German Court Prohibits Distribution P2P Software
Today the German District Court of Hamburg has prohibited the distribution of the P2P software Cybersky-TV. This program is build on ByteTornado, a sort of BitTorrent on steroids, and allows the anonymous recording of TV streams without being bothered by DRMs. The software cuts the images in strips and puts a time stamp on them before an exchange, after which the receiving end puts uses the time stamps to put the strips back in the right order to create the original image.
The court confirmed a temporary injunction against Cybersky-TV and the company behind it, TCU, which was obtained by Pay TV channel Premiere. Premiere feared that their programs would be distributed by Cybersky-TV after they had been decoded on a PC. The court has now also prohibited that TCU "advertises" that its software makes "free Pay TV" possible. TCU did not deny the possibility that their software could be used for copyright infringing uses, but stated that it was to the copyrightsholder (Premiere) to come down on the individuals that might offer illegal streams.
A spokesperson of TCU said that the company will appeal, though the ruling has not been released yet. (Hope to report more as soon as it has...)
Update: Pulled from the Cybersky-TV site:
More background in this earlier post: Cybersky: Super TV-P2P On Trial
Later: As noted in the comment section TV-Free.org gives an oversight of several "P2P TV" programs.
The court confirmed a temporary injunction against Cybersky-TV and the company behind it, TCU, which was obtained by Pay TV channel Premiere. Premiere feared that their programs would be distributed by Cybersky-TV after they had been decoded on a PC. The court has now also prohibited that TCU "advertises" that its software makes "free Pay TV" possible. TCU did not deny the possibility that their software could be used for copyright infringing uses, but stated that it was to the copyrightsholder (Premiere) to come down on the individuals that might offer illegal streams.
A spokesperson of TCU said that the company will appeal, though the ruling has not been released yet. (Hope to report more as soon as it has...)
Update: Pulled from the Cybersky-TV site:
Dear Cyberistas,
as promised we today received the verdict!
Its not really bad...
Bad news: The software we made is NOT allowed.
Good news: The software with a "Premiere-Pay-TV-Recognizer and Blocking"-Plugin is allowed.
So as a result, I have to sit down again, write additional module/plugin and can finally release. I guess I will need 2 weeks to find the string "conditional access system ID" in a delivered stream. Any tv-stream with that string inside (VTX,CC) will not delivered over the network. Thats all.
And in addition we have to change the website. Premiere said, we advertised illegal features with the presentation of press coverage.
- - -
Thru Heise [German] (Note that the Heise report speaks of Cybertelly, which is likely incorrect, being another P2P program based on ByteTornado that was not disputed)More background in this earlier post: Cybersky: Super TV-P2P On Trial
Later: As noted in the comment section TV-Free.org gives an oversight of several "P2P TV" programs.
posted by Rik Lambers at 26.4.05
2 Comments:
There are several Peer-to-Peer TV initiatives out there to watch free online tv (like Cybersky, Coolstreaming, DTV / Broadcast Machine from Participatory Culture and Kedora)
These are listed on http://www.TV-FREE.org/
Peer 2 peer is very good at streaming as there is so little buffering and good quality of pictures, compare to the mms streaming server. Still can watch TV at Free TV Streaming Online though not pay TV is available.
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