AT&T, HBO Put Another Bullet In Antiquated Theatrical Release Windows

from the inevitability dept

Among the dated and dumb business concepts exposed as folly during the pandemic is the traditional Hollywood film release window, which typically involves a 90 day gap between the time a move appears in theaters and its streaming or DVD release (in France this window is even more ridiculous at three years). The goal is usually to "protect the traditional film industry," though it's never been entirely clear why you'd protect traditional theaters at the cost of common sense, consumer demand, and a more efficient model. Just because?

While the industry has flirted with the idea of "day and date" releases for decades (releasing movies on home video at the same time as brick and mortar theaters), there's long been a lot of hyperventilation on the part of movie theaters and traditionalists that this sort of shift wasn't technically possible or would somehow destroy the traditional "movie experience," driving theaters out of business.

The pandemic has changed everything. To the point where AT&T/HBO this week announced that the company's entire lineup of 2021 films will be released on the company's streaming platform (HBO Max) the same time it hits theaters. There are some caveats: it's a one year trial, and movies will only appear on HBO Max for a month before they disappear (though they may return later). You'll also probably pay far more to watch these movies than it's worth. But it's still a sensible shift given the circumstances, as Warner Brothers (AT&T) made clear it a statement:

“We’re living in unprecedented times which call for creative solutions, including this new initiative for the Warner Bros. Pictures Group,” said Warner Bros. CEO Ann Sarnoff. “No one wants films back on the big screen more than we do. We know new content is the lifeblood of theatrical exhibition, but we have to balance this with the reality that most theaters in the U.S. will likely operate at reduced capacity throughout 2021.”

Yes, it sucks for those whose livelihoods rely on traditional brick and mortar theaters. But these are the same theaters that saw the writing on this particular wall long before COVID came to town, and decided to spend much of their time pouting instead of adapting for the inevitable. Even then, traditional theaters will someday bounce back, buoyed by those who feel a trip out to the movies is an essential cornerstone of everyday life. It's just not going to be until vaccines are commonplace and congregating indoors for prolonged periods is no longer a potential death sentence.

This isn't exclusively about the pandemic, of course. AT&T has been losing traditional TV and streaming subscribers hand over fist after a bunch of expensive mergers, branding confusing, and other executive incompetence. They're running behind giants like Netflix and others, and want the added attention. Scuttlebutt also suggests the company is hoping to use the announcement to pressure Roku into carrying HBO Max and ending their longstanding feud:

Either way, it's another step in the right direction toward no longer embracing antiquated concepts like release windows that no longer make sense in the broadband era. This being AT&T there's almost certainly going to be dumb caveats tied to these releases (ridiculous pricing probably being among them), but baby steps and all that.

Filed Under: day and date, hbo max, hollywood, movie theaters, release windows, streaming
Companies: at&t, hbo

Comcast Expands Its Bullshit Usage Caps...In The Middle Of A Pandemic

from the read-the-room dept

Contrary to what some try to claim, broadband usage caps have always been bullshit. They serve absolutely no technical function, do not help manage congestion, and exist exclusively to nickel-and-dime captive customers in monopolized U.S. markets. Worse, they can be used by incumbent ISPs anticompetitively to hamstring competitors in the streaming video and other markets.

Comcast, for years, has been slowly expanding these unnecessary and costly restrictions in line with the frog in the boiling pot fable (you're the frog, unless that wasn't clear). The only area the company hadn't yet deployed the restrictions was in the northeast, largely due to the added competition Comcast sees in the area from uncapped Verizon FiOS. Apparently Comcast has gotten tired of waiting, so they've announced that they've implemented a new 1.2 terabyte cap across the Northeast, which will be fully implemented by March:

"...effective March 1st, residential customers will begin facing overlimit fees for exceeding their data allowance at a rate of $10 for each 50 GB of excess usage, up to a maximum of $100 a month. Customers will not be credited for unused data, cannot rollover unused data, or be charged less than $10 in overlimit fees, regardless if one used 1 MB or 49 GB over the 1.2 TB allowance.

Customers approaching their usage limit will receive email, text messages, and Xfinity X1 on-screen notifications upon reaching 75% (email only), 90%, and 100% of 1.2 TB of data usage. Overlimit fees that subsequently start accumulating will be noted in email and X1 on-screen notifications for each additional 50 GB of usage over 1.2 TB, up to the maximum overage charge of $100."

