UK police raid stream box sellers, 1000+ units seized
Last month Amazon removed the popular plugin Kodi from its app store.
When combined with third-party plugins, Kodi is easily the platform of choice among stream box sellers.
Now the crackdown continues, with news of UK police raiding sellers of stream-capable piracy boxes.
An initial raid on one seller was carried out Trading Standards officers, police and representatives from Sky TV on June 12th, with a followup raid on June 30th seeing over a thousand piracy boxes seized;
Officers from the Metropolitan Police carried out raids in Feltham, Middlesex.
A 48-year-old-man and a woman were arrested and more than 1,000 set-top boxes were seized.
Further north in the West Midlands town of Walsall, police seized “dozens” of pieces of electronics including set-top boxes, computers and sat nav systems.
A 50-year-old man was voluntarily interviewed by police and FACT investigators.
The second raid is of particular significance, as it was carried out
after a joint investigation by the Metropolitan Police and the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) into the sales of set-top boxes programmed to provide access to movies, TV shows, live sports and subscription channels without permission.
Assisting with the raids were officers from both the Regional Organized Crime Unit (ROCU) and Government Agency Intelligence Network (GAIN).
As far as I know, the two arrests today mark the first in relation to the selling of stream-capable piracy boxes.
Not surprisingly, as we’ve predicted in every MLM piracy box review here on BehindMLM, the issue authorities have with the boxes is not the technology itself, but rather the boxes marketed as all you can eat pirated content free-for-all buffets.
While selling any of the above devices alone is entirely legal, over the past couple of years online markets such as eBay and Amazon have been flooded with “fully loaded” boxes (Android-based in particular) that enable free viewing of anything from first run movies to live sports.
Surprisingly, many vendors have been happy to publicly advertise that fact, with many apparently under the impression that if they don’t provide the illegal content themselves then they aren’t liable.
In the UK that argument is unlikely to fly.
Indeed. Here at BehindMLM we’ve seen this argument raised often by affiliates of MLM stream box companies.
The general gist of the argument is that, as long as the MLM company itself isn’t hosting the illegal content they and their affiliates openly advertise is available via use of their purpose-built piracy boxes, affiliates believe they themselves aren’t facilitating piracy.
Above is a screenshot of how one of the raided sellers was advertising their piracy boxes. Looks awfully similar to how MLM stream box affiliates market their company’s respective devices.
Details of the charges those arrested are facing have yet to surface, but you’ve got to wonder… how long before we start seeing similar raids in the US?
Update 7th August 2017 – While the MLM piracy-box streaming niche is all but dead, the criminal case against streambox sellers in the UK continues.
Julian Allen was arrested after raids at ‘Geeky Kit’ premises in Billingham and Middlesbrough in the north of England.
This January, Allen appeared before Teesside Crown Court charged with laundering £135,173, money said to have been generated via the sale of pre-loaded set-top boxes and premium packages over a 30-month period.
Allen was expected to appear for a week-long trial scheduled to start this Monday but that was scrapped after the 40-year-old pleaded guilty to using or acquiring criminal property.
According to Gazette Live, a proceeds of crime hearing has been scheduled for next year.
In the meantime, Allen was granted unconditional bail until sentencing on October 20, where he faces a potential jail sentence.
Allen is the guy who owned the “Free Stream TV Box” storefront above. He’d argued he didn’t provide copyright content and therefore wasn’t liable.
Guess that wasn’t a defense worth taking to trial after all.
The only MLM company I have seen that appears legal is VStream TV, as they are not loading the boxes with anything but Kodi. The end user must download any additional addons themselves.
I think the company that needs to be worried about this article is Amazon.com, which is shipping fully loaded android TV boxes from their warehouses and providing customer service and gift wrapping. I would not be surprised if they are hit with a huge lawsuit from the entertainment industry.
It is nice to see one company doing it right, good job VStream.
not paying for chargeable content is a crime, selling TV boxes which are capable of streaming non free content and advertising them as such, is a crime.
don’t hide behind amazon. amazon is a big boy and will fight its own battles. just worry about v stream, because it is clearly illegal.
look at the action in the UK. several agencies have come together to launch an attack on ‘free TV’. it’s only downhill from here, for all the various streaming box MLM’s which have been springing up like a fashion weed.
