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Post by The Ultimate Nullifier on Jun 10, 2016 11:35:39 GMT -6
www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/hollywood-studios-file-suit-service-901509Hollywood Studios File Suit Against Service Streaming $1 Movies Warner, Fox and Disney want an injunction against VidAngel, which sells films for $20 before buying them back for $19. Every few years, a new tech service comes along purporting to have cracked the copyright code and offering consumers the ability to watch film and television content on demand for a cheaper price. And just as often, the big film studios object that such services are anything but lawful. The latest controversy pertains to VidAngel, which was sued in California federal court on Thursday by Disney, 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros. Entertainment. "You buy a movie for 20 dollars," VidAngel explains to potential customers. "Don't worry, it ends up being one dollar. Since you own the movie, you can legally set your filters. Now watch your movie. Then, with the click of a button, sell it back to us for 19 dollars of credit. That means each movie is only one dollar. It's that simple. Buy for 20, set filters, watch it, sell it back for 19. Enjoy your one dollar movie." The film studio are troubled because there's more to what happens. VidAngel insists that it is not a "rental" service — a few year ago, an upstart called Zediva tried that — because it is selling physical DVD and Blu-ray discs. But the Hollywood studios look at VidAngel providing streams of whatever customers purchase and don't see any distinction. And because of Hollywood's windowing system, VidAngel's model means that a film released on physical but not digital channels becomes available on the latter. The company specifically advertises that many of its films aren't yet on Netflix. "Recently, VidAngel exploited this competitive advantage to offer Star Wars: The Force Awakens for $1 a day at a time when lawful VOD services did not yet have the right to offer that work for single-day access at all," the complaint states. The three studios, being represented by Munger Tolles lawyers who have represented the MPAA (which makes the absence of Sony and Paramount curious), lay out where VidAngel has allegedly gone wrong in running what they consider to be an "unlicensed VOD streaming service." First, states the complaint, VidAngel is only able to stream by circumventing the encryption on DVD and Blu-rays that protect against unauthorized access. That would be a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Next, by copying and streaming, VidAngel is alleged to be violating the plaintiffs' exclusive rights to reproduce and publicly perform the works. VidAngel also touts filtering capabilities that let users skip profanity and nudity, but Warner, Fox and Disney say that any attempt to bless the service under the Family Movie Act of 2005 is wrong. According to the complaint, "The FMA requires that any copy or performance made pursuant to that statute be otherwise 'authorized'—that is, not violating the copyright owner’s other exclusive rights." The studios are seeking an injunction and either profits or statutory damages. Here's the full complaint. www.documentcloud.org/documents/2858496-VidAngel.html
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Post by The Ultimate Nullifier on Aug 3, 2016 11:41:27 GMT -6
www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/vidangel-taps-oscars-attorney-legal-916601VidAngel Taps Former Oscars Attorney in Battle Against Major Studios David Quinto, who represented the Academy for 27 years, has been named general counsel of VidAngel, a service parents use to censor objectionable content. Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. are suing the company. VidAngel, a service that lets parents strip movies of content they deem offensive, has hired longtime Hollywood attorney David Quinto to help it do legal battle against several large studios that have sued the company. Quinto, who represented the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for 27 years, said Tuesday he has joined VidAngel as its general counsel, effective immediately. VidAngel is being sued by 20th Century Fox, Walt Disney and Warner Bros. Entertainment, and in his long career Quinto has represented the latter two. He also has represented the Producers Guild of America and other entertainment entities. Quinto had advised VidAngel for about 10 months, but when he joined Davis Wright Tremaine, the law firm "felt uncomfortable" because of its Hollywood clients, so he was forced to drop the company, he said. Now, he has reversed course by quitting Davis Wright Tremaine and joining VidAngel full time in order "to help a wonderful organization protect an important right of the American people, and in the process create new law," he told The Hollywood Reporter. "Parents have the right to determine how they and their children may enjoy TV or movies in the privacy of their homes," he said. "People have the right not to be assaulted by offensive content." VidAngel says that under the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act it has the right to sell movies it buys on the open market to households