Nintendo

Nintendo Game Pulled From Chinese Platforms After Hong Kong Protest (reuters.com) 41

A Nintendo Switch video game has been pulled off China's grey market e-commerce platforms, Reuters' checks show, after Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong used the game to protest against Beijing's rule of the Chinese territory. From a report: The game, "Animal Crossing: New Horizons," is a colorful social simulator in which players can decorate their own island and invite others to visit. It became an instant hit after its launch last month and has been used by many players to interact and simulate real-life scenarios while they are stuck at home because of measures to curb the coronavirus outbreak. Joshua Wong, a Hong Kong democracy activist, took his protests to the game last week and on Twitter posted a screenshot of his island decorated with a banner saying: "Free Hong Kong, revolution now." China has stringent rules on content from everything from video games to movies and music, censoring anything it believes violates core socialist values. Gaming companies must also seek licences for the games they want to publish.
Movies

Apple TV+ Widens Free Access as Disney+ Passes 50 Million Subscribers (venturebeat.com) 39

An anonymous reader shares a story: Ahead of last November's launch of the Apple TV+ video streaming service, Apple seemed to be doing nearly everything it could to widen the base of early viewers -- it gave away a free year of service with any newly purchased iPhone, iPad, Mac, iPod, or Apple TV, then added free access to student Apple Music subscriptions, collectively guaranteeing itself millions of (unpaid) users. But that apparently wasn't enough: Starting today, the company will offer free access to seven complete TV+ series to almost any person with an Apple ID.

Apple's video strategy has continued to stand in stark contrast to Disney's, though both companies launched paid streaming services last year. Disney+ offers a mere seven-day free trial before charging $6.99 per month or $69.99 per year for access to a large catalog of new original and historic Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, and National Geographic content, plus The Simpsons. This week, Disney+ surpassed 50 million subscribers across only a dozen countries, and it has recently rewarded quarantined fans by providing early access to its latest animated films, including Frozen II and Onward.

Movies

Netflix Tightens Its Parental Controls for Cooped-Up Kids (bloomberg.com) 20

Netflix is strengthening parental controls, offering more tools to limit what kids can watch on the world's most popular paid streaming service. From a report: Parents can now filter out titles they deem inappropriate and protect individual profiles with a PIN so kids can't use them, the company said Tuesday. These changes take effect for customers in all 190 countries where the streaming service is available.
Transportation

Y Combinator Company 'Flexport' Is Shipping PPE To Frontline Responders (gofundme.com) 37

The Y Combinator company Flexport is a San Francisco-based freight-forwarding and customs brokerage company. (Its investors include Google Ventures and Peter Thiel's Founders Fund.) But on March 23rd Flexport announced they were now re-focusing all their resources to get critical supplies to frontline responders combating COVID-19.

They've joined a team that announced on Friday announced "we're shipping full cargo planes filled with PPE to protect frontline responders," citing a partnership with Atlas Air and United Airlines. Atlas Air delivered a dedicated charter plane for this mission on Thursday, April 2nd. Originating in Shanghai, the plane contained over 143,000 pounds of PPE for medical systems in California, including approximately:

- 4,500,000 medical masks
- 116,000 disposable medical protection coveralls
- 121,300 surgical gowns

For this volume of goods, significant capacity is needed on a plane. However, global travel has plunged because of the outbreak, meaning that passenger planes which used to carry cargo are grounded, and the air market capacity is extremely limited. And hospitals, who in normal situations aren't importing their own goods, can't arrange cargo on a plane on their own...

Crews from United Airlines volunteered to help, arriving at SFO [San Francisco International Airport] at 6AM to unload and unpack the plane. The cargo was then put on a truck and delivered directly to hospitals that will distribute the PPE across the state based on need...

Up next, we're moving cargo to New York and will share updates next week. Please continue to help us spread the word to support the response efforts.

They're raising money on GoFundMe, and this "Frontline Responders Fund" has so far raised over $6 million from 15,800 donors. Their page notes that on Thursday former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger "personally helped us deliver a trucking shipment from MedShare with 49,000 donated masks to a hospital in Los Angeles, California."

Their page also notes donations have funded the trucking of goods across America from nonprofits, including:
  • All Hands and All Hearts Smart Response, who delivered over 43,000 units of gloves, gowns, face masks, goggles, and hand sanitizer to emergency rooms and hospitals in New York City and Southern California.
  • Donate PPE, who delivered over 3,750 N95 respirator masks to hospitals in Brooklyn, NY yesterday

One of their supporters is actor Clark Gregg, who plays agent Coulson in five Marvel movies and the TV series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. He records personalized video greetings for fans through a web site called Cameo, and through Wednesday he donated 100% of the money earned to the Frontline Responders Fund.


