Comcast Forgets To Delete Evidence It's Using Evil Fansubs In Its Streaming Service

from the oops dept

The war on fan-made subtitles waged by the entertainment industry has been going on for a long, long time. While fansubs could, and probably should, be viewed as a potential boon to the entertainment industry, allowing those in far-flung lands to suddenly enjoy its products, fansubs have instead been painted as an aid to pirated content overseas or, in some cases, as copyright infringement themselves, given that they essentially copy parts of the content scripts.

If nothing else is clear as a result of this introduction, it should be that major industry players absolutely hate fansubs.

... Except when they can make use of them, apparently, as Comcast-owned Swiss broadcaster Sky had been found using fansubs in its streaming service in the dumbest way possible.

Subscribers of the local Sky platform who watch the last episode of the hit series Chernobyl, with English subtitles enabled, see the following message appearing around the five-minute mark.

“- Synced and corrected by VitoSilans – www.Addic7ed.com.”

Addic7ed.com is a fansub site. Asked for comment, reps for the site said they didn't care at all that Sky was using their work. Instead, they claim to have started the site to get content out to more people so that specific language wasn't a barrier to enjoyment. Still, it must have been at least slightly jarring to see Sky essentially forget to strip out Addic7ed's signature for its own work. Using someone else's work as one's own by way of copying it is about as close an analogy to copyright infringement as one could get.

Sky, meanwhile, ain't talking.

Sky Switzerland hasn’t responded to our request for comment at the time of publication. Whether the Addic7ed credit was left in intentionally is highly doubtful though. It seems more likely that someone forgot to remove it.

In any case, the mention hasn’t gone unnoticed either. At least one person has alerted Sky via Twitter, but the company didn’t respond there either.

It's the hypocrisy here that's worth highlighting, because the industry regularly rails against fansub sites and here is a member of that industry using them in its own product.

Filed Under: copyright, fansubs, streaming
Companies: comcast, sky

Even Wall Street Is Nervous About Comcast's Latest Bid To Grow Bigger For Bigger's Sake

from the growth-for-growth's-sake dept

Comcast's latest effort to grow even larger is spooking even the company's investors. "Growth for growth's sake" has been the mantra of the telecom and TV sectors for years. Once growth in any particular market (like broadband) saturates, companies begin nosing about for efforts to grow larger in other sectors, even if it it's well outside of their core competencies (see Verizon Sugarstring, Go90). Unfortunately for the end user, such growth isn't accompanied by any meaningful parallel investment in quality product or customer service, a major reason so many users "enjoy" Comcast services today.

At the same time, this growing power results in increased efforts to thwart any effort to rein in this power, leaving oversight of the natural monopolies more precarious than ever (see: net neutrality). That's exceptionally true for Comcast, where the one-two punch of fading state and federal oversight, expiring NBC Universal merger conditions from its last 2011 megadeal, and a growing monopoly over broadband is forging a perfect storm of trouble.

Comcast's latest gambit came over the weekend, when the nation's biggest cable operator toppled 21st Century Fox with a $39 billion for Sky broadcasting, Europe's biggest pay TV operator. But even Wall Street stock jocks, traditionally more than happy to cheerlead mindless growth for growth's sake, have become nervous about the expansion, worrying that Comcast's overseas exploits are little more than a pricey distraction:

"Craig Moffett, an analyst at MoffettNathanson LLC, downgraded Comcast’s stock Monday to neutral, saying the company had “grossly overpaid for Sky.” Timothy Horan, an analyst at Oppenheimer, also downgraded Comcast’s stock, citing the company’s need to invest instead in the U.S., where it faces growing competition from wireless and online TV rivals."

“It’s going to be incredibly hard to justify having paid such a high price,” Moffett said in an interview Sunday. “This is an asset that neither Disney nor Comcast investors wanted to win.”

Comcast stock price took a major tumble as a result. The biggest problem for many investors is debt. Like AT&T's acquisition of Time Warner, the deal saddles Comcast with so much debt it's going to be forced to cut corners on other fronts in order to shore up the losses. Usually, at least in telecom, that results in cuts to customer service. It also results in companies nickel and diming captive customers harder than ever, whether that means usage caps and overage charges, bullshit fees, or even charging users more money if they want to protect their own privacy.

As you might expect, Comcast tried to put a more positive spin on its latest looming acquisition, company CEO Brian Roberts bubbling over about the overseas expansion:

"This is a great day for Comcast. Sky is a wonderful company with a great platform, tremendous brand, and accomplished management team. This acquisition will allow us to quickly, efficiently and meaningfully increase our customer base and expand internationally. We couldn’t be more excited by the opportunities in front of us. We now encourage Sky shareholders to accept our offer, which we look forward to completing before the end of October 2018."

