Dragon Box- Watch everything for free?

[JEDI]

https://www.amazon.com/Dragon-DB4-Media-Streaming-Device/dp/B00UFF84B2

Wha? How?!

 

[quikah]

Piracy

 

[Homerboy]

Wha? How?!

Illegally.

 

[Crono]

There's a tiny dragon inside who uses telekinesis to decrypt and beam programming from satellites and other sources down your HDMI cable.

Piracy

Illegally.

Or this.

 

[Rifter]

There's a tiny dragon inside who use telekinesis to decrypt and beam programming from satellites and other sources down your HDMI cable.

I want one! that sounds badass!

 

[Rifter]

There's a tiny dragon inside who use telekinesis to decrypt and beam programming from satellites and other sources down your HDMI cable.

I want one! that sounds badass!

 

[Kaido]

Illegally.

The number of non-technical people who don't understand the concept that piracy is illegal is incredible. I can't tell you the number of times over the last couple of months I've heard "oh, my son-in-law set me up with this tiny, cheap Amazon stick with a program called KODI that lets me watch movies for free! I'm a cable-cutter! Such a big cost savings over my satellite dish!" "You do realize that's completely illegal, right?" "Wait, what?" "Yes, watching movies that you didn't pay for is called piracy" "Oh..."

 

[John Connor]

So it streams Amazon for free? Confused.

 

[XavierMace]

It would be brilliant if that was just a giant scam to nail every person who leaves a "Verified Review" explaining how awesome it is at stealing content.

I also don't know why you'd pay $220 when you can get the same thing for like $20 and in a smaller box.

 

[John Connor]

It would be brilliant if that was just a giant scam to nail every person who leaves a "Verified Review" explaining how awesome it is at stealing content.

I also don't know why you'd pay $220 when you can get the same thing for like $20 and in a smaller box.

http://fakespot.com/product/dragon-box-db4-quad-core-media-streaming-device

 

[shortylickens]

OK, so, the product itself is real, but all it really does is let you pirate stuff with lots of work on your end and not using your regular home computer.

Even from a dirtbags view point this thing is kinda Meh.

 

[cbrunny]

This isn't new. There's tons of these things. They've been around for ages. It's piracy, no matter how you slice it.

 

[SearchMaster]

That's nothing. I got this thing from Amazon and it helps me get almost everything free. Cars, TVs, cash...amazing tool.

 

[JoeBleed]

The number of non-technical people who don't understand the concept that piracy is illegal is incredible. I can't tell you the number of times over the last couple of months I've heard "oh, my son-in-law set me up with this tiny, cheap Amazon stick with a program called KODI that lets me watch movies for free! I'm a cable-cutter! Such a big cost savings over my satellite dish!" "You do realize that's completely illegal, right?" "Wait, what?" "Yes, watching movies that you didn't pay for is called piracy" "Oh..."

Same, except the people that bring it up to me just think it's simply "jail broken". seems i average the same conversation at least once a month for the past 8 months or so. I learned about this when i was first asked and did some quick searching. I read KODI was supposed to crack down on it. though it may just be fluff to buy time or get law enforcement off their ass. From what i read, KODI isn't actually the pirating software, is plugins people have made to run in KODI. may be wrong, i didn't spend a lot of time reading about the setup.

edit: oh, most of them either refuse to believe me and say they couldn't be sold if it were illegal. It's just an amazon fire stick after all. You'd think the MPAA and such would be all over this more than torrent sites. This is piracy that probably actually costs the industry money.

 

[purbeast0]

The number of non-technical people who don't understand the concept that piracy is illegal is incredible. I can't tell you the number of times over the last couple of months I've heard "oh, my son-in-law set me up with this tiny, cheap Amazon stick with a program called KODI that lets me watch movies for free! I'm a cable-cutter! Such a big cost savings over my satellite dish!" "You do realize that's completely illegal, right?" "Wait, what?" "Yes, watching movies that you didn't pay for is called piracy" "Oh..."