Movies

Disney+ Launches in India For $20 a Year, Includes Shows From HBO, Showtime, and Live TV Channels (techcrunch.com) 12

Disney+ has arrived in India through Hotstar, a popular on-demand video streamer the giant conglomerate picked up as part of the Fox deal. From a report: To court users in India, the largest open entertainment market in Asia, Disney is charging users 1,499 Indian rupees (about $19.5) for a year, the most affordable plan in any of the more than a dozen markets where Disney+ is currently available. Subscribers of the revamped streaming service, now called Disney+ Hotstar, will get access to Disney Originals in English as well as several local languages, live sporting events, dozens of TV channels, and thousands of movies and shows, including some sourced from HBO, Showtime, ABC and Fox that maintain syndication partnerships with the Indian streaming service. It also maintains partnership with Hooq -- at least for now. Unlike Disney+'s offering in the U.S. and other markets, in India, the service does not support 4K and streams content at nearly a tenth of their bitrate.
Media

Apple Will Stop Taking a Cut of Some Video App Purchases Made Through the App Store (venturebeat.com) 8

Yesterday, Apple said it would stop taking a cut of some sales for "qualifying" streaming video services on iPhones and other Apple devices, including Amazon's Prime Video. Reuters reports: To make purchases inside apps on its App Store, Apple requires the use of its own payment systems and takes a commission of between 15% and 30% before passing on the rest to the third-party app developer. Many of Apple's rivals in streaming music and video, such as Netflix and Spotify, avoid paying those commissions by asking users to sign up with a credit card outside the App Store. That leaves those rivals' apps serving as log-in screens for existing customers.

In an emailed statement, Apple said that for "qualifying premium video entertainment apps such as Prime Video, Altice One, and Canal+, customers have the option to buy or rent movies and TV shows using the payment method tied to their existing video subscription." Apple also said the services will function better with Apple devices and apps, for example by letting users ask its voice assistant, Siri, to find shows on the third-party services.
Last March, Spotify filed a complaint with EU antitrust regulators against Apple, saying the iPhone maker unfairly limits rivals to its own Apple Music streaming service. Spotify also raised the issue with the U.S. Justice Department and the House Judiciary Committee, "both of which have antitrust probes pending regarding Apple," notes Reuters.
Movies

To Conserve Bandwidth, Should Opting In Be Required Before Autoplaying Videos? (fatherly.com) 103

An anonymous reader writes: We keep seeing stories about how providers are slowing down their streaming speed to reduce bandwidth usage during this period when many are being asked to stay at home... But it seems that many are totally ignoring a very obvious way to reduce usage significantly, and that is by disabling autoplay on their web sites and in their apps.

To give an example, a couple of days ago I was watching a show on Hulu, and either I was more sleepy than I thought or the show was more boring than I had expected (probably some combination of both), but I drifted off to sleep. Two hours later I awoke and realize that Hulu had streamed two additional episodes that no one was watching. I searched in vain for a way to disable autoplay of the next episode, but if there is some way to do it I could not find it.

What I wonder is how many people even want autoplay? I believe Netflix finally gave their users a way to disable it, but they need to affirmatively do so via a setting somewhere. But many other platforms give their users no option to disable autoplay. That is also true of many individual apps that can be used on a Roku or similar device. If conserving bandwidth is really that important, then my contention is that autoplaying of the next episode should be something you need to opt in for, not something enabled by default that either cannot be disabled or that forces the user to search for a setting to disable.

"Firefox will disable autoplay," writes long-time Slashdot user bobs666 (adding "That's it use Firefox.") And there are ways to disable autoplay in the user settings on Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, and Amazon Prime.

But wouldn't it make more sense to disable autoplay by default -- at least for the duration of this unusual instance of peak worldwide demand?

