Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/06/20/vidangel-loses-62mm-for-pirat.html
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2 Likes
They could have paid for the suit in spades if they made all the parts they pulled available in separate collections, “Disney Gone Sexual”, “Veggie Tales: Rape and Pillaging”, “Murder and Swears: A Retrospective by Decade”.
8 Likes
If they were proper capitalists, they would have created a sister company called VidDevil that streamed only the bits that had been cut out for VidAngel customers.
Then they could have pointed to both companies and tried to claim they were streaming the entire movies. Basically.
10 Likes
They weren’t sued for censoring the movies so much as ripping the DVD’s and streaming them.
Although they did maintain an actual inventory of the discs, and ensured that they didn’t stream more than they had purchased. So they didn’t pirate anything - they broke encryption under the DMCA.
7 Likes
“VidAngel” really sounds like a porn company
10 Likes
Censoring Disney? Sounds like decaffeinating water.
3 Likes
Nope. Please see Aereo. Streaming is public performance.
2 Likes
You beat me to it. I still think the Aereo ruling was a travesty, but it’s what the courts decided. VidAngel is fucked.
2 Likes
We’re the pirates
Who will do anything!
4 Likes
how about “If you don’t want to watch a piece of art, don’t; if you feel you must watch a piece of art, watch all of it.”
This piecemeal, pecksniff blue-nose crap is annoying, and it’s stone-cold copyright infringement; if the director of a film has to sign off on its aspect ration or language being changed for an airplane cut, they should have the right of control over this. But again, it doesn’t matter how many laws you break in America if it’s for your invisible friend-god or for the children
I hope these jerks get sued into their constituent atoms and then the ground is sown with salt. .
5 Likes
Spoiler warning for Cinema Paradiso, which if you haven’t seen it is a fantastic movie, especially if you love movies in general. I wept like a baby at this scene when I watched the movie.
4 Likes
Yeah, I don’t 100% agree with the Aereo ruling but I think this one is stronger.
Bleep bleep on Bleep bleep and Bleep bleep on Bleep bleep
Bright Bleep bleep Bleep bleep and warm Bleep bleep Bleep bleep
Brown Bleep bleep Bleep bleep bleep tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things
There is zero chance of the courts deciding in VidAngel’s favor. It would completely upend the streaming video industry. We’re talking billions in carefully negotiated licensing deals here. No matter who is “right” there is way too much money wrapped up in studio business models for the courts to rule in favor of VidAngel.
This would extend the First Sale doctrine to streaming. A total catastrophe for companies like Disney, Warner Brothers, etc…
“running a service that pulls what it thinks are morally questionable parts out of Amazon Prime, HBO and Netflix shows and movies.”
This is incorrect. VidAngel does NOT decide what is and is not morally questionable parts of movies. What they do is to catalog the parts of movies (and TV shows) that some people prefer to skip, categorize them and then allow you to choose to skip/silence those bits. You can get as granular as you want with what you skip and can define default filters so you don’t have to go through and manually choose to skip every time some character calls another character the N-word.
It’s a great service if you have kids around and you want keep up with GoT and not have to have some conversation with your 8 year old you aren’t ready for.
The audio sync does slip sometimes though.
Uh.
GoT must not mean what I thought it meant.
GoT = Game of Thrones
Kids = Curious small humans who don’t always stay in bed when they’re told to
1 Like
This has some clear value to certain viewers. I think they would have done better to package and sell this tech to existing streaming services rather than try and go head to head in field already to crowded.
I think their current business model is probably the best one for them. Acting as a proxy for Netflix/Amazon streaming that filters. Currently, you require an account for those services in order to stream movies.
I agree that the original business model seemed sketchy, but the current one makes sense to me.
1 Like
How curious. Nearly a day into the thread, and nobody showing up to contest the use of the word “Censorship”. I wonder why?