Folks will quickly (as usual) get caught up in a discussion about how 1 terabyte a month is "fair," ignoring, again, that these restrictions serve no purpose outside of jacking up U.S. broadband bills, which, even under flat-rate pricing, are some of the most expensive in the developed world thanks to monopolization and corrupt state and federal regulators. The industry doesn't even try to pretend that such restrictions "help manage congestion" (they do not). Nor do they help manage "heavy users," which can already be shoved toward more expensive business-class tiers when needed.

It's not a great look for Comcast during a pandemic when broadband is essential and countless Americans are already struggling to pay their bills. Comcast must have done the calculus and figured the outrage will likely be muted enough to prevent any meaningful backlash. After all, unless you live in a Verizon FiOS market in the Northeast, most of these users don't have any competing ISPs to flock to. And historically, neither party has much cared that entrenched monopolies routinely rip off American consumers with costly and confusing restrictions that serve no purpose outside of jacking up already high monthly bills.

With neither competition nor adult regulatory oversight to keep Comcast in check, who is going to do anything about it?

Filed Under: broadband, competition, covid-19, data caps, pandemic, streaming, usage caps, video conferencing
Companies: comcast

Ridiculous: 'Cyberpunk 2077' Will Ship With A Mode Just To Help Streamers Avoid DMCA Notices

from the thanks-twitch dept

You will likely have been following along with us as we have steadily commented on the ongoing controversy at Twitch. But if you're not read up on the topic, Twitch suddenly nuked zillions of hours of recorded content made by Twitch streamers in response to RIAA and game publisher DMCA notices, all without warning and all without a way to counternotice or get any of that content back. As the community went into revolt, Twitch continued taking down content, at times for sound effects within the games streamers were streaming. All the while, Twitch has issued a steady stream of apologies, while the streamer community has basically just shouted "Well then do something!" in response.

But Twitch hasn't done anything. Not a damned thing. Which means it's been left to the forward-thinking game publishers that actually realize how beneficial these streamers are to their own success to do something instead. To that end, it's both great that CD Projekt Red has announced the forthcoming blockbuster Cyberpunk 2077 will have a game mode dedicated to using stream-safe music for streamers... and completely ridiculous that the publisher even has to do something like this.

During the latest installment of long-form Cyberpunk commercial series “Night City Wire,” UK head of communications Hollie Bennett explained that the game will have a mode that will not only remove licensed music from the in-game rotation but replace it with music that won’t get creators’ channels zapped out of existence. Handy!

“If you’re planning on livestreaming Cyberpunk, or if you just want to make videos, we want to introduce you to a new mode that will allow you to disable certain copyrighted tracks,” Bennett said. “We know that for content creators, licensed music can sometimes be problematic. So with this new mode, you’ll be able to disable a small number of selected tracks which could cause some issues, replacing them with a different song—helping to avoid any problems.”

So because Amazon-owned Twitch couldn't be bothered to simply license the music in games in some sort of blanket manner, and because the music industry is so cartoonishly impermissive with its content, a game publisher has to step in to help. This comes as part of CD Projekt Red's long history of being fan and public friendly, but it really shouldn't have had to take such measures. Somebody somewhere along the way should have been on the side of the streamers who make these game products more popular, leading to more sales.

It’s still far from an ideal solution—nothing short of Amazon and Twitch striking a licensing deal with the music industry would be—but for now, it will have to do.

For now it will indeed have to do. But it sure would be nice if streaming platforms generally, and Twitch in particular, could get their collective heads out of their asses long enough to get their shit together and support their communities.

Filed Under: copyright, cyberpunk 2077, dmca, licensing, streaming, streaming safe mode, takedowns, video games
Companies: amazon, cd projekt red, riaa, twitch

Your Slingbox Will Be A Useless Brick In A Few Years

from the you-don't-own-what-you-buy dept

Remember the Slingbox? It was a piece of hardware by Dish subsidiary Sling Media that let users beam TV content from your home cable box to anywhere else. Sling was public enemy number one among entrenched cable and broadcast industry gatekeepers, because its products (*gasp*) not only made life easier on consumers, but at one point integrated ad-skipping technology. Back in 2013 the broadcast and cable industry was so pissed at Sling, it managed to get a best-of-show CES award retracted by CNET and CBS simply because the industry didn't like the disruptive nature of the company's technologies. Ah, memories.

This week, Sling Media announced that all Slingboxes will effectively become useless paperweights in a few years. In a company announcement, it says the technology will no longer work at all as of November 9, 2022:

"Slingbox servers will be permanently taken offline 24 months after the discontinued announcement date (November 9, 2020), at which point ALL Slingbox devices and services will become inoperable.