I'd be interested in hearing from Slashdot's readers. Do you use autoplay -- or have you disabled it? And do you think streaming companies should turn it off by default?
China

China Shuts Down All Cinemas, Again (hollywoodreporter.com) 69

China's film regulators have slammed the breaks on their plans to gradually reopen the country's cinemas. From a report: Over 600 movie theaters across China were given the green light to reopen their doors over the past week, but Beijing's Film Bureau put out a notice late Friday ordering all theaters to go back into shutdown. No official explanation for the sudden reversal was provided. Industry insiders instantly began speculating that the government was worried about a potential second wave of coronavirus infections. The decision comes as a shock given the signals authorities had been sending as recently as a day ago. On Thursday, Shanghai's municipal government announced that 205 of the city's movie theaters had received permission to resume business on Saturday.
United States

88 Out of Top 200 US Cities Have Seen Internet Speeds Decline This Past Week 56

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: The impacts of telecommuting, shelter-in-place laws and home quarantines resulting from the COVID-19 outbreak are starting to impact broadband speeds across a number of U.S. cities, a new report has found. According to broadband analysis site BroadbandNow, 88 out of the top 200 most populous U.S. cities analyzed have now experienced some form of network degradation over the past week, compared with the 10 weeks prior, as more people are going online to work from home, video chat and stream movies and TV to keep themselves entertained. In a small handful of cities over the past week, there have even been significant degradations with download speeds dropping more than 40%, compared with the 10 weeks prior. It's not necessarily the areas hit hardest by the spread of the novel coronavirus that are experiencing the worst problems.

Cities including LA, Chicago, Brooklyn and San Francisco have seen little or no disruption in download speeds, the report claims. Seattle is also holding up well. But New York City, now considered the epicenter of the virus in the U.S., saw download speeds drop by 24% last week, compared to the previous 10-week range. That said, NYC home network connections, which have a median speed of nearly 52 Mbps, are managing. The good news is that in the majority of markets, network speeds are holding up. But of the 88 out of 200 cities that saw declines, more than two dozen saw dips of either 20% below range or more, the data indicates.
The three cities seeing network degradations over 40% include: Austin, TX (-44%), Winston Salem, NC (-41%), and Oxnard, CA (-42%). San Jose, CA was nearing this range, with a drop of 38%.
Communications

COVID-19 Pushes Up Internet Use 70 Percent, Streaming More Than 12 Percent, First Figures Reveal (forbes.com) 32

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Forbes: The first internet streaming and usage figures are coming in as the coronavirus pandemic places a quarter of the world's population under lockdown. As millions of people go online for entertainment and more, total internet hits have surged by between 50% and 70%, according to preliminary statistics. Streaming has also jumped by at least 12%, estimates show. [Maria Rua Aguete of Omdia, the tech research arm of Informa Tech] said the annual figures are revealing: "Ecommerce will be the other sector that will see a revenue boost as a result of the pandemic, adding $175 billion in revenue in 2020, which represents a 5% increase."

Omdia predicts $11 billion losses for the movie industry with a 25% decline and a 15% drop in TV advertising, especially for ads promoting events such as concerts that can no longer take place. The surge in demand comes coupled with a warning from the company that paid TV advertising may decline by 15%. Omdia also predicted that industry recovery will start in 18 to 24 months. While official figures from Google's YouTube and other internet giants are awaited, Omdia's figures accord with other analysts. "Broadband providers are thus far experiencing a traffic surge between 30% and 50% across their mobile and fixed networks," said Alfonso Marone, who is head of media at KPMG U.K.: "Where self-isolation policies are at their peak in Europe, the spike in internet traffic has reached as high as 70%, which is indicative of what the traffic surge could look like in other regions in just two to three weeks' time. The most bandwidth-hungry are the online entertainment applications, especially those in high-definition like 4K movies and TV. For broadband providers, this spike may be seen as more a source of headache."

Television

As We Remain at Home Due To Coronavirus, We're All in Desperate Need of Distraction -- a New Movie or Video Game Would Help (theoutline.com) 117

The ongoing coronavirus crisis has thrown the release schedule of cultural products into chaos, as now is an exceptionally bad time to drop anything that isn't a government check for lost wages. Jeremy Gordon, writing for The Outline: Our cultural producers -- movie studios, publishing houses, television networks, and so forth -- must decide whether to go ahead with previously made plans, or wait until all of this is over. The new Fast and Furious movie, for example, has been pushed back from its May 2020 release date to April 2021, in hopes that mass gatherings will be back on the table by then (maybe!) and we'll all be in a better mood to watch some big cars go boom. But as more people are driven inside for the time being, it's also true that everyone is looking for something to do at home. As a result, unconventional solutions have emerged: Last week, Universal Pictures announced it'll make several of its current film releases available to stream on-demand at home, as movie theaters around the world are being closed. Beginning Friday, movies like The Invisible Man, Emma, and The Hunt will be rentable for $19.99 apiece, with Trolls: World Tour set for a similar release.