that in turn use VidAngel's technology to stream the films after the sex, profanity and graphic violence have been stripped out. The three studios sued in June, not because of the filtering technology, but because the discs that consumers purchased aren't usually delivered to homes, but instead the encryption is removed and the edited content is streamed to the home of the customers. While the studios claim that VidAngel is illegally streaming movies without obtaining permission from the studios, VidAngel last month launched a counter-complaint accusing the studios of violating antitrust laws and engaging in a "conspiracy to restrain the market for online filtering services." Quinto says his first order of business now that he has been named general counsel is to make sure VidAngel beats its adversaries — including his former clients — in court. "I certainly anticipate this will go to the Ninth Circuit, because I don't think the studios will accept a loss in the trial court," said Quinto. "And it's possible it will go to the Supreme Court, because it raises issues important to over 100 million Americans who want the right to watch filtered content." In its defense, VidAngel also is relying on the "first-sale doctrine," which says purchasers of DVDs and Blu-ray discs can sell their copies without the permission of the studios. The studios counter, though, that since VidAngel is selling movies for $20 but then buying them back (minus $1 for every day the customer uses the movie), the first-sale doctrine doesn't apply. "VidAngel is able to offer prices that undercut licensed services and charge only $1 for daily access to movies," the studios say in their lawsuit. "VidAngel offers content that is not available on licensed VOD services." Quinto says, though, that VidAngel buys the copies it sells — it has 1,600 units of The Revenant, for example. "I absolutely respect the artistry that goes into making movies, but the studios' objections to VidAngel flow from a warped sense of moral rights," said Quinto. "To date, VidAngel has spent 40 percent of its gross revenue to purchase discs. So when the studios say they aren't getting any profit, they are being flatly untruthful." He added: "VidAngel would love to purchase streaming licenses for streaming filtered content, but the studios won't allow it."
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Post by The Ultimate Nullifier on Aug 24, 2016 11:03:44 GMT -6
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Post by The Ultimate Nullifier on Aug 29, 2016 11:53:36 GMT -6
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Post by The Ultimate Nullifier on Sept 14, 2016 23:36:07 GMT -6
www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/hollywood-piracy-lawsuit-features-disney-928626Hollywood Piracy Lawsuit Now Features Disney Porn, WikiLeaks and Jar Jar Binks VidAngel suggests a lawsuit from Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. is pretext to stop family-friendly filtering. The lawsuit filed by Disney, 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros. against VidAngel is stepping on some bizarre territory. To quickly review, the three studios (including Disney subsidiary LucasFilm) filed a copyright infringement complaint in June with the allegation that VidAngel was operating an "unlicensed VOD streaming service" by selling movies and TV shows for $20, providing the means so that consumers could stream the works with filters, and then buying them back for $19. The studios are now pushing for a preliminary injunction. In response, VidAngel has wrapped itself under the family-friendly banner and is asserting a counterclaim premised on the notion there's a conspiracy at hand to rid the entertainment market of any technology that allows consumers to filter course language, nudity and violence from movies and TV shows. The company hopes that the Family Movie Act of 2005 is its salvation from copyright liability, and if that doesn't work, is attempting to convince a judge that it is making transformative use of content and deserves to be adjudicated a fair use. On Monday, VidAngel rehashed the arguments in an opposition to the preliminary injunction, plus offered dozens of declarations from some of its supporters. Among the court papers filed yesterday was a declaration from David Quinto, who made one of the more surprising moves in Hollywood history. A former founding partner at Quinn Emanuel, Quinto represented the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for 27 years. But in August, Quinto joined VidAngel as its general counsel. In Quinto's declaration, he reveals that he was representing VidAngel in August 2015 when his former firm "reversed its earlier decision" and ordered him to stop representing the company. A year later, he's left his prestigious law firm and is now on VidAngel's side again. He's now taking shots at Hollywood. For instance, his declaration (read here) notes how "three of the six major motion picture studios refused to sue VidAngel" and also discusses "Disney pornography." Specifically, he notes the existence of a website called DisneyPornLand.com, where Disney characters are said to engage in various sex acts. "As a Uniform Domain Name Resolution Policy panelist accredited by the World