LOL. I have had this same conversation with my brother. He doesn't have one but someone at his fire department does and all of them think that it's not piracy because you aren't actually downloading the movie and it is just streaming it. I just kept reiterating to him that it's illegal.

 

[JEDI]

wait.. so it streams pirated content to your tv via your home internet?

how are these Dragons box owners not sued by mpaa?!

 

[JEDI]

I also don't know why you'd pay $220 when you can get the same thing for like $20 and in a smaller box.

name? link?

 

[Kaido]

Same, except the people that bring it up to me just think it's simply "jail broken". seems i average the same conversation at least once a month for the past 8 months or so. I learned about this when i was first asked and did some quick searching. I read KODI was supposed to crack down on it. though it may just be fluff to buy time or get law enforcement off their ass. From what i read, KODI isn't actually the pirating software, is plugins people have made to run in KODI. may be wrong, i didn't spend a lot of time reading about the setup.

edit: oh, most of them either refuse to believe me and say they couldn't be sold if it were illegal. It's just an amazon fire stick after all. You'd think the MPAA and such would be all over this more than torrent sites. This is piracy that probably actually costs the industry money.

The basic idea is:

1. A Fire Stick is simply an Android phone (minus the phone part), and a cheap one at that
2. By enabling developer's mode (built-in checkbox by Amazon), you can install any Android app you want
3. KODI is just a media player, available for Android, like VLC, Plex, or anything else, but it does support plugins
4. There are number banned plugins for KODI that let you stream stuff illegally

Everything from PPV to movies & even pay-for underground IPTV is available through pirate plugins. KODI bans them on their site & wiki, but of course, KODI is a free, open-source project, so you can't exactly stop people from making pirated apps any more than you can stop people from ripping DVD's or Steam games or anything else. It doesn't help that even major news sites are offering step-by-step instructions now:

http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/how-install-kodi-android-tablet-12509359

There are some legalities going on, like the one for this guy selling fully-loaded "jailbroken" Android set-top boxes from his shop:

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-38769045

That's basically what most people get off ebay...a jailbroken Fire stick. Which is laughable, because you literally only have to click "enable developer's mode" to install any Android app you want, but it also fools non-tech-savvy people into thinking they've made a legit purchase. I literally had a 70-year-old lady tell me last week that she was so happy her son got her one because of how much money she was going to save into retirement. Had NO IDEA it was completely illegal. Stealing cable back in the day was one thing, but gloss over the technology a bit with Internet streaming devices & people seem to think that just because they pay for Internet, that players like this are legit.

And it's not hard to see why, either. Cable costs anywhere from $50 to $300 a month. IPTV is out (Sling, Playstation, and DirecTV), but it works like crap a lot of the time. I use Roku, but even that's a mess: I have Netflix, which I let my brother stream, he has Hulu, which he lets me stream, I buy some movies off Amazon, my other brother uses VUDU & we share that, and then my own movies are on PLEX. And you still can't find all of the movies you want to watch because of licensing issues, and there's no more Blockbuster to go down to browse anymore, so it's no wonder pirating services are popping up like this left & right.

The movie industry needs to do what the music industry did. Spotify is a great example...30 million songs, 10 bucks a month to stream or download high-quality songs, etc. And they overlap with Google Music, Apple Music, etc. But I think movies are kind of always going to be a mess because of licensing. imo VidAngel had the right idea...stream the movies for a dollar or two (similar to RedBox, but you don't have to go anywhere) & offer censoring options if you want to watch something like Titanic with your kids. They had a ton of movies, but got shut down pretty quick.

 

[Kaido]

wait.. so it streams pirated content to your tv via your home internet?

how are these Dragons box owners not sued by mpaa?!