Emma and The Invisible Man were finished products already in theaters, so Universal just had to skip the typical waiting period between when a movie is released, and when it's available for purchase. But there are so many more finished products waiting to be released in the coming weeks, which publishers may now consider delaying until a time when everyone can go back outside. While they may be reticent to promote anything in the current climate, I would submit an opposite suggestion: Release that shit. While everyone is sitting at home stewing in anxiety, people have never been more desperate for distraction. We have all become a captive audience with the free time to give that show or game a try.

Movies

Amazon's New 'Prime Video Cinema' Offers Movies Now Playing in Theaters (cnet.com) 36

Amazon just launched "Prime Video Cinema," which lets you buy and watch movies that are just now playing in theaters, reports CNET: Movies currently offered through the hub include Onward, The Hunt, The Invisible Man and Emma, although Onward is only available at the $18.49 purchase price, while the others are only available for rental at that same reduced price. They'll be available to rent for 48 hours.

NBCUniversal said Tuesday it would make movies available to rent online in the home the same day as their global theatrical releases due to the coronavirus outbreak. iTunes will also offer the titles for streaming purchase and rental... Movies usually spend upward of six months in theaters before they move on to predetermined dates for release on other formats, such digital downloads and rentals, DVDs and, later, TV and streaming.

Chrome

'Netflix Party': a New Chrome Extension Adds Chat Panes to Movies (theguardian.com) 38

GameSpot calls it "like an AOL chat room" combined with Netflix. The Guardian reports: You log in, share a viewing link with friends, choose one person to be in charge of picking what you watch and, as your chosen show plays out in the bulk of the screen, a chatroom pops up on the right-hand side. You can discuss the show with the people in your room, or argue, or flirt, or veer wildly off-tangent because you've realised that you've picked an absolute dud to watch.

Right now, Netflix Party feels absolutely necessary. Self-quarantine has atomised us, and if this is the closest we can get to watching films and TV shows with our friends, then we'll grab it with both hands. But then again, even if this wasn't a time of enormous struggle, Netflix Party would be a terrific idea. Because the biggest downside to this vast glut of non-linear content is that nobody watches the same thing at the same time any more. There are no more water cooler series, because everyone at the water cooler has to tiptoe around the fact that they might be a few episodes ahead of everyone else, and one stray spoiler slip might ruin it for everyone else.

Television has always been a social pursuit, but this element has been lost in recent years.

"Twenty servers were added today to help more people spend time together without leaving home," notes Forbes.
The Media

What Are the Best Free Streaming Services? (archive.org) 42

An anonymous reader shares some free streaming media options: There's over 10,000 public domain audiobooks at LibriVox.org, created by volunteers reading public domain works. (If you've got time, why not record yourself reading your own favorite public domain poem or novel?) And there's also a lot of free audiobooks (and ebooks) available through Hoopla, a free "digital media" service that's partnering with many public libraries across North America. They're not just offering books; there's also movies, music, TV shows, and even comic books.

As always, Amazon's audiobook service Audible offers a free one-month trial. But they've now also announced a new free service for "as long as the schools are closed... Kids everywhere can instantly stream an incredible collection of stories..."

You can also stream over 6,500 full-length movies over at archive.org, including Night of the Living Dead and The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz.

They've even got a collection of classic cartoons, like Tom and Jerry, Betty Boop, the Pink Panther, and lots of Popeye (including one where Popeye runs for president against Bluto.)

And an archive.org blog post explains that that's just the beginning: If gaming is more your speed, then check out the MS-DOS Games in our Software Library. This collection includes dozens of classic favorites such as Pac-Man, Sim City, The Oregon Trail, Doom, Prince of Persia, Donkey Kong, and Tetris, as well as many more lesser-known titles such as Aliens Ate My Baby Sitter! and Freddy Pharkas, Frontier Pharmacist. Enjoy simulations of popular board and card games such as Monopoly [press F1 to begin], Stratego, Hearts, or Mah Jong, as well as flight simulators, sports games, and this treat for Monty Python fans.
They also have recordings of old-time radio shows -- as well as an archive of live music. ("Our most popular collection by far is The Grateful Dead, but you could also explore Smashing Pumpkins, Robert Randolph (and the Family Band), Disco Biscuits, Death Cab for Cutie, John Mayer, or Grace Potter and the Nocturnals...")

