Amazon Fire Sticks enable “billions of dollars” worth of streaming piracy

To be frank it's not Amazon's problem.

Its the content publishers problem.

And Amazon isn't enabling this, they're just making an Android device.

The users are putting software onto the device.

This article sets a dangerous precedent. That if Amazon doesn't lock the firestick down like Apple that they're enabling piracy.

Its not Googles nor Microsoft's responsibilities either. They helped, probably solely for money, but they're not obligated to continue to update their DRM.

This article should have framed how DRM repeatedly hasn't worked.

The more piracy the better imo. And I don't need to explain why anymore, that is obvious
Amazon is already locking down the fire stick. A few years ago you could easily modify the software via adb, deactivate the updater, uninstall the menu. In the meantime they made it much harder, luckily I modified mine in time.
They should just remove the DRM from all streaming services. The fact that new TV shows can be downloaded within minutes of airing is a good indicator that it doesn't work for its intended purpose. It just makes me find another source since I can't watch them using my preferred browser and operating system.

All pirates drink water. What is water doing to stop piracy?

Piracy is morally correct, copying from greedy companies that spy on their customers for shady purposes and take advantage of their position to impose unfair terms. If buying no longer means owning something then pirating cannot be considered theft

Piracy has never been theft because nothing is missing. It's not stealing or theft if someone takes a picture of my shoes and makes their own because I still have shoes.
- Yeah, not only that, people who pirate wouldn't have consumed the product, if pirating weren't available as an option. They've priced cost of living so high, and reduced access to content availability. When Netflix first came out, especially the streaming version, I bet there was a noticible drop in piracy, now they've made content access to hard, more piracy. They control the levels of piracy. It's not a choice to pay for everything we want to watch, or pirate. It's pirate or don't watch. And they created that situation, and then try and brainwash / gaslight us into feeling guilty and feeling like it's our fault. And then add in the moral clause, these companies are committing or contributing to atrocities. Some piracy is an attempt to avoid supporting companies that cause harm to people. If "wrong" is condemned, what about the wrongs that have caused them to be listed on boycott lists. Underpaying employees and writers, who should own the content. I think writers should be as famous, and focused on as the actors. The content being created currently has a heaping of "conform, don't think" built in, too, I could rant about that, annoyingly, for a bit, too! So many things.

If Big Media is losing all this money, why aren't they claiming these losses on their taxes?

Is it because they haven't lost a dime?

They do
- What formula do they use to calculate these losses? Are there guidelines posted by the IRS?

Yes focus on Amazon, the only known way to pirate..

Publishers under the impression that they somehow deserve "billion of dollars" more money than they already get for checks notes being a middleman.

Lately Ars Technica seems quite intent on losing any quality they had.

What kind of boot licking, inaccurate, non-news shit is this?

The only potential reason for this article is farming engagement bait clicks from people who don't know shit about fire sticks, and from people like us stunned at the stupidity.

Or because they are a media company with a media owner/parent company that has an interest in directing public opinion that piracy bad mkay.

Same way as an HDMI cable enables piracy?

HDMI has DRM 🫣

Internet enables most, if not all the piracy.

Poor service enables most, if not all piracy.
- The mitochondria enables most, if not all, piracy.
  
  One could say it powers most, if not all, piracy.
The real enablers are the guy who make the movies and tv shows in the first place. If they don’t make stuff, no one would pirate that stuff.
Atleast in countries with some sort of internet access. For example Cuba enjoyed current movies and shows despite a strict US/Western embargo through a combination of smuggled USB pen drives and a peer-to-peer radio network.
Wow... this is at least 3 times the world money stock worth of damage!

Over twenty years since launch, the DRM solutions provided by Google and Microsoft are in steep decline. A complete overhaul of the technology architecture, licensing, and support model is needed. **Lack of engagement with content owners indicates this a low priority.**

It's funny that even the techbros don't like them

You gotta pump those numbers up those are rookie numbers

Well my Fire TV has a Jellyfin app that's letting me watch shows not in streaming services or is impossible to get in my home country due to copyright.

Anyone else know the other apps that help make Amazon the ire of copyright?

Wolf Launcher, if you don't want to deal with the shitty stock launcher.

CloudStream is good if you watch anime.

The folks on r/piracy seem to like an app called Stremio, but I haven't got that one set up yet.

I have a Jellyfin client.

SmartTube Next is an ad free Youtube client for the firestick.

And then I also have Kanopy and Hoopla which let me access media via my public library card.
- Stremio is almost like “piracy, the streaming service.”
  
  It sequentially downloads torrents, on demand, in such a way that you can stream the content without ever having downloaded it.
  
  It’s available on most app stores (though the iOS offering doesn’t have streaming, because Apple.)
  
  Edit: I mean the file doesn’t get saved, it just pulls down the data it needs, uses it, then deletes it. When you’re done, the torrent data isn’t actually on disk.

Just leaving this here : https://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html

This is battle they can't win and it just makes everything stupid trying.

Old tech is holding the world together

yeah it's the one good thing amazon does.

following this argument this article is also enabling piracy by giving people good ideas 💡

There is a difference.

Say you buy a used PC or android stick and want to use it for piracy, ok, doable, but you'll be doing most of the work. Kodi builds can get you there easily.

but compared to firesticks?

Firesticks have a piracy singularity going on. The entire secondary phase of cracking the OS and installing is intended for piracy. It's an open and shut, easy, one-two punch to get into the ecosystem. All of the hardware is easy to track and maintain. My cousin has a hacked firestick and he can't even open Microsoft Word. You can buy them pre-hacked with no real input or work needed on your part.

Oh no! Anyway...

I still don’t understand what’s going on with the fire stick though. What are people actually doing to it?

Nothing. What people think and say is jail breaking is actually side loading custom android apps, which is actually already part of android. Amazon IMO made it more difficult than it's supposed to be. I installed vlc and stremio and use it alongside all the other apps. Nothing groundbreaking nor illegal. That's not jailbreaking, it's using Android the way it's designed to be used.

Yeah, but asking film/tv producers for permission would kill my content collection!

Ask by writing a letter that says if you don't reply it means it's okay, then the tricky part happens, you need to fold the letter into an airplane and throw it in the direction of Hollywood, ideally into a trash bin, or paper shredder.

Shut up ars you grass

Just finished watching Legend of Korra :)

Fuck yeah they do, I have 3 of them. I use Stremio for watching all kinds of movies (although I also use Amazon Prime) and even my older family members know how to use Stremio that's how easy it is to use.

Please don't give Amazon money for a shitty android stick. It's rather locked down too and the GUI is ad riddled. A lot of playback bugs that I don't have on a competitor product. There's many better alternatives with less god awful remote controls as well.

Just make sure you're not buying some generic Chinese thing with a compromised linux kernel.