Intellectual Property Organization and as a lawyer who, while in law firm practice, brought several successful in rem actions in the Eastern District of Virginia to obtain domain names used in bad faith by unknown or foreign registrants to cause harm to U.S. trademark owners, I know that it would be a simple and inexpensive matter for Disney to take ownership of that domain name," Quinto states. "That it has not done so leads me to conclude that Disney does not believe that the association of its mark and characters with pornography injures it, thus rendering its contention that something both wholesome and approved by Congress trivial and commonplace might [be] less than credible." Yes, VidAngel is trying to steer the judge's attention away from allegations that it is circumventing the encryption on DVD and Blu-rays to (legally or not) stream blockbusters that aren't even on Netflix yet. Instead, VidAngel is openly suggesting more sinister forces lurk beneath the piracy lawsuit. Check out Vidangel CEO Neal Harmon's own declaration in the matter. (Read in full here.) Harmon says he created the services after he and his brothers asked themselves, "Why isn't there a content filtering service for streaming?" After Google came out with its Chromecast streaming device, VidAngel was launched on the back of this technology as well as a few million dollars in funding. He says Google, however, removed his technology at the request of movie studios, and so he spent a couple of years adapting the technology and paying attention to developments like the Aereo case to see if he could make it work within the boundaries. The studios weren't VidAngel's only problem. "Because VidAngel has catered only to people who want to filter the motion pictures they watch in their homes, we did not immediately recognize that others might try to abuse VidAngel’s service or exploit loopholes in our service to watch motion pictures without filtering," states Harmon. According to Harmon, the company created a #StopJarJar marketing campaign in December 2015 to coincide with the Star Wars VII movie launch, but that users began taking advantage of it by "setting a single global filter (e.g., Jar Jar Binks) and then watching movies on the Roku that didn't have any tags for the selected filter, resulting in a few unfiltered streams." In other words, some people weren't as interested in those vaunted filtering features as maybe having the ability to stream content cheaply. Similarly, Harmon says the company struggled with some users merely filtering opening and closing credits. He says the company worked to address such "loopholes" and "stay focused on our original target market of FMA-compliant filtering." He crows about the success, pointing to a survey the company has taken of its users: "Out of 180,227 movies watched, 92,225 users said they would not have watched the movie at all without filters (as of 8/26/2016). These answers come from the account holders (usually parents)." Harmon later goes on to explain why he believes the studios are being "disingenuous" about their piracy lawsuit. He explains that his epiphany came when reading the Sony/Google agreement that was posted on WikiLeaks (after being obtained via a hack attributed to the North Koreans, proving our intuition at the time that the information was going to pop up in all sorts of odd ways.) The deal limited Google's ability to make deletions, cuts and alterations of Sony's content. "Discovering this language in the studios’ actual agreements helped me realize that this was the reason Google was forced to remove technical support for filtering HD content on the Chromecast and was forced to seek permission from the studios to enable filtering on Google Play," states Harmon, adding some discussion of Sony's agreements for the specific films Fury and American Hustle. In VidAngel's view, or at least its posturing, the damages being asserted by Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. is pretextual to a larger animus towards filtering. In an effort to show this, Quinto points to the way he tried to engage the studios in negotiations. In an Aug. 29 letter to opposing counsel, for instance, he wrote that "VidAngel is willing to abandon its Family Movie Act exemption (and with it the requirement that consumers must purchase copies of discs) and instead pay a streaming license fee to stream filtered content." The studios are apparently shaking their collective heads at what they're witnessing. As Kelly Klaus, an attorney for the plaintiffs, wrote Quinto that same day, "If VidAngel takes its legal obligations seriously, VidAngel will immediately stop ripping my clients’ works from DVDs and Blu-ray discs and will remove those works from its infringing service. We find your email below to be as disingenuous as your original letters to each of my clients. In addition, it is simply astonishing that VidAngel — while pursuing legally and factually baseless antitrust claims — proposes to engage my clients in joint licensing discussions. To reiterate what I have told [VidAngel's lawyers at] Baker Marquart multiple times: My clients absolutely will not engage in any joint licensing discussions." U.S. District Court judge Paul Abrams will entertain oral arguments in October.
