Sex, Violence and Video Piracy

The more I watch streaming channels on my Roku box, the more I wonder just how much of the content I watch is actually legal, in the sense that the channel showing it has screening rights and, even if it does, whether they are licensed to show it in my geographic location.  In a sense, of course, it doesn't really matter to me as a viewer whether they are legal or not - I'm just watching the content they are offering in good faith and these channels have all been approved by Roku for broadcast in my territory.  Roku itself seems to take the view that it is merely a publisher and approves these channels on the basis of what they are showing at the time of approval and can't actively police content on individual channels.  They will only respond to copyright violations when alerted to it by third parties. That said, it is notable that in the case of the F2VTV channels, which were redistributing free-to-air streaming channels without permission and to territories their content wasn't licenced for, these were voluntarily taken down by the owner after the situation had been highlighted by a media blogger.  Roku, as far as I'm aware, weren't directly involved.  (Their take down was a big pity as they had some pretty good stuff on those streams).  

Obviously, on the sort of free-to-air Roku channels I watch, most of the content is public domain and therefore free of copyright.  Except that it isn't always that straightforward - what might be in the public domain in the US isn't necessarily public domain in the UK and vice versa, for instance.  I've encountered several UK films whose US version might well be public domain, (often because the distributor went out of business, 'orphaning' the film), but I'm pretty sure that in the UK their ownership still lies with their distributors, producers or their successors.  Now, all of these movies are of some vintage, so it is highly doubtful that anyone is ever going to make an issue out of it, let alone know that the films are showing on some obscure streaming channel.  But there are also several free-to-air channels out there showing either recent films or older, but still in copyright, studio movies which I am sure that are offering them without permission.  On the newer films it is the frequent presence of Mandarin or other Far Eastern sub-titles on the source prints, which is a giveaway, while on the older films it is the presence of the DVD or Blu-Ray distributors' credits still intact at the beginning which suggest that they are pirated transfers.  Sometimes the films seem to come from on-air TV recordings, complete with station continuity announcements.  

Indeed, just recently I was watching what is ostensibly a respectable and legitimate US based channel that offers a number of movie and nostalgia TV streams when I came in part way through an episode of The Fall Guy - when it ended I was startled to find myself watching the complete ITV4 continuity announcement that squeezed the closing titles.  Next up, apparently, was Batman, with coverage of the African Cup of Nations following later that evening!  All highly confusing as, of course, the next show wasn't Batman and the advertised football match was from several years earlier.  This has to be the most brazen example of content theft I've yet seen.  Clearly, their advertisers don't care, as the station's own ad break popped up after the ITV4 announcements!  What all of this illustrates is just how difficult it has become to enforce copyright, particularly internationally, in the modern world of streaming.  No matter how many of these stations do get shut down for copyright violations, new ones, showing the same content, appear to replace them.  (Even the F2VTV guy has a new channel, running, so far, legit streams).  The fact is that it is relatively cheap to set up a Roku channel - you just need a reasonably reliable server and some content.  Monetising it isn't difficult: Roku has will partner you up with a service that can place ads in your programming that are localised to the viewer,  If you aren't afraid to pirate some desirable content, then you should, at the very least, be able to cover the running costs.  Right now, it seems relatively low risk - channels caught pirating content are simply removed.  So far, I haven't heard of anyone actually being prosecuted.  Sooner or later, though, I'm sure that, in the UK at least, someone in authority is going to notice all this free-to-air sex, violence and pirated material being purveyed via Roku and try to stop the fun.