Just a quick search on Amazon for android boxes, and you get hundreds of sellers like this one:
All shipped from Amazon, they even offer free shipping if your are an Amazon Prime member and a 2 year protection plan.
As long as that is going on, I don’t think MLM companies have anything to worry about. Especially legit ones like VStream.
still on the ‘Amazon’ deflection to justify your scam I see.
I have used the Ubox and the Vstream. The Vstream came with nothing on it but Netflix, Youtube a browser and KODI with nothing in KODI. I had to figure how to load my own Apps.
The UBOX came with everything in KODI preloaded like the Amazon boxes. The Vstream company must be more educated on the legality of these products.
Amazon’s ‘customer service’ is limited to returns and DOAs.
It’s up to the seller to follow the local laws on what is legal or not. Amazon would gladly follow a court order to ship all the boxes to the authorities, but as those are simply stored (consigned?) at Amazon by the individual sellers, in the end Amazon just lost a tiny bit of labor and potential future transaction fees.
As for what’s loaded makes it legal or not… Nope, it’s what’s being ADVERTISED.
So you are saying I cannot sell a laptop computer by advertising that it can get over 100,000 movies and TV shows over the internet?
Please show any supporting documents that show it is illegal to show someone how to access copyrighted content from their computer. If you are not hosting the 3rd party sites, I am pretty sure you can show someone where they are. That is crazy talk.
I don’t think that will make much legal difference?
It isn’t the software itself that is copyrighted / illegal to install. It’s the copyrighted material people watch. So it shouldn’t make much legal difference whether the boxes are “fully loaded” or “half loaded”.
There’s a “technical difference” there but not a legal difference. It means you won’t find any legal rules supporting the theory that “half loaded boxes” should be treated differently.
It’s a risky business. It’s difficult to identify the correct legal rules, other than that it is about copyright infringement. Copyright rules will usually favorize the copyright owners.
And Amazon is making a fortune off of these boxes too. And it is Amazon, not the seller, that is required to follow the law.
They are allowing the product to be advertised on their servers, they are shipping the product from their warehouses, and they are collecting the money on their merchant accounts. Gimme a break bro.
Except you’d be lying, and you’ll have to show them a long and complicated procedure on how to do it. You can turnkey it, but then you’d be just as guilty as the people you’re talking about.
No they’re not. It’s the individual sellers that own those boxes. Amazon’s just the fulfillment and storage service. Vendors ship their stuff to Amazon warehouses to be reshipped to clients later.
Learn how Amazon ACTUALLY works rather than rely on your imagination.
Not trying to justify anything. Either it is legal or its not. Just because a store was raided in the UK, doesn’t mean that it is illegal here. There are no charges yet because there is nothing to charge them with.
There is no way to prove that anyone watched copyrighted content. It isn’t like Napster, where you can see who downloaded what, etc.
Nothing is downloaded or stored on the box. It is completely legal for users to stream copyrighted content in their home for personal use as long as no copies are made.
And at least with VStream, it is up to the end user to download whatever addons they want. The box is a computer that they can use on their TV to connect to their email account, Facebook, Skype, Netflix, Youtube, access the web, and if they choose they can access copyrighted content.
This is from a recent court case in Europe:
That is negative senior. It is completely turnkey. Go do some of your research.
And what difference does it make? I said I can show them how to do it. Who cares if it is turnkey or a “long and complicated procedure”? Once you show them, you show them.
Is that legal or not to show someone how to do it or not? If it’s not, show me how you came to that conclusion or are you just relying on your imagination.
Which case are you referring to?
I have seen a similar example somewhere in another discussion, but it turned out to be about a different type of streaming. It was about watching online content like for example Youtube or Vimeo while browsing the internet.
A user can’t be expected to separate between legal and illegal content in situations like that. It would be completely unfair to normal internet users if they would need to check permissions for all types of material.
Are you trying to tell us that VStream TV users are watching movies through a web browser?