The problem, of course, is the same one Comcast has always faced. Its ragingly incompetent customer service has made it the laughing stock of the tech industry for the better part of the last decade. What Comcast actually needs is to pause, invest in overall quality and support, and focus on its core competencies. But because traditional broadband is never profitable enough, quickly enough for Wall Street, Comcast executive eyeballs are always fixed everywhere other than fixing some of the company's many, fatal flaws.

Filed Under: acquisitions, wall street
Companies: comcast, sky

Comcast Prepares To Get Even Larger With Sky, Fox Acquisitions

from the what-could-go-wrong dept

The cable company Americans love to hate is about to go supernova. Comcast acquired NBC Universal back in 2011, giving the company unprecedented control of not only the conduit into the house, but also the information and news being sent over those wires. And while regulators affixed some flimsy conditions to the deal, Comcast managed to ignore many of them, a major reason why regulators moved to block Comcast's acquisition of Time Warner Cable a few years ago.

Because we're unwilling to learn much of anything from history, Comcast's now on the verge of growing significantly larger. The company recently unveiled a $30 billion plan to acquire European pay TV giant Sky. And this week, reports began to bubble up indicating that if regulators approve AT&T's $86 billion acquisition of Time Warner, Comcast plans to make its own, massive $60 billion bid for the lion's share of 21st Century Fox assets:

"Comcast Chief Executive Brian Roberts only plans to proceed with the bid if a federal judge allows AT&T Inc’s planned $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner Inc to proceed, the sources said. The U.S. Department of Justice has opposed the AT&T-Time Warner deal over antitrust concerns, and a decision from U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon is expected in June."

By all accounts, AT&T is likely to defeat the DOJ in court, meaning Comcast's latest megamerger is likely to move forward. The bid is an effort to undermine a similar bid for Fox from Disney, a company Comcast has had an adversarial relationship with ever since executives rebuffed Comcast's $54 billion Disney acquisition offer back in 2004. And while this deal wouldn't include the Fox broadcast network or Fox News, it would include Fox's 30% ownership stake in Hulu (Comcast also owns 30%), it would include numerous U.S. and global operations as well as the lion's share of Fox's film properties.

That said, there's still cause for worry here. Comcast's conditions affixed to its NBC Universal merger just expired, giving it newfound freedom to do things like meddle with Hulu's competitive potential. Should Comcast also nab Disney's 30% stake in Hulu, the company will have full authority to try and hamstring Hulu's ability to disrupt Comcast's own streaming or traditional video services, which is a shame given that Hulu just figured out that it should aspire to something greater than being a glorified ad for traditional cable TV.

Comcast's explosive growth spurt comes as the company has not only successfully lobbied to kill net neutrality and consumer privacy protections, but is quietly securing a massive monopoly over broadband in many markets. At the same time, industry BFF Ajit Pai at the FCC is happily gutting decades-old media consolidation rules designed to protect smaller media outlets from exactly this type of rampant consolidation. For good measure, we're also watching as lobbyists dismantle both the FCC's and FTC's ability to hold Comcast accountable when it engages in anti-competitive behavior.

This provides the cable giant with ample leeway to use its combined domination of both content and broadband to hamstring competitors in an absolute ocean of creative new ways. If you thought the country was having any real conversation about the possible anti-competitive implications of this perfect storm of consolidation, monopoly dysfunction, and dismantled government oversight of telecom monopolies, you'd be wrong.

Filed Under: antitrust, competition, consolidation
Companies: 20th century fox, comcast, sky

Big Media Companies Insist That VPN Services Violate Copyright Law

from the fighting-the-tide dept

Back during the SOPA fight, in a discussion with someone who was working with the politicians pushing SOPA, I pointed out that such a law would encourage much more encryption -- and the response was "that's no problem, because we'll just ban encryption next." As stupid and impossible as such a statement is, it shows the mindset of some copyright extremists. Thus, it should be no surprise that they're actually starting down just such a path in New Zealand. As we noted last year, Kiwi ISPs, frustrated that their users kept running up against geoblocks, have started offering VPN services that get around geoblocks as a standard feature there. Basically, this is nothing more than a recognition that the internet really is global and attempts to pretend otherwise are pretty fruitless.

However, the big media companies are not happy about this turn of events. A week or so ago, a bunch of them (Lightbox, MediaWorks, SKY, and TVNZ) teamed up to threaten New Zealand ISPs that if they didn't stop offering "global mode" VPN services to customers, that the media companies would sue -- arguing that merely offering such a service was copyright infringement. The letter is full of the usual bluster:

“Offshore providers, such as Netflix US, Hulu, Amazon Prime and BBC iplayer do not have the right to exploit the copyright works in New Zealand,” the letter says. Licenses they hold apply only to specific overseas locations and prohibit customers from circumventing geo-blocking measures and other content protections.

