cash wrote:

Is the product illegal? 

That's actually a good question. I'm not sure. They're obviously for sale in reputable places, so the answer, at first blush, would appear to be no.

Rocks aren't illegal either. But if you throw one into a store window so you can steal the display, that's against the law. It's not the rock, it's what you did with it. Maybe that's the principle that's in question here. It's not the box, it's what you access through it.

This should be a fascinating case to watch, if it ever gets to court. 

RadioActive wrote:

cash wrote:

Is the product illegal? 

That's actually a good question. I'm not sure. They're obviously for sale in reputable places, so the answer, at first blush, would appear to be no.

Rocks aren't illegal either. But if you throw one into a store window so you can steal the display, that's against the law. It's not the rock, it's what you did with it. Maybe that's the principle that's in question here. It's not the box, it's what you access through it.

This should be a fascinating case to watch, if it ever gets to court. 

I thought streaming was legal but downloading was not. 
 

RadioActive wrote:

I'm no lawyer (and I don't play one on TV) but I don't think watching copyright material without paying the creators or distributors for it is legal - no matter how you receive it. But I certainly remain to be corrected by those more in the know.

IPTV is not illegal in Canada. It's a gray area. 
Streaming is legal.  
Don't like that? Then Shut down your stream and go back to the way you made money in the 80's. 
(not literally!! What I mean is force a method where Super Channel can only be seen on a Rogers Nextbox exclusively, or something-including a bell box of some sort...etc)

There's gotta be a way to do that. How did pay TV get into the home before the days of the internet? 

 

Soooo, they want my name because I bought Nvidia shields for my dumb TV's so I can stream Netflix and Amazon and DAZN and CBC Gem?  Idiots.

pinto wrote:

Soooo, they want my name because I bought Nvidia shields for my dumb TV's so I can stream Netflix and Amazon and DAZN and CBC Gem?  Idiots.

And therein lies the crux of the case and why Super Channel may have trouble getting customer names. You CAN watch unpaid-for copyrighted material through the box. But maybe you're using it for what Pinto is doing, streaming a perfectly legal service like Netflix. It may be tough for the company to prove to a judge beyond any doubt that every single owner is using it to watch material they haven't paid for. 

And you can imagine how impossible it would be to take on each person individually. 

I can see where they could potentially win a case against Staples, Best Buy et. al. (and even that's not a given.) But to get YOUR name is going to take a lot more than just suspicion. Right now, to my mind, that's all they have.  

Super Channel are getting people talking about them...for the first time ever.

I personally don't see them having a chance in hell of getting anywhere with this lawsuit.  Best Buy has some pretty deep pockets as well, and there is nothing illegal about selling them.  They claim to have video of a salesperson telling a customer how to manipulate the box.  Is that legal without the consent of the Best Buy or the Sales Person?

I own an Nvidea Shield I bought at Best Buy.  I use it for my Bell Fibe App, Netflix, Prime and Crave.  Nothing illegal here.  So don't assume that's what all people do with a streaming device.  Those people buy cheap boxes off of Amazon and Ebay.  Maybe that's who they should go after.