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Post by The Ultimate Nullifier on Dec 23, 2016 0:31:32 GMT -6
deadline.com/2016/12/vidangel-studios-win-injunction-against-streaming-service-that-filters-content-1201869390/VidAngel Case: Studios Win Injunction Against Streaming Service That Filters Content 2nd UPDATE, 6:25 AM: The studios released a new joint statement today saying VidAngel continues to infringe on their IP despite last week’s injunction blocking streaming of movies on the site. “Defying last week’s injunction,” they said, “VidAngel continues to illegally stream our content without a license and is expanding its infringement by adding new titles. We have brought VidAngel’s indefensible violation of the injunction to the court’s attention. As the court made clear in its order, VidAngel’s unauthorized acts of ripping, copying and streaming our movies and TV shows infringe copyright and violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. VidAngel’s filtering of content has nothing to do with the claims against it and does not excuse its illegal activities.” UPDATED with studios’ statement: It took a month, but a judge today granted a request by several film studios for an injunction blocking VidAngel from continuing to stream films with objectionable content filtered out by consumer request. “We are extremely gratified the court enjoined VidAngel’s unauthorized streaming service from infringing our copyrights and violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act,” Warner Bros, Disney and Fox said in a joint statement Tuesday. “This case was never about filtering. The court recognized that the Family Movie Act does not provide a defense to VidAngel’s infringing acts of ripping, copying and streaming copyrighted movies and TV shows. We look forward to defending the court’s decision against any appeal by VidAngel.” Filed in June, the studios’ complaint against start-up VidAngel appears to be shaping up as a showdown between the federal Family Movies Act, which permits individuals to filter what they consider to be unacceptably violent, profane or other content from home entertainment versions of films, and protection afforded copyright owners under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. “Plaintiffs bring this motion on the grounds that they are likely to succeed on the merits of their claims and that they will suffer irreparable harm,” U.S. District Judge Andre Birotte Jr. wrote in today’s order (read it here). “Upon consideration of the parties’ arguments, papers and the case file, the court hereby grants the motion for preliminary injunction.” VidAngel, which recently raised a little over $10 million in a public offering, says it sells a copy of a film to customers for $20, allows the purchaser to select which snippets will be eliminated, then offers to buy the copy back for as much as $19, a price that diminishes by a dollar for each day the buyer keeps it. The studios say that amounts to little more than a low-price rental, as some buyers choose minimal filtering of hits like the most recent Star Wars film. In arguing against the motion last month, VidAngel attorney David Quinto said 96% of the company’s customers filter at least two elements from films, and on average, he said, they request filtering of 17 elements. The most frequently chosen filters, he said, eliminate female nudity and two common obscenities. Kelly Klaus, arguing for the studios, countered by citing user endorsements in which VidAngel customers raved about the service’s ability to provide cheap, timely streams of popular films with minimal cleanup. In an intricate discussion of the actual mechanics behind VidAngel, both Klaus and Quinto described a process under which the company actually purchases a DVD for each film streamed — whether directly from the studio, or by re-purchase from an earlier consumer. But it actually makes only one master copy of each film, which is broken into bits, tagged by those who watch and assess its content, then scattered into a cloud storage mechanism. Thus, consumers who briefly “own” a DVD, actually watch an assemblage gathered from a single master. Klaus argued that those are being illegally “ripped” from a DVD in what amounts to little more than piracy. At last month’s hearing, Quinto repeatedly insisted that both the Family Movies Act and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act authorize the master, without which there would be little or no way to deliver the family-friendly movies envisioned by Congress when it created the family film legislation. Michael Cieply and Dominic Patten contributed to this report.
