Android

Canadian electronics and computer retail chains Best Buy Canada, Canada Computers, London Drugs and Staples Canada are being sued by Edmonton, Alberta based Allarco Entertainment 2008 Inc, the people behind Super Channel, alleging these companies sold android boxes that could be used to view their content and violate copyright laws with a software program Kodi.

Kodi is an open source home entertainment software package that enables users to play media on their computers and android devices, that can also be used to download and stream content off the internet.

Allarco Entertainment 2008 Ltd is alleging that these four companies promoted the use of this software on android devices they’ve sold to 50,000 customers in Canada, listed as John Doe on the Statement of Claim filed with the Federal Court of Canada on September 11th, 2019. And the lawsuit is also partially in response to the CRTC’s October 2018 denial of Fairplay Canada’s application to block websites that were identified as providing pirated content.

Unfortunately, the Statement of Claim in Court Number T-1486-19 does not specify if sales of the more mainstream media streaming devices (like Apple TV, Fire TV and Roku) are allegedly implicated, these devices also being compatible with the aforementioned software. But it should be noted that today’s press release on this action appears to only mention “Pirate Devices with Kodi software” and that only some of the 150 employee sales pitches that were filmed by the plaintiffs over 19 months appear to include referrals to services that could assist customers with the installation of the software.

The companies in question have denied the allegations and I suspect they are now promoting sales of the more mainstream devices with Apple TV+, a television and video streaming service that will be officially released on November 1st, 2019, with a monthly subscription fee of $5.99 (or free for a year for Canadians who buy the latest model of the Apple TV media box, iPad or iPhone).