Yes, watching movies is from a website that hosts it.
curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=153302&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=req&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=399092
I didn’t ask about that, I asked about whether the VStream TV users watched movies through a web browser (Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, FireFox, Safari, etc., but not limited to those).
A web browser is designed for multiple types of web-content. It isn’t specifically designed for streaming, that’s just an additional function it has (not a primary function).
The court case you referred to seemed to be about that type of use, a “browsing the internet” type of use. So it didn’t really support your arguments.
The box itself is just a computer. It does not store any data, and the company itself does not host any websites. All content viewed by users comes from the internet, from 3rd party websites that host the content.
It does stream from websites that host the content, it does not say it has to be through any particular browser however, or any browser for that matter.
And the box does not come loaded with any 3rd party addons. When you get it and connect it to your TV and internet, you can access your email accounts, Facebook, browse the internet, Skype, access your Netflix account if you have one.
It does have Kodi installed, but no addons. This is something the end user must add themselves, just like they would on their home computer.
Thank you for the link. curia.europa.eu case id 399092 “PRCA v. NLA”
What the case was about:
VStream TV users don’t exactly “view websites”?
That case wasn’t very relevant. It’s about something completely different than streaming.
As far as I can see, the temporary copies stored on the computer are not illegal. But there hasn’t been any disputes about it either.
The content that is viewed is from a website somewhere. It is on the internet. How else can you view something on the internet if it is not on some website?
If you watch a video on YouTube, you are viewing it from a website. It absolutely has everything to do with streaming.
Correct.
Correct, I believe. I’m not that familiar with the functions of a particular set-box.
Correct, I believe.
“you can access your email accounts, Facebook, etc.”. Is that the primary function, e.g. the main reason for why people are buying those boxes?
A court will usually not look at how something CAN be used. It will look at the most common uses, the main reasons for why people are buying it. How it’s intended to be used, or how average consumers see its uses when they buy it.
I don’t think “fully loaded” / “half loaded” will be important. It’s a “technical difference”, but that’s all.
It can look like a type of “pseudo compliance”, like people intentionally are trying to bend some rules based on some weird legal ideas.
But I’m unable to identify those legal ideas in the context of copyright laws. Copyright laws usually don’t have that type of technical exemptions.
This is the relevant quote of the court’s ruling:
Bottom line is that nothing is going to happen to anyone selling these boxes. That is my prediction. I think we are done here.
And oh yeah, if you don’t have a box, you should get one, they are AWESOME!!!
The main points in that judgment didn’t revolve around whether the content was stored on a website. It was about whether those temporary COPIES stored on the users’ computers qualified as “making copies”.
Temporary copies are related to how the computer works, rather than to the user’s intentions.
How it was stored on the internet wasn’t an essential part of the case, as far as I can see.
I’m not familiar with any relevant UK court cases. I tried to google it, but I only found that “Popcorn Time” had been banned (and The Verge expected the ban to have little effect).
theverge.com/2015/4/29/8513009/popcorn-time-to-be-blocked-in-the-uk
@Chris
Does vStreamTV provide any instructions on where to obtain the third-party plugins?
Does vStreamTV provide any software and/or updates to automate the acquisition of third-party plugins?
If vStreamTV or any of there affiliates are doing either of the above, then it’s just pseudo-compliance.
If not, how can they justify selling an non-piracy preloaded Android box for hundreds of dollars when you can get them for less than $50?
When a walk into a PC store and buy a PC nobody is giving me instructions on how to download Kodi third-party plugins (or supplying me with tools to automate the process) to access illegal unlicensed content. So that argument goes out the window too.
Vstream is a total scam! What a joke coming here to defend such a bloated piece of crap box!
@Chris
Torrent streaming is one way and there are plenty others.
Welcome to the internet.
There hasn’t been any disputes about that. Temporary copies stored by the computer itself (for pre-loading, etc.) doesn’t qualify as “making unauthorized copies”.
Those temporary copies are not illegal. They have a different primary function than “making copies”.