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Post by The Ultimate Nullifier on Dec 23, 2016 0:57:54 GMT -6
variety.com/2016/digital/news/vidangel-lives-defies-judge-order-studios-enraged-1201946873/VidAngel Keeps Streaming, Defying Judge’s Order and Enraging Studios It’s been more than a week since a judge ordered VidAngel, the family-friendly streaming service, to shut down pending a trial for copyright infringement. But as of now, the site — which allows users to “rent” movies online and filter out offensive language, violence, and nudity — continues to operate as usual. VidAngel’s CEO, Neal Harmon, has vowed to seek a stay of Judge Andre Birotte’s injunction and to appeal the case all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary. VidAngel’s defiant stance is enraging the Hollywood studios — Fox, Disney, and Warner Bros. — that sued back in June seeking to put the filtering service out of business. In a statement to the court, the studios’ attorney notes that VidAngel has in fact added three new films to its library since the injunction was issued. “Defying last week’s injunction, VidAngel continues to illegally stream our content without a license and is expanding its infringement by adding new titles,” the studios said in a statement. “We have brought VidAngel’s indefensible violation of the injunction to the court’s attention. As the court made clear in its order, VidAngel’s unauthorized acts of ripping, copying, and streaming our movies and TV shows infringe copyright and violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. VidAngel’s filtering of content has nothing to do with the claims against it and does not excuse its illegal activities.” VidAngel buys DVDs to create filtered versions of popular Hollywood movies. The most recent DVD releases — “Sully,” “Storks,” and “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” — all appeared on the site following the judge’s order. Meanwhile, VidAngel is pursuing its own countersuit in federal court. The suit accuses the studios of antitrust violations and seeks a declaration that VidAngel’s service is permitted under the Family Movie Act. VidAngel contends that its service engages in the lawful reselling of DVDs to consumers. Consumers can choose to obtain a physical copy of their DVD or stream it over the VidAngel site with offensive material filtered out, and can then “resell” the DVD back to VidAngel after watching the movie. Birotte rejected each of VidAngel’s arguments in his injunction, finding that the studios are likely to prevail on the merits when the case goes to trial. In their statement to the court, the studios threatened to seek a finding that VidAngel is in contempt of court if the site does not shut down. Update: VidAngel filed its own declaration today, asking for more time to modify its application in order to comply with the judge’s ruling. Among other technical issues, VidAngel contends that it cannot modify its Apple and Roku apps at the moment due to holiday blackout period. The company also states that it is trying to avoid the customer service nightmare that would ensue if it simply shut off all in-app purchases. The company estimates it will need until Jan. 5 to update its Apple app, and Jan. 25 to update its Roku app. The company also faces another urgent problem, disclosing that its payment processor has threatened to sever relations as early as next week unless a stay of the injunction is granted.
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Post by The Ultimate Nullifier on Dec 23, 2016 11:18:02 GMT -6
www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/vidangel-struggling-stay-business-accusations-defying-injunction-958580VidAngel Struggling to Stay in Business Amid Accusation of Defying Injunction The chief executive at the streaming upstart points fingers at Apple and Roku and describes a potential "customer-relations nightmare." More than a week ago, a federal judge issued an injunction against VidAngel, a streaming service that allows its users the ability to filter out nudity, language and other objectionable content. A judge agreed with Warner Bros, Disney and 20th Century Fox that VidAngel was likely violating copyright law by breaking the encryption on DVDs and Blu-Rays to stream digital content of hit movies and television shows. Despite the ruling, VidAngel touted its financial resources and pledged to aggressively pursue an appeal. But the road ahead might not be so easy for the upstart. On Tuesday, the studios' lawyer told the judge that despite the injunction, VidAngel refused to remove copyrighted works from the service, and moreover, it had added new content including Sully, Storks and Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. "VidAngel’s defiance of the Preliminary Injunction is flagrant," stated a declaration from attorney Kelly Klaus. "If VidAngel will not comply with the Preliminary Injunction immediately, Plaintiffs will have no option other than to move ex parte for an order to show cause why VidAngel should not be held in contempt." On Wednesday night, VidAngel filed its response and outlined the nightmare at hand. The company is pushing the judge to hold off on the injunction pending an appeal to the 9th Circuit, and if U.S. District Judge Andre Birotte Jr. refuses, VidAngel could have an extremely serious problem at hand. "When I learned of the injunction of the preliminary injunction the night of December 12, 2016, I immediately began to investigate how VidAngel could comply with the injunction without going out of business completely and without causing unintended problems for our customers," states VidAngel CEO Neal Harmon in his own declaration. Harmon points some of the blame at app stores such as Roku, Apple, Google Play and Amazon Fire TV. "To avoid risking disruptions to their users' experience during a critical time of the year, the Apple and Roku stores do not permit modifications to their applications during the holiday season," he states. As a result, he says, pulling specific titles isn't possible. "To immediately shutdown, we would have to block access to all titles," he tells the judge. Harmon seems to think it's unfair that VidAngel be forced to pull titles it has licensed, like Excel Entertainment's The Last Descent, or maybe even the titles from the three major studios — Universal, Paramount and Sony — that weren't plaintiffs. He also tells the judge that since the injunction issued, VidAngel has contacted over 125 studios or distributors to let them know that if it can't stay the injunction pending appeal, absent a covenant not to sue, it will cease filtering and streaming their works. "To date, one such company — MGM — has rejected our request for a covenant not to sue and we have yet to hear from many others," he says. That's only the beginning of VidAngel's problems. The tech service has touted a unique business model — "You buy a movie for 20 dollars," it tells customers. "Don't worry, it ends up being one dollar. Since you own the movie, you can legally set your filters. Now watch your movie. Then, with the click of a button, sell it back to us for 19 dollars of credit. That means each movie is only one dollar. It's that simple." It is hardly simple. First, the judge in his opinion distinguished between authorization to view a DVD and authorization to view decrypted digital content on an alternative platform. Now, the specter of telling all its customers they won't be able to watch what was advertised as being sold to them amounts to one hell of a headache. "To immediately block access to all (or all of plaintiffs') existing titles, would cause a customer-relations nightmare to address the problem of customers who permanently owned discs that they now could not watch, with no explanation," states Harmon in his declaration. That might be underselling the problem, too. Could any of its users sue? Would sending customers physical DVDs avoid liability? Those are questions for another day. In the meantime, there is yet one more problem that VidAngel's business is suddenly facing. According to Harmon, "VidAngel today learned that its payment processing company has indicated that, absent a stay, it might sever relations with VidAngel as early as next week."