Until then, most Slingbox models will continue to work normally, but the number of supported devices for viewing will steadily decrease as versions of the SlingPlayer apps become outdated and/or lose compatibility.

The shift isn't particularly surprising given that the streaming era has effectively made such technology irrelevant. Users can now obtain streams of numerous apps on any platform they like. And software like Plex similarly let users stream content from their home PC anywhere they have a reliable internet connection. Streaming from your home cable box isn't as popular because people are not only cutting the cord at a record pace, they're shifting to streaming platforms that are inherently more flexible. Evolution made Sling irrelevant. The company kind of explains this all to users, but not really:

Q: Why is Slingbox being discontinued?

A: We’ve had to make room for new innovative products so that we can continue to serve our customers in the best way possible.

Q: Will Slingbox be releasing any new products?

A: No.

At the same time, it's yet another example of how in the modern era, you simply don't really own the things you buy. Firmware updates can often eliminate functionality promised to you at launch, as we saw with the Sony PlayStation 3. And with everything now relying on internet-connectivity, companies can often give up on supporting devices entirely, often leaving users with very expensive paperweights as we saw after Google acquired Revolv, then bricked users' $300 smart home hub. Now it's the Slingbox's turn to head to that great gadget graveyard in the sky.

Filed Under: brick, end of life, ownership, slingbox, streaming, tv
Companies: sling media

Creative Director At Google Stadia Advocates Streamers Paying Game Devs And Publishers

from the ruh-roh dept

Way back in 2013, we discussed an interesting study conducted by Google looking at the effect of let's play and video game reviews has on the gaming industry. That study's conclusion was that viewers watched let's plays at a far higher clip than, say, video game trailers. Two-thirds of those views appeared to be watchers focusing on the video itself, whereas the other third were watching on secondary devices/screens in order to find tips and tricks for completing the game in question. Both were conducive to promoting the gaming industry, being a method for finding out if a game is worth buying and because gamers know they have a resource to help complete a game.

Fast forward to 2020 and Google has its own game-streaming platform that it's trying to get off of the ground. One of the folks that works at Google on the platform is Alex Hutchinson. And when it comes to let's play videos and streams, hoo boy does he have some thoughts.

Earlier today Alex Hutchinson, creative director at Typhoon Studios (bought by Google last year to make Stadia games), made a tweet suggesting that Twitch and YouTube users should be “paying the developers and publishers” of the games they stream.

And the tweet that set this shitstorm off:

The backlash online was swift and severe. So much so, in fact, that Hutchinson went on to wonder aloud why people were so mad about all of this. Several people attempted to explain to him that game streams are good for developers and publishers, not bad. Others pointed out that any licensing would go to the publisher and not the developer anyway, so Hutchinson was really just advocating for big companies to make more big money. And one streamer pointed out that Hutchinson's Twitter banner was fan-art of that very streamer, used without attribution or permission.

Meanwhile, I'm just wondering why Hutchinson doesn't just go read his own employer's 2013 study that shows just how beneficial let's plays and game-streaming is for the industry. He might also want to realize that Google's YouTube has an entire wing of it's service called YouTube Gaming, built around game-streaming.  

For what it's worth, there is no reason to think that Hutchinson is making any actual policy decisions at Google or for Stadia. And, more importantly, Google reps have already come out and said Hutchinson's tweets don't reflect the views of the company.  

But it's probably time to educate Hutchinson on the actual facts that his own employer has made clear in the past.

Filed Under: alex hutchinson, stadia, streamers, streaming, symbiosis, video games
Companies: google

FLVTO.biz Petitions SCOTUS To Hear Jurisdiction Argument In Stream-Ripping Lawsuit

from the we-are-not-the-world dept

While the music industry's war on stream-ripping sites -- sites that have perfectly legitimate and legal uses -- continues, it's true that this is a war in which one side has almost universally surrendered. Facing legal opposition with well-funded industry groups, most stream-ripping sites simply close up shop when staring down litigation. But Russia-based FLVTO.biz has been an exception. We first wrote about the site's decision to defend itself back in early 2019. At that point, the owner of the site, Tofig Kurbanov, had successfully argued in a Florida court that the United States legal system had no jurisdiction over his site, given that it operates in Russia and makes no effort to entice American patronage.