That may be true, but whether or not those companies are operating in New Zealand is not an issue that is of concern to the ISPs, who are providing internet access to the entire internet. If Netflix US, Hulu, Amazon and the BBC were the ones sneaking around the geoblocks, the companies might have a point. But arguing that merely offering a VPN service to users somehow violates the law seems like a crazy interpretation of copyright laws.

But, of course, crazy interpretations of copyright laws are the norm these days, and there are always some lawyers who will insist the media companies have a case, such as the lawyer quoted in that article. The basic argument seems to be a variation on felony interference of a business model:

The four are claiming that Global Mode, offered by Slingshot and Orcon, and similar services offered by other providers, are ‘unlawful’ for several reasons.

Top of the list is infringement of the Copyright Act 1994, ‘either directly or as a joint tortfeasor’.

The four are also claiming the services are unlawful in providing ‘misleading representations’ in stating or implying ‘without a proper basis’ that it is lawful for New Zealand based users of the services to access content from the offshore providers, and that ‘circumvention of geo-blocking measures in this way is permitted by New Zealand law (just like parallel importing of DVDs)’.

The four are also claiming that use of the services constitutes a clear breach of the terms and conditions of the offshore providers – being the likes of Netflix, Hulu and Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime and BBC iPlayer.

From a loose reading of this it seems like they're really arguing three things: (1) that offering such a service is a form of "inducement" to infringement, (2) that this is a form of circumvention of restrictions, which violates anti-circumvention clauses and (3) that this violates the terms of those video services.

The third argument is meaningless since that's an issue between those services and the ISPs, not the media companies and the ISPs. The first one seems like a stretch but probably depends on a few factors, including how the services are marketed and whether or not merely viewing geoblocked content is a form of direct infringement (which seems like a stretch to me). The circumvention issue also seems like a stretch, but may depend on the specifics of New Zealand's Copyright Act, which I'm not as familiar with. You can read it here though to see which sections might apply.

Either way, with the threat looming, at least one ISP has caved, saying it's not worth the fight:

Unlimited Internet director Ben Simpson says that while his company doesn’t necessarily agree with that assertion, it has taken down the service nonetheless.

“Geo-unblocking services are a direct result of consumer demand for access to content that is not made available to the New Zealand market,” Simpson says.

“To be on the safe side, we have taken legal advice on this matter and I have made a firm call that we will sit on the sideline until a legal precedent has been set.”

Of course, whether or not offering such a service technically violates copyright law is kind of besides the point, as the very idea that offering such a service should be against the law is crazy. Such services provide real value to consumers not just in getting around pointless geoblocks, but also in protecting privacy. Trying to outlaw VPN services like that just to protect obsolete business models of media companies pretending the world is not global these days, just seems like yelling at the tide. But, given that it's big old media companies we're dealing with, they still haven't figured out that going with the tide is much easier than ordering it not to come in...

Filed Under: circumvention, copyright, geoblocking, global mode, global service, inducement, new zealand, vpns
Companies: lightbox, mediaworks, orcon, sky, slingshot, tvnz, unlimited internet

David Cameron Says People Aren't Radicalized By Poverty Or Foreign Policy, But By Free Speech Online, So ISPs Agree To Censor Button

from the censor-now! dept

A few years ago, we mocked then Senator Joe Lieberman's request that internet companies put "report this content as terrorist content" buttons on various types of online content. The plan went nowhere, because it's a really bad idea, prone to massive abuse. Yet, over in the UK, some apparently think it's such a grand idea that they're actually moving forward with it. This isn't a huge surprise -- the current UK government has been going on for quite some time about banning "extremist" content, and just recently ramped up such efforts.

And now it appears that a bunch of big UK broadband access providers have agreed to play along:

The UK’s major Internet service providers – BT, Virgin, Sky and Talk Talk – have this week committed to host a public reporting button for terrorist material online, similar to the reporting button which allows the public to report child sexual exploitation.

They have also agreed to ensure that terrorist and extremist material is captured by their filters to prevent children and young people coming across radicalising material.

I love the term "radicalising material" as if it's the material itself that has the power to magically turn mild-mannered Brits into violent jihadis just by appearing on their screens. That's not how it works. Yet some have such an irrational fear of the power of words we disagree with that it must be prevented from anyone ever seeing it.

Also, the comparison to child porn is a common one, but wrong. Images of sexually exploited children are not a judgment call issue, for the most part. It's an obvious thing. "Extremist" material or "terrorist" material, on the other hand, is almost entirely subjective. And, over time, the definition of what counts always seems to expand, rather than contract. And that doesn't even take into account how many people will simply choose to use such buttons to try to censor any sort of content they dislike.