And then there's this: Relive the 80's and 90's (and learn how to style your scarf) with the Ephemeral VHS collection, or roam the cosmos with the NASA Image of the Day gallery. Learn about the history of advertising with this collection of retro TV ads or enjoy some psychedelic screensavers. No matter how long you're stuck indoors, the Internet Archive will have something new to offer you — so happy hunting!
Share your reactions -- and your own finds and suggestions -- in the comments! And in these days of social distancing, what are the best free entertain sites that you've found?
Movies

Sonic The Hedgehog Surpasses Detective Pikachu To Become Highest-Grossing Video Game Movie (therichest.com) 45

Sonic the Hedgehog's latest weekend total allowed it to surpass Detective Pikachu and become the highest-grossing video game movie ever in the US. TheRichest reports: Sonic has now amassed $145.8 million domestically, while Detective Pikachu managed $144.1 million by the end of its run. Sonic has definitely taken a hit as it only brought in $2.58 million last weekend to limp past Detective Pikachu's record. As for the worldwide record, it seems as if that will belong to Detective Piakchu for the foreseeable future. That's the one element of Sonic's success that has been affected by the worldwide pandemic we are in the midst of. The movie's release has been delayed in China and as it stands as brought in $306.5 million worldwide. That's a long way off the $433 million record set by Detective Pikachu.
Businesses

Fox Buys Free Ad-Supported Streaming Service Tubi For $440 Million (deadline.com) 24

Tubi, a leader in the fast-growing free ad-supported streaming category, is being purchased by Fox for about $440 million. It's paying for the acquisition using cash from the sale of a minority stake in Roku. Deadline reports: Tubi brings Fox an expanded consumer offering with a sizable, younger-skewing and directly connected user base that spends over 160 million hours per month watching content on the service. Tubi is available on more than 25 digital platforms in the U.S. with some 20,000 titles and 56,000 hours of film and episodic television programming from over 250 content partners. Fox plans to continue to run Tubi as an independent service and said it will evaluate opportunities to expand its offering -- not through original content but in a "more cost-effective manner by leveraging our expertise in national and local news and sports programming." Tubi founder and CEO Farhad Massoudi will continue to lead the service. "Tubi will immediately expand our direct-to-consumer audience and capabilities and will provide our advertising partners with more opportunities to reach audiences at scale. Importantly, coupled with the combined power of Fox's existing networks, Tubi provides a substantial base from which we will drive long-term growth in the direct-to-consumer arena," said Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch.
Piracy

Popcorn Time, the 'Netflix For Piracy,' Is Back Online (theverge.com) 31

Popcorn Time, the highly popular and extremely-easy-to-use "Netflix for piracy" service, came back Tuesday after a years-long hiatus. The move comes as people around the world are quarantined or being asked to stay in their homes during the coronavirus pandemic. Motherboard reports: Popcorn Time allows people to stream movies using BitTorrent, without actually downloading the movies or worrying about finding a tracker to use. Essentially, it removes any torrenting learning curve, allowing people to (illegally) stream movies and television shows from an easy-to-use app. Because it's so simple to use, Popcorn Time became instantly popular upon its release in 2014 and was immediately targeted by the movie industry. The service was shut down multiple times by court order, police raids, and IP blocks all over the world between 2014 and now; the open source app was forked several times and has worked intermittently, but has been largely offline over the last few years.

Within the last couple days, a new version of Popcorn Time popped up on Popcorntime.app, version 4.0. The new app works just as well as earlier versions of the app, is free, and implores people to use virtual private networks to avoid having their use of the app detected by their internet service providers. The app has been released while many around the world are quarantined, and also comes at a time when piracy is becoming more popular, generally speaking. Other versions of Popcorn Time are also currently active, but the user interface of this one and its release appear to be closely affiliated with earlier Popcorn Time projects, based on domain redirects and urls.

Movies

Universal Makes Movies Now Playing in Theaters Available Online (wsj.com) 51

Comcast's Universal Pictures said it is making its movies available to watch at home while they are still in theaters, a massive change from Hollywood's long-established business model that could upend the industry if other studios follow suit. From a report: The decision comes amid widespread closures of movie theaters as the global coronavirus pandemic spreads. Authorities in New York City and Los Angeles on Sunday ordered all movie theaters to close; exhibitors had previously said they would limit attendance in theaters to 50% of their capacity. China, the world's second-largest market, has kept tens of thousands of theaters closed since late January. Major studios typically release new movies exclusively in theaters during a "window" of 75 days in a bid to maintain ticket sales, on the theory that fans are more likely to watch a new movie at home if that is an option. Keeping that strategy in place has long been a priority for theaters, and major studios generally have been reluctant to do away with such windows altogether, even as the lengths of those periods have steadily shortened over the years.

