A passing glance at the news headlines this week might have left people under the impression there was a widespread and concerted effort to target those involved in the illegal streaming of content on what are commonly known as dodgy boxes.
The reality is somewhat different. The actions being taken by a UK-based operation that monitors breaches of copyright on behalf of content creators and generators is part of an ongoing series of skirmishes, rather than the opening of a new front in the war on pirates.
For a quarter of a century those who make and sell content have been fighting a running battle with those who make it free to view online.
First there was Napster and dozens of other less well-known upstarts who allowed people to share music for free. They were quickly crushed by the music industry but the damage was done and traditional business models which saw records, CDs and cassettes sold at high prices were replaced by streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music.
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The war moved on to film and television with so-called torrents, in which users download small sections of programmes or films from multiple sources, becoming the great threat that would kill the entertainment industry.
Content makers and ISPs cracked down on torrent providers easily enough too because end-users were storing complete files on their devices.
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They were succeeded by legally questionable (or dodgy) boxes that plug into a television and allow users stream content directly from the internet on to their televisions.
That battle has been a lot harder to win.
This week the UK-based Federation Against Copyright Theft (Fact) issued a release announcing “another wave of legal warnings… delivered in person, by post, and by email to individuals across Ireland involved in providing illegal access to premium TV content”.
The cease-and-desist notices “instruct those running the services to immediately cease all illegal streaming activity, otherwise risk facing the consequences, including criminal prosecution”.
They were, Fact said, issued to addresses in Mayo, Monaghan, Galway, Louth, Dublin, Cork and Laois.
While the release made headlines, Garda sources cast doubt on claims that a significant “crackdown” against the sale and use of illegal streaming boxes has been taking place.
The Irish Times understands that that while the Garda regularly works with industry bodies to investigate piracy and copyright breaches, it is not engaged in any special operation targeting illegal streaming activity at present and is definitely not targeting individual householders.
Sources have even cast doubt that the force would have any jurisdiction when it comes to the use of such boxes, suggesting it would be a civil rather than a criminal matter.
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Sellers of the boxes were not unduly concerned about the news. “We’ve been selling boxes for 10 years,” said Paul, a seller who spoke on condition of anonymity.
He stressed that the boxes he sells are loaded with legitimate apps and are entirely legal. They just have the capacity to do illegal things.
“The person who buys it has to download the apps themselves and there is so much information out there about how to do that and it can be done by anyone in minutes,” Paul pointed out.
He said he was unconcerned about reports of crackdowns which, he noted, have been a regular feature of the autumn for years and tend to coincide with the start of the English premiership with access to football matches driving many sales.
“I hear of a crackdown on dodgy boxes or Android boxes but Android is just an operating system and if the crackdown was to mean anything, everything that runs on that including phones, tablets and firesticks would have to be targeted. They can’t crack down on the boxes because the boxes are legal and they’re being sold in most electrical shops in the country,” he said.
Paul accepted that the level of illegal streaming in Ireland, where over 5 per cent of homes have dodgy boxes installed according to EU figures, is an issue “but it is a problem for the likes of Sky and not for those streaming”.
“It’s like robbing an orchard when you’re younger or not paying for parking and getting away with it,” he said. “It’s what you might call a victimless crime or at least that is how most people see it.”
There are many people – inside and outside the content-creation industries – who would argue convincingly that it is not a victimless crime and an unwillingness to pay for content puts the very existence of content at risk.
It is however a crime. In April, a Dublin man who sold android boxes allowing cheap access to thousands of TV channels was sentenced to 240 hours of community service after pleading guilty to three sample counts of copyright infringements involving the possession and sale of so-called “protection-defeating devices”. Passing sentence at Dublin Circuit Court, Judge Martin Nolan said it was “a sneaky type of offence – hard to detect”.
“I am not worried about prosecution,” Paul continued. “We are selling to guys who are selling subscriptions to illegal streams but the guards are not going to start knocking on doors. I mean they can’t even police the streets so are hardly likely to get a team to come together to crack down on this.”
That is not to say people won’t pay a price for illegally streaming content. Paul pointed out that a lot of dodgy people are selling access to copyrighted streams on Facebook and other platforms. Many promise a two-year subscription for €50. “It might work for a month or two and they might sell 1,000 subscriptions after which the links stop working and the people who bought them have no comeback at all,” he said.
“There’s three things here really,” said Dr TJ Mcintyre, associate professor and head of teaching and learning in the Sutherland School of Law in UCD. “There is the people selling physical devices and sometimes selling codes in relation to them, there are the people selling or setting up streams of content on the internet and then there are the individuals sitting at home watching the streams.”
He says the first two groups are regularly targeted by the holders of copyrights. While there are “some offences that theoretically can apply to individuals in relation to copyright infringement, in practice I don’t think any of these have ever actually been litigated or prosecuted in Ireland”, he said.