A court must look at the realities of the case, and that court showed clearly that it didn’t focus on “technical details”. So you can’t expect it to accept your ideas either.
you are arguing whether individual people can watch streamed stuff legally or not.
‘personal use’ is justified as long as copies are not being made,stored or shared. this is not an argument in favor of streaming boxes, but about the legality of ‘personal use’.
you must instead study the position of the law about ‘providing devices’ which allow free streaming, where the ‘intent’ is clear that these boxes can be used to access copyrighted material.
people using these boxes may not be hauled off by the law because they are indulging in personal use, but the commercial seller of such advertised ‘devices’ will be ‘responsible’ for putting this technology in the market, with clear encouragement on how it is to be used.
the relevant case for the legal view of this matter would be:
MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd, 2005, which is a US Supreme Court decision, where the bench unanimously found that:
get??
How did you come to that conclusion?
Personal use from legitimate sources should normally be legal. But these TV-boxes are primarily designed to give access to illegal sources.
You can’t use the reasoning “Since streaming from legitimate sources are legal, then those illegitimate sources will be legal too”. A reasoning like that won’t make any sense.
In Germany, they may receive an invoice from a lawfirm for illegal download of copyrighted material. Average amount €815.
They may receive the same in Norway too, but the lawfirm will first try another method (a type of warning).
well i may not make sense to you, so let me patch you through to Jim Gibson, director of the Intellectual Property Institute at the University of Richmond law school.
jim gibson told the business insider magazine pretty much the same thing that i concluded ie:
on the other hand ‘inducing’ people to watch illegally streamed stuff is illegal. so, a company selling devices, or streaming websites, that ‘induce’ people to access illegal copyrighted stuff is where you enter illegal territory.
its all about ‘intent’. as ‘intent’ is a non tangible quality, courts do an intensive case by case study, to see where the ‘intent’ is clearly mischievous.
businessinsider.in/How-Sketchy-Streaming-Sites-Really-Work-And-Why-Some-Are-Legal/articleshow/34169906.cms
Similarly, in Australia,
and
i’m seeing the term ‘downloading’ here NOT ‘streaming’.
downloading means a ‘copy’ has been created, streaming is temporary in nature.
In Canada:
The reality is something ALREADY HAPPENED to people selling these boxes. After all that’s the headline of this page.
Sounds like you forgot some qualifiers, since you don’t seem to be the “I reject your reality” type.
Best 70 notes i ever spent on one of these bibi 50 a month sky!!
California Penal Code Section 31 provides in relevant part:
Thus, those persons who are commonly referred to as “accessories” or “accomplices” as well as those who actually perpetrate the offense, are to be prosecuted, tried and punished as principals in California. (Penal Code Section 971.)
And for Federal Law..
Kodi is (Ozedit: irrelevant. The issue is the marketing of purpose-built piracy boxes.)
It appears that those that would argue that viewing pirated content on these boxes is okay – have not done one iota of research on the subject.
The first thing that will kick them in the head is waking up one morning, turning on their computer and finding a warning from their cable provider (ISP) that their service has been shut down as a warning that they are viewing pirated material.
They will have to acknowledge the warning for service to be restored. Once they restore, if they continue they will be cut off permanently.
The second kick in the head will come when their MLM is raided or shutdown as is beginning to happen as shown above.
The 3rd kick will come when their customers or distributors who have invested money want revenge for being screwed out of their money.
The 4th kick will be that because they recommended and defended this bunk, their reputations will be tarnished and in the future their associates will be very reluctant to do business with them.
And for those who keep arguing that there is no pirated material – please google “Yify pirate” You will find that Yify is one of the biggest pirated material offenders out there.
Then go to the VStream TV Webinar dated 2 26 15. At 5 minutes 26 seconds into the webinar, you will notice Yify and IceFilms (another pirate) all over the demonstration TV screen.
I know that for most of the defenders I am wasting my time writing this, but if you still have one ounce of sense or morality – stop now before hurting any more people with this certain fail.
Article updated with news of one of the arrested sellers pleading guilty to using or acquiring criminal property.
He’s now facing jail time and an additional proceeds of crime hearing has been scheduled for next year.