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Post by The Ultimate Nullifier on Dec 30, 2016 20:10:48 GMT -6
deadline.com/2016/12/vidangel-take-down-disputed-movie-service-appeal-court-decision-1201877116/VidAngel Takes Down Disputed Movie Service, But Hopes For A Reprieve VidAngel — the start-up streaming service that offers consumers opportunities to watch movies without profanity or potentially offensive content — is down, but says it’s not out, after a court setback in a case from Disney, Warner Bros and 20th Century Fox. Today the company shuttered the service, complying with a U.S. District Court in California injunction this month. Judge Andre Birotte Jr. said the studios were “likely to succeed” with a suit that charged VidAngel infringed on their copyrights and violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and would “suffer irreparable harm” if it continued to do business during the legal battle. VidAngel today asked the 9th Circuit Court of Appeal to stay enforcement of the injunction. The studios have until January 2 to respond, and VidAngel would have another day to respond. “We hope to get a quick decision,” says the company’s General Counsel David Quinto. VidAngel is asking studios not involved in the court case to agree to not sue while it’s alive he adds. “We want to provide all of the studios a light” on what the law does and doesn’t allow. “Some have privately expressed their hope that we can overcome.” Meanwhile, VidAngel says it’s keeping its website up to offer information about the suit as well as different content including family-friendly comedy, and films from studios that don’t object to the service. CEO Neal Harmon says by mid-January.he expects to have three independent titles, which he declined to identify. The company contends the service is protected by the federal Family Movies Act, which gives people the right to filter violence, profanity, and other content from home video versions of studio releases. To comply with the law, the company doesn’t create a permanent copy of filtered films or show them publicly. VidAngel buys DVD or Blu-ray discs for the films it streams. Each one is linked to a copy on its servers that one customer at a time can effectively buy, designating the kinds of content he or she wants filtered. Once done with the film, the customer effectively sells it back to VidAngel for a price that’s discounted for the length of time it’s been accessed. The company says the process is similar to what college bookstores do when they rent textbooks. The studios contend that this is merely a form of piracy.
