The ongoing and often extreme and overreaching battle against piracy within the audiovisual industry continues to escalate, with recent discussions focusing on devices capable of infringing intellectual property (IP) rights. As stated by Sheila Cassells, Executive VP at the Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance (AAPA), companies in the entertainment sector should be wary of “any technological development” that could potentially grant access to pirated content.

From historical technology like the VCR to modern advances like AI, all technology holds inherent potentials for piracy.

At the center of these discussions are specific devices including set-top boxes, Firesticks, and Android apps, often condemned for enabling piracy. The AAPA’s somewhat radical standpoint is a call to outlaw the production, marketing, and distribution of any such device.

  • CalcProgrammer1@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    By that logic pencils are banned since you can plagiarize copyrighted text with them. Can’t teach kids to write, because writing is a tool of piracy.

    • SokathHisEyesOpen@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      This is how they do it though. “We’re going to ban everything!” Some months later 10 things are banned. Regular people “Whew! Well at least they only banned 10 things and not everything. We’re so lucky!”.

    • PinkPanther@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Sand must also be illegal, since we can technically write in sand, which could be used for copyright infringement. What a fucking idiot.

    • Holzkohlen@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      You might use your brain to remember scenes from a movie. You ever heard someone recite movie dialogue? That’s copyright infringemet. Line up for your mandatory brain wipe.

  • SokathHisEyesOpen@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    The AAPA’s somewhat radical standpoint is a call to outlaw the production, marketing, and distribution of any such device.

    That’s not “somewhat radical”, it’s absolutist insanity. They want full control of everyone, so they can extract maximum profit, individuality and freedom be damned.

  • Alpharius@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 year ago

    Let’s ban computers then. Oh you can share content from these various technologies ? Ban them ! Your CPU is able to process data of any kind ? Banned ! You made a code project that is able to process and share data ? Banned !

    This whole trend of banning things that “can” be used to make any illegal activities is ridiculous. VPNs are widely used by pirates and criminals to share illegal content on the web but it is also a very powerful tool to escape censorship and obtain a certain of privacy on the web. Tor also falls into it, while ironically being made by the US army, is also a very good free tool for activists of all kind to express their claims and evade censorship as well. Torrent was made to transfer files of any kind as a peer to peer technology and is still very useful outside of sharing illegal content.

    If we start banning every tools used by the common people for normal (and legal) practices because a small group of people use them for illegal purpose, everything will be restricted, banned or heavily regulated.

    • winterayars@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      This is like those sci-fi settings where they banned AI because it tried to destroy humanity or something except instead they banned turing machines because it hurt the feelings of rich people.

  • HTTP_404_NotFound@lemmyonline.com
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    1 year ago

    They are going to feel pretty damn stupid when nobody can buy/rent/watch/listen to their content and products…

    Because, ya know… any product which can play any form of media, has the potential to infringe on IP…

    I say, give them EXACTLY what they want. Give them, a week or two with zero profits, and see how quickly they change their tune.

  • jsdz@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Don’t these pirates know that their illegal schemes to make unauthorized copies and recordings of things causes EUR 3.19 trillion in financial damage to rights owners every year? It seems they will never learn, so we will need new laws. Mandatory client-side scanning for copyrighted material must be built in to all cameras and phones, or our whole economy will surely collapse.