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ABS-CBN Targets ‘Pirate’ Streaming Box Vendor in Canada


Desperado

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Media giant ABS-CBN has filed a lawsuit in Canada against a local vendor of 'pirate' set-top boxes. Through the legal action the company hopes to recoup a healthy CAD$5 million in damages from the small shop located in a Brampton mall.

 

manila.png

 

ABS-CBN, the largest media and entertainment company in the Philippines, is continuing its legal campaign against piracy.

Over the past several years, the company has singled out dozens of streaming sites that offer access to ‘Pinoy’ content without permission, both in the US and abroad.

This week it filed a new case in Canada, that’s different from the ones we’ve seen before. Instead of going after site operators, ABS-CBN is suing a ‘bricks-and-mortar’ store located at the Kennedy Square Mall in Brampton, Ontario.

The company announced that it has filed a lawsuit at the Canadian Federal Court seeking CAD$2.5 million in damages for alleged copyright and infringement, and another CAD$2.5 million for trademark infringement.

The vendor, incorporated as Dazcon Inc, reportedly sold streaming boxes that allowed users to access movies and TV-shows. The devices in question are BuzzTV boxes pre-configured with a pirate add-on.

Dazcon appears to be a small vendor, also known as “Manila Center,” that offers a variety of products and services oriented at Philipino customers in Ontario. It’s also an agent for LBC Express, for example, which offers money and mail services to the Philipines.

 

                                                                        Manila Center

 

manilacenter.jpg

 

A copy of the complaint, obtained by TorrentFreak, shows that the vendor is accused of selling devices pre-loaded with copyrighted works. In addition, it also offered devices that were able to circumvent ABS-CBN’s technical protection measures.

“In furtherance of this scheme, the Defendants, individually and/or collectively, sold set-top boxes for the primary purpose of circumventing the Plaintiffs’ TPMS and permitting unauthorized access to the ABS-CBN Copyrighted Works,” the complaint reads.

“As a consequence of the actions of the Defendants, the public is enabled to receive the ABS-CBN Copyrighted Works via circumvention of the Plaintiffs’ encryption, all without the authority, license or permission of any of the Plaintiffs,” it adds.

ABS-CBN alleges that Dazcon manually installed an add-on to the set-top boxes which made the infringements possible. The name of this offending add-on is not mentioned in the complaint.

 

                                                        From the complaint

 

dazconduct.png

 

In addition to the CAD$5 million in damages, the media company also requests an injunction preventing the vendor from engaging in any copyright infringement of its works in the future, as well as an order granting it custody of the set-top boxes.

Interestingly, the vendor in question was outed by ABS-CBN’s own customers, the company reports while warning others to remain vigilant.

“Beware of these operations that are not licensed or affiliated in any way with ABS-CBN,” says Elisha Lawrence the company’s Head of Global Anti-Piracy.

“If you have any suspicions of other boxes being sold that are not affiliated with ABS-CBN, please call the ABS-CBN office in the U.S. or Canada to verify. We will continue to protect customers by shutting these operations down.”

While the requested amount of damages may appear quite high, history has shown that this is not unusual for the media giant.

In the US, the company won $1 million judgments against 19 pirate sites last years, and earlier it won a $10 million judgment against the operator of another small streaming site. Whether any of these damages were actually paid is unknown.

 

Torrent Freak - By Ernesto - May 10, 2018

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2 hours ago, Desperado said:

ABS-CBN, the largest media and entertainment company in the Philippines, is continuing its legal campaign against piracy.

 

 

ending piracy is not the best option, it will continue to exist as long as there is existence. :lol:

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6 hours ago, KRS said:

 

ending piracy is not the best option, it will continue to exist as long as there is existence. :lol:

I'm against   them selling boxes loaded with free Kodi addons for a profit . You can go out and buy a TV box.  NVIDIA SHIELD is a good one for a  few 100 bucks and put kodi  and others apps on it and install the addons you like . Kodi can be used on PC or Phone as well it's best to learn it yourself the more you learn  it will always stay working . It would take a noob to buy a preloaded  box full of broke addons. But most Kodi users don't have any conman sense they dont realize that links go  dead , some sites you have to pair etc, They go out and buy a loaded  box they think they bought Netfilx  or something . It's like the masses are using  software that they have no business using because there not technically inclined enough to fix it without someone spoon feeding them the way.  If there is a repo out there and  the addons are the ones i like i will have it all setup and working in no time and even have backups to put on my other OSes all for free except  for what i pay for my leecher witch is not required it just makes streams play better in some cases.   B)  :dance2:

 

They could wipe all these Pirate Box sellers out and it would not  put a dent in piracy it would only make it harder on noobs who have no business buying this crap to began with It's pure junk and if it even works most likely 6 months  from when they bought the box  it want unless they learn to load it themselves  . Kodi boxes were not even a thing tell just a few years ago  .:lol:

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They will never dent pirating in the Philippines.  It's literally part of the culture.  When I lived there there was actually a senator that proposed legalizing piracy and deconstructing code to give Philippines a competitive advantage in that shady segment.  And, when they catch someone there's nothing worth having beyond cease-and-desist satisfaction.  That's why they're going after the mall owners and others.  There's no money to collect and, like all good pirates, people pride themselves on stealing whatever content they can obtain free of charge.  While I realize content owners have to do it, this is whack-a-mole at it's zenith. 

 

The shame of it is many of us would like the content at a fair charge.  In my area, Spectrum charges $30/mo for 4 channels (2 worth having) and that's just too much a premium to the cable bill given the low quality content.  I get HBO, & 3 others for less than that.

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On 2018/05/14 at 9:23 AM, davmil said:

The shame of it is many of us would like the content at a fair charge.  In my area, Spectrum charges $30/mo for 4 channels (2 worth having) and that's just too much a premium to the cable bill given the low quality content.  I get HBO, & 3 others for less than that.

We pay for DirecTV satellite  and i can sign in and watch all kinds of stuff on my PC on the internet   but this  just USA channels,  but also i have a portable Kodi by  thumbapps that has a dedicated free live TV build  on it  i loaded myself with a TV guide it has channels from all over the world .  USA , Canada  and UK plus  others . And this is for free  but the quality is mostly just SD but hey it's free. :D But as far as   Movies  I have and on demand Kodi  build i made myself  . You can watch pure blu-ray  4k and 1080p with it if you're internet is fast enough .Movies come out faster on hosters and torrents than they do on iptv or cable  .So on demand is were it is at. IPTV  is good for live sports or if you want to watch a show as soon as it airs,  but most TV shows will be on the internet anywhere from from a 1 hour to 24 hours latter on demand.

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