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Post by The Ultimate Nullifier on Dec 30, 2016 22:09:19 GMT -6
variety.com/2016/biz/news/vidangel-shuts-down-1201950376/ VidAngel Bows to Judge’s Order and Shuts Down VidAngel, the family-friendly filtering service, has bowed to a federal judge’s order and shut down its site completely. Judge Andre Birotte ordered the company to cease operations on Dec. 12, issuing an injunction at the request of Disney, Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox, which have complained that the service is pirating their content. The company sought a stay of the injunction, but on Thursday Birotte rejected that request, prompting VidAngel to shut down. “It is not a fun time for us right now,” said Neal Harmon, the company’s CEO, in an interview with Variety. “It is definitely causing us harm… This is traditionally the biggest time of the year for movie watching. We have hundreds of thousands of customers planning on watching filtered content, and instead this is what they get.” In seeking the stay, Harmon had warned that an immediate shutdown would create a customer service nightmare. VidAngel allows customers to watch mainstream movies while filtering out objectionable content such as nudity or offensive language. Customers “buy” movies for $20, watch them on VidAngel’s site or its streaming apps, and then “sell” them back to the company. As of now, all commerce on the site has shut down. Harmon said that customers who cannot access their movies can get their purchase refunded, or may receive an unfiltered DVD copy of the movie in the mail. Customers can also cash out their VidAngel credit. Harmon said that so far, only a few customers have asked for disc shipments. There has been an increase in cash-outs of store credit. “There have also been people who said, ‘I want to donate my credit to the litigation,'” Harmon said. The company contends that filtering is explicitly permitted under the Family Movie Act, and has vowed to take its case all the way to the Supreme Court. Company officials are referring to the shutdown as a “hiatus.” David Quinto, the company’s general counsel, said that if the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal were to grant the company’s request for an emergency stay, then the site could be back up and running within weeks. But in the meantime, the company is also planning to offer licensed content on the site in the near future. The company has already announced plans to distribute a handful of family-friendly independent movies. It also is preparing to offer a “behind the litigation” documentary about VidAngel, as well as family-friendly standup comedy performances filmed at the VidAngel headquarters. The company recently raised $10 million in a crowdfunding campaign, and is planning on using that money in part to upgrade the service and prepare for a relaunch. The company, based in Provo, Utah, has guaranteed that none of its employees will be laid off for at least 30 days, according to Quinto. “Our company has the cash to weather the storm,” Quinto said. “So we’re not going out of business. We may have a lot of work to do to try to regain lost customers and restore customer confidence. And it’s vitally important that we try to hang on to all our employees.”
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Post by The Ultimate Nullifier on Dec 30, 2016 22:22:13 GMT -6
variety.com/2016/biz/news/vidangel-shut-down-copyright-violation-1201940368/ Judge Orders VidAngel to Shut Down A judge on Monday dealt a severe blow to VidAngel, ordering the family-friendly streaming service to shut down pending a copyright infringement trial. VidAngel offers customers the ability to “rent” movies online, and to screen out various types of offensive material. VidAngel does this without agreements with content producers. Instead, the company purchases DVDs and uses software to defeat copy-protection measures. It allows users to filter out nudity, violence, and other objectionable material. Several major studios — Disney, 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros. — filed suit in June, accusing VidAngel of violating their copyrights. On Monday, Judge Andre Birotte granted the studios’ request for an injunction, finding there is a strong likelihood that they will prevail on the merits at trial. In the ruling, Birotte slapped down each of VidAngel’s arguments for its own legality. “VidAngel has not offered any evidence that the Plaintiffs have either explicitly or implicitly authorized DVD buyers to circumvent encryption technology in order to view the DVD on a different platform such as VidAngel’s streaming service,” the judge wrote. Though the ruling does not end the case, it could be a death blow for VidAngel, leaving it without the ability to conduct business or raise money. But in a statement, VidAngel CEO Neal Harmon vowed to appeal the ruling all the way to the Supreme Court. “Hollywood studios have followed a repeated pattern in their decades-long campaign to put movie filtering services out of business by seeking a shut-down decision in trial court,” Harmon said. “Previously, such a decision has signaled the end of the legal battle. As such, while we are extremely disappointed — for the countless people who rely on our service regularly to enjoy movies using filters — our customers have given us not just the mandate to fight this battle all the way to the Supreme Court, but the financial resources as well. We will aggressively pursue an appeal and take this case to a higher level where we have always believed we will ultimately prevail.” In his ruling, Birotte noted that users who wish to filter objectionable content can make use of ClearPlay, an authorized service that works with Google Play. Update: Warner Bros., Disney and Fox have issued a joint statement on the injunction in which they vow to keep fighting as the case now moves to the appellate courts: “We are extremely gratified the court enjoined VidAngel’s unauthorized streaming service from infringing our copyrights and violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This case was never about filtering. The court recognized that the Family Movie Act does not provide a defense to VidAngel’s infringing acts of ripping, copying and streaming copyrighted movies and TV shows. We look forward to defending the court’s decision against any appeal by VidAngel.”