David Cameron seems quite excited about turning an open and free internet into a closed and censored space, where only content he likes is allowed:

Addressing a special sitting of federal parliament, Cameron said: “We must not allow the internet to be an ungoverned space”.

Why? What's wrong with letting people speak their minds? The whole "terrorism!" claim is overplayed:

“In both our countries we have seen some of our young people radicalised, going off to fight in Iraq and Syria, and even appalling plots to murder innocent people back in our own countries.”

Yes, but perhaps you should look at the root causes of why that's happening? But Cameron insists it can't possibly be poverty or UK foreign policy:

“And let us be frank. It’s not poverty, though of course our nations are united in tackling deprivation wherever it exists. It’s not exclusion from the mainstream. Of course we have more to do but we are both successful multicultural democracies where opportunities abound.

“And it’s not foreign policy. I can show you examples all over the world where British aid and British action have saved millions of Muslim lives, from Kosovo to Syria – but that is not exactly the real point. In our democracies, we must never give in to the idea that disagreeing with a foreign policy in any way justifies terrorist outrages.”

Hmm. So disagreeing with foreign policy cannot justify terrorist outrages... but, apparently it can justify blatant censorship. Because, apparently, the only possible reason why people are radicalized is because they read something on the internet. David Cameron insists that's the case:

The root cause was in fact the “extremist narrative”, Cameron said.

This meant “we must ban extremist preachers from our country, we must root out extremism from our schools, universities and prisons”, as well as dealing with the internet.

So he presents no actual evidence, but completely waves off poverty and disagreements over UK foreign policy as being non-factors -- and then automatically assumes that the problem is "extremist" speech online? Incredible.

And the end result is pure censorship. How long until calling it censorship is considered an "extremist" position as well?

Filed Under: censorship, david cameron, extremist speech, foreign policy, free speech, isps, poverty, terrorists
Companies: bt, sky, talk talk, virgin

How Even Highly-Targeted Censorship Can Lead To Overblocking

from the unintended-consequences dept

As the battle rages over SOPA and PIPA, censorship is very much on people's minds. But there are many different kinds of censorship, operating at different levels of precision. For example, while some forms are crude and inexact, like Homeland Security's shutdown of 84,000 sites, others are highly targeted, and designed to block in a very specific way.

That's the case for the attempted blocking of Newzbin2 in the UK. The judge, Justice Arnold, ordered the ISP BT to take a two-stage approach (possible thanks to the pre-existing "Cleanfeed" system it had set up to block child pornography).

If an IP address matches one of those contained in the blocking list, the request to access the site is routed to a proxy server where the exact URL � the specific address including the directory and filename � is examined. If that matches too, access is denied. The judge specified this technique, rather than simply ordering the IP address to be blocked, for an important reason, which he explained in one of his rulings:

the Studios now accept that the order should refer to IP address re-routing and not IP address blocking. It appears that IP address blocking could lead to "overblocking" of sites or pages that ought not to be blocked.

However, as James Firth notes in a blog post, overblocking is still likely to occur thanks to the combination of two factors:

The first is that Newzbin will - and there's strong evidence they have done already, several times - change their IP address. It is well known that IP addresses have all but run out. Nearly all IP addresses allocated are recycled - they've been in use before.

Pity the website owner who picks up Newzbin's old IP address. Under Arnold, J's BT ruling the new owner of the IP address would have some solace in that the URL would not match, therefore BT customers would still be able to access the website, albeit via a proxy. Re-routing via the proxy may cause some minor problems, but that's a bit of a side issue.

In the case of Sky, [another UK ISP now blocking Newzbin2] unless Sky happen to also use a 2-stage blocking system [like BT] - and my contacts tell me they do not - then whoever picks up the old recycled IP addresses from Newzbin will find themselves blocked.

As Firth points out, one of the many worrying aspects of the Newzbin2 judgment is that there doesn't appear to be any mechanism for removing IP addresses once they have been placed on the blocking list � even if they are no longer used by Newzbin2. Adding new ones, by contrast, is explicitly permitted:

sites "whose sole or predominant purpose is to enable or facilitate access to the Newzbin[2] website" (para 10) can find themselves blocked, again without re-application to the court. If someone creates a website explaining how to work around the block, and this website did very little else but explain how to access Newzbin, it too could be blocked.

That would lead to yet more IP addresses being added to the list, which might then be handed out again to new users as they are recycled from ephemeral sites that pop up and then disappear.

What Firth's analysis shows is how even relatively "sophisticated" censorship systems that aim to minimize damage to other sites can lead to overblocking because not every situation can be foreseen or planned for. Now imagine what SOPA/PIPA will do.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

Filed Under: blocking, censorship, copyright, ip blocking, ip filtering, overblocking, pipa, protect ip, redirects, sopa, uk
Companies: bt, newzbin, sky