It was a sensible ruling. After all, why should anyone want websites in one nation to be subject to the laws of every other nation's laws just because the internet is designed to be international? And, yet, the RIAA labels appealed the ruling and got it reversed. The case was sent back to the lower courts where it was supposed to once again proceed, except that Kurbanov's team has asked the Supreme Court to consider its jurisdiction arguments once more.

Those plans were then confirmed last month back at the Virginia court where the lawsuit began, which is considering the case anew following the Fourth Circuit ruling. Kurbanov’s lawyers have asked the district court to pause the ongoing proceedings there pending their application to the Supreme Court.

That application was submitted earlier this week. It argues that the top court should consider the case, because some Supreme Court style consideration is required on the issue of whether or not “the ‘due process clause’ of the United States Constitution is violated when a foreign citizen is subjected to personal jurisdiction based entirely on: (1) his operation of a website that is popular both within the United States and worldwide, but which is not specifically aimed at the United States; and (2) minor internet-based and internet-initiated transactions entered into by the foreign citizen entirely from outside the United States”.

This is indeed just the sort of important due process argument in the age of the internet that a sober SCOTUS should be weighing in on. And, while we could get lost in the legality of it all, common sense really should rule the day here. Does American law have jurisdiction over foreign entities not making any real effort to do commerce on American soil or does it not? And, if so, what precedent does that set for every other nation out there in terms of how American-based businesses conduct business over the internet?

Shall legal pornography websites in America be subject to the more prudish laws of other nations? Should news organizations in America face litigation from countries with far fewer press and free speech protections? Hell, should American entities legitimately selling RIAA label music themselves face threats from countries with obscenity laws and the like?

Evan Fray-Witzer said: “If you operate a website that is popular, then you’re subject to jurisdiction anywhere – and everywhere – that people access the website. And that’s not a precedent that anyone should want to stand, because if Kurbanov can be dragged into court here from Russia, then any US citizen who creates a popular website can expect to be dragged into court anywhere in the world”.

The lawyer also told Torrentfreak that the major labels should support his client’s bid to get the Supreme Court to provide clarity on this issue.

“If the record companies are so certain that the Fourth Circuit got this question right, then they should be anxious for the Supreme Court to take up the case”, he added. “We invite them to join our petition and ask the Supreme Court to weigh in on these crucial jurisdictional questions. But I’m not holding my breath that they’ll do so”.

It can be hard for the labels to see past the ends of their own noses, but they should realize that they could truly be biting themselves in their own asses if SCOTUS refuses to hear this case and this precedent gets set. The internet is international, but American laws are not.

Filed Under: copyright, jurisdiction, russia, streaming, supreme court, us
Companies: flvto, flvto.biz

Twitch Experiments With Intrusive Ads That Piss Off Its Most Important Asset, Its Talent

from the twitch-ain't-tv dept

As any internet platform matures, the growth it undergoes will inevitably lead to experimenting with revenue models. For a healthy chunk of the internet, advertising plays some role in those experiments. And, like anything else, there are good experiments and bad experiments.

But I am very much struggling to understand who in the hell at Twitch thought that breaking away from live streams to force viewers to watch commercials, all without the control or input of Twitch streamers, could possibly be a good idea.

“Beginning in September, as part of an ad experiment, some viewers may begin to notice that they are receiving ads during streams that others in a channel aren’t receiving,” the company wrote on its website. “Like pre-rolls, these are ads triggered by Twitch, not by the creator.”

Crucially, these ads utilize Twitch’s “picture-by-picture” functionality, which basically means that the stream you’re watching pops out into a smaller window while the ad rolls in the main window. However, ads will still steal the show from some viewers, with streamers none the wiser as to who can hear what they’re saying (picture-by-picture mutes streams) and, therefore, understand what’s happening on stream while ads are playing.

If this reads as though Twitch were trying to turn its platform into some flavor of broadcast television, where the content is broken away from in the service of displaying advertising, that's because that's exactly what this is. Which doesn't make any sense. Twitch is not television. Sure, some streamers choose to break away from their own content for advertising. In fact, doing so staves off this new process of forced breakaways. But many streamers don't do that. For a viewer to be torn away from the content that continues on, muted, all while they're forced to view ads, would be stupid on its own. To give streamers not only almost zero control over whether this happens, but also zero visibility into when and to whom it's happening, can only serve to piss everyone off.

Which is exactly what it did.