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Post by The Ultimate Nullifier on Jan 1, 2017 20:54:48 GMT -6
www.bleedingcool.com/2017/01/01/vidangel-shuts-forcing-parents-parent/VidAngel Shuts Down Forcing Parents To Parent Posted by Kaitlyn Booth January 1, 2017 VidAngel, the service that lets customers stream censored versions of movies, has shut down for violating copyrights and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act according to a report by Deadline. The service seems to exist for the sole purpose of giving parents an excuse to let their kids watch whatever they want without having to parent. Deadline explains the service as such; VidAngel buys DVD or Blu-ray discs for the films it streams. Each one is linked to a copy on its servers that one customer at a time can effectively buy, designating the kinds of content he or she wants filtered. Once done with the film, the customer effectively sells it back to VidAngel for a price that’s discounted for the length of time it’s been accessed. VidAngel likens itself to the buying and selling of college textbooks while studios argue that it’s just piracy which is it. They also have been about as sanctimonious as possible when addressing the lawsuit. “We want to provide all of the studios a light” on what the law does and doesn’t allow. “Some have privately expressed their hope that we can overcome,” said General Counsel David Quinto. It appears that parents worried about language, sex, or violence in movies will have to sit down and have a conversation about this material with their kids. The horror.
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Post by The Ultimate Nullifier on Jan 7, 2017 18:31:54 GMT -6
www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/vidangel-found-contempt-delay-removing-disputed-films-961609VidAngel Found in Contempt for Delay in Removing Disputed Films "Our bad, your honor," said VidAngel attorney David Quinto in a Friday hearing. VidAngel has lost another round in its fight with Disney, 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros., and this one will cost it $10,000. The family-friendly streaming site was found in contempt for failing to immediately comply with a preliminary injunction that required it to remove content owned by the studios. U.S. District Court Judge Andre Birotte Jr. made the order on Dec. 12, but VidAngel didn't comply until Dec. 29 after Birotte denied its request to stay the injunction. The legal fight began in June, when the studios sued VidAngel for what they say is blatant copyright infringement. The site allows customers to "buy" a movie for $20, set filters to remove offending content like violence or nudity, watch it and then "sell back" the film to the company for a $19 credit — leaving customers having paid only $1 to stream it. VidAngel attorney David Quinto on Friday told Birotte that the studios' only reason for seeking a contempt finding was to "color VidAngel as a bad actor" in the court of public opinion. Birotte replied, "I think VidAngel might have done a good job of it itself." The conversation leading up to the decision remarkably resembled Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First" — a circular exchange between Birotte and Quinto that, ultimately, never reached a satisfactory conclusion for either party. A short recap: Birotte would ask if VidAngel failed to comply with his order, noting that it appears obvious the company did such. Quinto would then reply that VidAngel made it clear it would comply after Birotte ruled on its motion to stay — and would note that VidAngel is currently in compliance, as it shut down operations entirely mere hours after that decision. That prompted the judge to remind Quinto that compliance came weeks after his initial order and to ask him to share any legal precedent that allows such a delay. Quinto said it's not so much legal precedent as it is a common industry practice, and the delay was to avoid collateral consequences to the business not imagined by the order. Birotte then asked if Quinto believes VidAngel was in compliance, and so on. Ultimately this led to a semi-admission of noncompliance by VidAngel's attorney. "Our bad, your honor," said Quinto. Disney's attorney, Kelly Klaus, told the court that VidAngel took a gamble to see if it could get away with continuing operations during a lucrative holiday season. "I've never seen a party flout an injunction in this way," said Klaus, adding that he's not aware of any industry custom that allows a party to ignore an injunction while a motion for a stay is pending. During a brief rebuttal, Quinto took his semi-admission a step further, saying, "It would have been possible to comply immediately." After taking a recess to look over case files and do some research, Birotte said he had "no other option but to make a finding of civil contempt" — noting that VidAngel, in essence, admitted it did not comply from Dec. 12 through Dec. 29. He also awarded attorneys' fees in the amount of $10,231.20 to Disney's legal team for the work it did in connection with this decision. VidAngel CEO Neal Harmon issued a statement Friday following the hearing. "As our customers know, we have been shut down for some time, and we obviously disagree with Judge Birotte’s decision today and other decisions across all dimensions of this case," said Harmon. "However, we respect the process and look forward to presenting our case to the 9th Circuit. Because we are confident that Congress intended for movie filtering to be legal without permission from Hollywood, we believe that ultimately we will be victorious, and remain prepared to go all the way to the Supreme Court."
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Post by The Ultimate Nullifier on Jan 8, 2017 23:41:44 GMT -6
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