongside whatever is used to play the video.
       | 
       | (With "the video" probably just being something on Youtube hoping
       | no one copyright flags it)
       | 
       | I never kept a formal library, just would fill the empty space on
       | my hard drive with axxo rips, stuff rotten tomatoes said was
       | good, and whatever was well seeded that wasn't hardcore
       | pornography.
       | 
       | (I always found the mix of "Welcome to the internet, here is a
       | high(ish) resolution DVD rip of your favorite Sofia Coppola film.
       | Would you also like some incredibly degrading pornography?" you
       | get when you sort by what's well seeded incredibly dark in a bad
       | way, and that's speaking as someone who may have briefly ended up
       | on a department of homeland security watchlist because I
       | researched United States v. Valle too much back when I was
       | attempting OSCP.)
       | 
       | Anyways, good decision IMHO but I'm not European right now, so I
       | guess my opinion doesn't matter :-)
        
         | saurik wrote:
         | > Why do EU folks use malware laden streaming services that
         | harm the earth (wastes electricity) rather than torrent stuff
         | as needed then hold onto it in the medium term?
         | 
         | I want to be sympathetic to your position on moral grounds, but
         | I am having a hard time understanding this more technical
         | complaint... I certainly have a lot of downloaded media but it
         | isn't clear to me that it saves electricity?
         | 
         | I also feel like you are making an assumption that people watch
         | the same content over and over again, which maybe is true for a
         | hardcore fan of a show like The Office, but I am a _heavy_ user
         | of these services--watching content (maybe only passively while
         | doing other tasks) almost all day, every day--and it is
         | extremely rare that I watch the same content even twice.
         | 
         | (It is sufficiently rare that I can cite a very notable-to-me
         | example: I decided to watch How I Met Your Mother through a
         | second time this month, but since the last time I watched it
         | was a decade ago it isn't clear to me that it would have made
         | sense--with respect to your stated electricity concern--for me
         | to maintain the storage locally for that entire show for a
         | decade--during which time I have needed to replace all the
         | disks on my home RAID array at least once--on the off chance
         | that I suddenly got inspired to watch that show again.)
        
       | CleverLikeAnOx wrote:
       | > the person who bypasses the restrictions should be held
       | responsible, not the platform where they are published.
       | 
       | I wonder where this line of thinking will lead. Will content
       | licensors start demanding logs from streaming services and go
       | after vpn users directly?
        
         | anikom15 wrote:
         | They can if they want to. The licensors don't have to comply
         | though.
        
           | [deleted]
        
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       (page generated 2022-10-28 23:02 UTC)