“You’re not YouTube,” said Twitch partner ThatBronzeGirl on Twitter in response to Twitch’s announcement. “When ads play in the middle of the stream, viewers actively miss out on content (muted or not). Add this to the fact that viewers are hit with an ad as soon as they enter a stream, so channel surfing is cumbersome. Idk why y’all hate viewer retention.”

“This means either one of two things happens: 1) I schedule a break in the stream to have control over ads running that are proven to drive viewers away. 2) Viewers get an ad randomly that is all but guaranteed to drive them away. Which of those is for us though?” said variety streamer Deejay Knight.

“If I don’t play enough ads, Jeff Bezos literally comes to my stream and pushes the ad button, what do I do,” said former Overwatch pro Seagull.

Let's be clear, Twitch is a thing because of the talent that chooses to use it. It's bad enough to put a new advertising model in place that pisses off viewers. But piss the talent off and they'll simply go somewhere else, particularly when the viewers voice their frustration by removing their eyeballs. Some of this seems to also be Twitch not understanding that the platform is no longer video game let's-plays. The content is wide and varied and much of it cannot function with this sort of intrusive advertising.

“A streamer could be talking about suicide prevention, and up pops an ad,” said Scottish Twitch partner Limmy. “Depending on the implementation, the streamer would either be unaware, which is bad, or the streamer has to announce a forced ad break at an inappropriate time.”

“We’re not all Overwatch and Fortnite,” said dungeon master MontyGlu. “In narrative streams such as DnD live shows and RPG game streams, 10-30 seconds removed could completely deprive people of story, context and investment.”

As the Kotaku post notes, part of the problem here is that all the monetary incentives for streamers compared with the platform are horribly misaligned. Many streamers make most of their money through subscriptions and brand partnerships. The money they get from Twitch is mostly an afterthought. Twitch, on the other hand, makes gobs of money from advertisements. It's a scenario in which the platform is incentivized by advertising while the talent is very specifically incentivized by a lack of advertising. More ads drive eyeballs away, which means less lucrative partnerships and subscriptions.

If Twitch wants to push more ads, it desperately needs to get the streamers on board.

“While I’m not allowed to say specifics, Twitch has the worst CPM ad-revenue share to creators with their standard contracts (read: not the big shots with custom negotiated rates),” said Minecraft YouTuber and Twitch streamer KurtJMac. “They want ads to run because they make bank. Pay a fair rate to creators and we’d be glad to run ads!”

Somewhat amazingly, Twitch has stated that it isn't backing down. The experiment will run its course, the company said, and it will review the data afterwards. I simply can't imagine that said data will show that intrusive ads that everyone hates are good for the company.

Filed Under: ads, interruptions, streaming
Companies: twitch

Indiana Cities File Doomed Lawsuit Against Disney, Netflix, Demand 5% of Gross Revenues

from the yeah-good-luck-with-that dept

A coalition of cities has filed a desperate, and likely doomed, lawsuit (pdf) against streaming providers like Netflix and Disney. In it, the cities proclaim that they are somehow owed 5 percent of gross annual revenue. Why? Apparently they believe that because these streaming services travel over telecom networks that utilize the public right of way, they're somehow owed a cut:

"Defendants transmit video programming to Indiana subscribers using Internet protocol and other technologies. When doing so, Defendants transmit their programming through facilities located at least in part in public rights of way within the geographic boundaries of Indiana Units, including public rights of way located within Plaintiffs' geographic boundaries. Therefore, Defendants are required by the VSF Act to pay the Plaintiffs—and all other Indiana Units in which Defendants transmit video programming through facilities located at least in part in a public right-of-way—franchise fees."

To be fair, cities have long been solidly screwed by the telecom and cable industry, which in the early aughts effectively gutted most local (town, city level) franchise agreements. Basically, phone companies like AT&T and Verizon, looking to get into the TV business whined incessantly about how unfair it was to have to do things like expand broadband and TV service evenly, provide a few public access TV channels, and give local municipalities fair compensation for using city utility poles and public rights of way.

So, highlighting the very real occasions where city leaders made unreasonable demands (not to mention the hassle of striking numerous municipality agreements), they lobbied to shift most franchise control to the state level, claiming this would result in greater efficiency, more competition and lower prices for consumers. All things that certainly sound superficially reasonable. Especially since a minority of cities really were pains in the ass in terms of making difficult demands before telecom companies could secure a cable franchise agreement.