1. Because there are a zillion people doing it

2. Because they're streaming, not downloading

3. Because they're often streaming from outside the country

4. Because it's not easy to track

5. Because movies still operate like this:

 

[preslove]

Whatever you think about the ethics, viewing pirated streams isn't illegal because it isn't creating a new copy. Torrenting & usenet are illegal because you are creating a new copy of the work on your computer.

Selling an android box with kodi installed and set up with the necessary plugins installed is probably going to be cracked down on, though. Selling a device or service designed specifically to avoid copyright restrictions is illegal.

Regarding kodi piracy, actually getting reliable streams of live tv without buffering/freezing is difficult to impossible. Streaming movies like netflix usually works well, but sometimes it all goes down. TV shows have a lot of buffering, depending on what show.

 

[JoeBleed]

Whatever you think about the ethics, viewing pirated streams isn't illegal because it isn't creating a new copy. Torrenting & usenet are illegal because you are creating a new copy of the work on your computer.

I don't know about that. I think sorts organisations have a big thing about no mass viewings with out paying the right royalties/agreements. At some point, probably still is, i remember reading similar things about showing movies you "own" to groups isn't legal with out the right approval/royalties.

-------
I do wish the movie/tv industry would understand the money to be made with a streaming service that would rent at the rate around redbox. redbox expanding would be great. In my area i don't have a big selection. i seem to go 3-4 months with out renting anything from redbox due to change over/rotation. I don't rent from Amazon often due to the price. I don't buy movies in digital format/file format at all. Discs only. I've thought about getting a netflix account, but haven't gone further than thinking about it. To many options with content spread all over the place makes me not want to bother with any of them. I have amazon prime only because of the shipping, video, and music. with out 2 of those 3, i wouldn't have that. The original content coming from Amazon and the Netflix seem to be good. It's pushing me to get a netflix account for some of it. I'm just not there yet.

It's like the movie/tv industry wants to make it difficult. If it wasn't for AnyDVD i wouldn't bother with discs due to the crap they've done to try and force you to watch the warnings, commercials, and previews. and WHY are there commercials on a disc i bought??? Fuck you industry, fuck you.

Well that turned into a bit of a rant i think. oh well.

 

[preslove]

I don't know about that. I think sorts organisations have a big thing about no mass viewings with out paying the right royalties/agreements. At some point, probably still is, i remember reading similar things about showing movies you "own" to groups isn't legal with out the right approval/royalties.

No. The text of the law specifically outlaws creating copies. There is nothing on the books about watching streams.

And those showing licenses are only for businesses and organizations (schools, churches, etc). They can't charge you extra for watching a movie with your wife and kids.

 

[rstrohkirch]

Whatever you think about the ethics, viewing pirated streams isn't illegal because it isn't creating a new copy.

I don't believe this to be true. You are making a temporary copy of the data you're streaming. The data for each frame from a movie exists both on the server it is streaming from AND the device that decoded that information. Also, nearly all software needs some kind buffering, even milliseconds to maintain quality of use. That right there means data is being stored in two different locations.

 

[JoeBleed]

No. The text of the law specifically outlaws creating copies. There is nothing on the books about watching streams.

And those showing licenses are only for businesses and organizations (schools, churches, etc). They can't charge you extra for watching a movie with your wife and kids.

This covers what i was thinking about.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy...creen-super-bowl-party-violate-copyright-law/

in your home with the wife and kids and/or friends, i would think not, but there seem to be situations where you could go over, though not likely in your average home.

Here is a question, if you've used any of these devices/services (and to anyone in this thread that has used it) in terms of IPTV streams, are the commercials still intact? Station watermarks?

 

[Red Squirrel]

I would check into what this box is running to make sure it can be repurposed as a computer. Whatever streaming service they use is probably going to be short lived. Does look like a neat idea though.

You can do a lot of this with Kodi and some extensions too. Though I find the streams can be choppy, really depends on the streamer's bandwidth etc. I like to just torrent then stream from my local server.