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Anti Piracy VP Says "Any Device" That Can Be Used To Infringe IP Should Be Made Illegal (reclaimthenet.org)

submitted 1 year ago by c0mmando@links.hackliberty.org to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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The ongoing and often extreme and overreaching battle against piracy within the audiovisual industry continues to escalate, with recent discussions focusing on devices capable of infringing intellectual property (IP) rights. As stated by Sheila Cassells, Executive VP at the Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance (AAPA), companies in the entertainment sector should be wary of “any technological development” that could potentially grant access to pirated content.

From historical technology like the VCR to modern advances like AI, all technology holds inherent potentials for piracy.

At the center of these discussions are specific devices including set-top boxes, Firesticks, and Android apps, often condemned for enabling piracy. The AAPA’s somewhat radical standpoint is a call to outlaw the production, marketing, and distribution of any such device.

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[-] Alpharius@lemmy.dbzer0.com 34 points 1 year ago

Let's ban computers then. Oh you can share content from these various technologies ? Ban them ! Your CPU is able to process data of any kind ? Banned ! You made a code project that is able to process and share data ? Banned !

This whole trend of banning things that "can" be used to make any illegal activities is ridiculous. VPNs are widely used by pirates and criminals to share illegal content on the web but it is also a very powerful tool to escape censorship and obtain a certain of privacy on the web. Tor also falls into it, while ironically being made by the US army, is also a very good free tool for activists of all kind to express their claims and evade censorship as well. Torrent was made to transfer files of any kind as a peer to peer technology and is still very useful outside of sharing illegal content.

If we start banning every tools used by the common people for normal (and legal) practices because a small group of people use them for illegal purpose, everything will be restricted, banned or heavily regulated.