The problem: because state legislatures are more efficiently corruptible by AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast lobbyists, most of these new state agreements by and large screwed cities over, gutted most consumer protections, obliterated local franchise revenue, neutered most of the benefits more local agreements provided (like even broadband deployment), and resulted in new state agreements that were little more than telecom legislative wishlists. And, if you hadn't noticed, TV prices never dropped, which was purportedly the whole point. Incumbent telecom giants simply pocketed the proceeds and went on their merry way.

Fast forward to now, and cities are desperately trying to cling back some modicum of control (and lost revenues) in this lopsided equation. But as consumer rights lawyer Harold Feld tells Ars Technica, dumb lawsuits like this one aren't the solution, especially since any franchise agreements that do remain don't apply to streaming providers in the slightest:

"I find it extremely unlikely this lawsuit will prevail," Harold Feld, a longtime telecom attorney and senior VP of consumer-advocacy group Public Knowledge, told Ars. "The [federal] Communications Act defines terms such as 'cable system' and 'cable operator' in physical terms."

As Feld noted, US law defines a cable system as "a facility, consisting of a set of closed transmission paths and associated signal generation, reception, and control equipment that is designed to provide cable service." Local franchising rules and fees are based on cities' authority to manage their local rights of way.

"Netflix is clearly not a cable operator" and is therefore not subject to local franchising rules, Feld said. "Furthermore, because broadband is not considered a cable service, Netflix does not offer video programming 'over a cable system,' which would be required to make it a cable operator."

At this point the state and federal legislative and regulatory field has been shifted so completely in favor of the biggest corporations (be they Netflix or AT&T), municipalities often find themselves increasingly powerless by design. And as COVID-19 decimates budgets, this desperation is more and more likely to result in "creative" efforts to claw back revenues. Unfortunately, that shipped sailed quite some time ago, and without significant state and federal lobbying/influence reform (not to mention a massive Congressional shakeup), isn't likely to change anytime soon.

Filed Under: broadband, cities, franchise rules, indiana, local tv, states, streaming
Companies: disney, netflix

Russian Stream-Rip Sites Attempt To Take Jurisdiction Issue All The Way To SCOTUS

from the russian-to-the-top dept

Early in 2019, we wrote about stream-ripping site FLVTO.biz winning in court against the record labels on jurisdictional grounds. The site, which is Russian and has no presence in the United States, argued that the courts had no jurisdiction. The RIAA labels argued against that, essentially claiming that because Americans could get to the site it therefore constituted some kind of commercial contract, even though no actual contract existed. Instead, the site merely makes money by displaying advertisements. The court very much agreed and dismissed the case.

On appeal in May, however, the case was sent back to the lower court.

The labels then took their case to the Fourth Circuit appeals court back in May, where judges concluded that the district court judge was wrong to quickly dismiss the lawsuit on those jurisdiction grounds. The appeal judges listed various reasons why it could be deemed that FLVTO.biz and 2conv.com were actively trading in the US – and specifically Virginia – even though the websites are formally based in Russia and don’t require any sign-up from users.

The technical interaction that occurred between Kurbanov’s servers and the computers of his site’s American users constituted a “commercial relationship”; he’d had business dealings with US-based advertisers and server companies and registered a ‘DMCA agent’ with the US Copyright Office; plus he could but didn’t seek to geo-block Americans from using FLVTO.biz and 2conv.com.

It should be immediately clear how dangerous this is for a healthy international internet to exist. The idea that a website, whatever its purpose, could find itself in the jurisdiction of any nation just because that nation's population can reach that website is absurd. Should Wikipedia be in the jurisdiction of Saudi Arabia just because it doesn't geoblock that country? Should Cosmo Magazine's site be subject to the laws of Mexico if its people can get to the site?

No, that's absurd. Were that the standard, it would be a legal quagmire for any site to operate unless it geoblocked every country where it doesn't have a direct presence. And that, it should be obvious, would be the end of a free and open international internet. Which is why FLVTO's lawyers want this to go to the Supreme Court.

Speaking to Torrentfreak, one of those lawyers, Evan Fray-Witzer, said the Fourth Circuit’s ruling set a dangerous precedent that could have a big impact on all foreign website operators. This makes it important enough for Supreme Court consideration, he added.

“The Supreme Court has not yet decided a case concerning personal jurisdiction based on internet contacts and we think this case would be a good opportunity for the court to address the issue head-on”, he continued.

And so we wait, I suppose, to see if SCOTUS would kindly like to un-break the internet.

Filed Under: copyright, jurisdiction, russia, streaming, supreme court, us
Companies: flvto