Universal said that by Friday recently released films like "The Invisible Man," "The Hunt" and "Emma" will be available for digital rental for $19.99 in the U.S., or the equivalent value in overseas markets. Paying the rental fee will allow customers 48 hours to watch the movie. In an even bolder move, Universal also said "Trolls World Tour" will open simultaneously in theaters and at home on April 10. Universal released "The Hunt" in theaters over the weekend while "The Invisible Man" and "Emma" both came out late last month. Costing just $7 million to make, "The Invisible Man" has already had a successful run in theaters, grossing $122.4 million globally in three weekends.

Communications

Elon Musk: Starlink Latency Will Be Good Enough For Competitive Gaming (arstechnica.com) 113

In a conference yesterday, Elon Musk said SpaceX's Starlink satellite broadband will have latency below 20 milliseconds -- low enough to support competitive online gaming. "Despite that, the SpaceX CEO argued that Starlink won't be a major threat to telcos because the satellite service won't be good enough for high-population areas and will mostly be used by rural customers without access to fast broadband," reports Ars Technica. From the report: Latency of less than 20ms would make Starlink comparable to wired broadband service. When SpaceX first began talking about its satellite plans in late 2016, it said latency would be 25ms to 35ms. But Musk has been predicting sub-20ms latency since at least May 2019, with the potential for sub-10ms latency sometime in the future. The amount of bandwidth available will be enough to support typical Internet usage, at least in rural areas, Musk said. "The bandwidth is a very complex question. But let's just say somebody will be able to watch high-def movies, play video games, and do all the things they want to do without noticing speed," he said.

So will Starlink be a good option for anyone in the United States? Not necessarily. Musk said there will be plenty of bandwidth in areas with low population densities and that there will be some customers in big cities. But he cautioned against expecting that everyone in a big city would be able to use Starlink. "The challenge for anything that is space-based is that the size of the cell is gigantic... it's not good for high-density situations," Musk said. "We'll have some small number of customers in LA. But we can't do a lot of customers in LA because the bandwidth per cell is simply not high enough." [...] On the ground, Starlink's future customers will rely on user terminals that "look like a UFO on a stick," Musk said. The devices will have actuators that let them point themselves in the right direction as long as they're pointed at the sky. "It's very important that you don't need a specialist to install it," Musk said. "The goal is that... there's just two instructions and they can be done in either order: point at sky, plug in."
As for the cost, the company previously pointed out that many U.S. residents pay $80 per month for "crappy service," perhaps indicating that Starlink will cost less than that.

Musk also addressed concerns from astronomers who say Starlink's satellites will interfere with astronomical observations. "I am confident that we will not cause any impact whatsoever in astronomical discoveries. Zero. That's my prediction. We'll take corrective action if it's above zero," Musk said, adding that SpaceX has worked with astronomers "to minimize the potential for reflection of the satellites."
Piracy

Copyright Lobby Calls Out Plex For Not Doing Enough To Stop Piracy (inputmag.com) 158

An anonymous reader shares a report: For those who don't want to dive fully into torrents, Plex is a great alternative for streaming television shows and movies for free. Officially, Plex is a "neutral" media player, and it first became popular with people looking to stream content between devices at home, like from their desktop in the study to their laptop in their bedroom. But, with Plex Media Server, users can also share media with other users to stream, creating a virtual free-for-all, and a serious problem from a copyright perspective. CreativeFuture, a pro-copyright coalition boasting more than 560 members, has taken notice and is calling out the platform, along with rival service Kodi.

"Thanks to a rapidly growing media application called Plex, torrent-based piracy is back in vogue, and better than ever (for criminals who have no problem with profiting from content that doesn't belong to them, that is)," the coalition writes in a blog post. Those who pay $4.99 per month for Plex Pass are able to share their libraries with up to 100 users. As Creative Future points out, this isn't always done for the sake of altruism, or so family's can share their legally procured copies of Frozen. Some Plex users actually charge for access to their content -- a more nefarious (though, granted, enterprising) evolution from the totally free world of torrenting. For extra sass, the shared content can be pirated to begin with.

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