Sky TV deserves My Box video piracy win

Sky TV is celebrating a court win against My Box, the streaming service that advertises its ability to play Sky’s content for free.

The Auckland High Court ruled that My Box cannot describe its service as legal. It confirms that using its hardware and software to show Sky-owned material is a breach of copyright.

The court will hold a hearing to decide costs early next year.

Sophie Moloney, Sky’s general counsel says: “This decision, along with the recent ruling against Fibre TV boxes in Christchurch, sends a very clear message to New Zealanders that these services are not all they are cracked up to be.”

Sky’s roundabout victory

What’s curious about this case is that Sky didn’t manage to win a straight legal victory over video piracy. It took action against My Box and the company owner Krish Reddy under the Fair Trading Act.

In effect, Sky’s successful legal argument was that My Box was making claims about its service that were misleading.

This echoes the way US authorities finally managed to nail gangster Al Capone because of his tax evasion, not his more serious crimes.

My Box pirate

What’s pleasing about this case is that Reddy is an out-and-out pirate. This isn’t like a bunch of kids being busted for watching a naughty episode of a show that isn’t even available through legitimate entertainment channels. It’s not like someone bittorrenting a missing episode or using a VPN to watch BBC coverage.

Sky has a far better moral argument here.

Reddy may not be a gangster, but his My Box business is copyright piracy on an industrial scale. He claims to have sold 17,000 boxes.

While you can’t argue that every one of those 17,000 customers would have otherwise subscribed to Sky, it’s clear that Reddy sucked a lot of money earmarked for video entertainment out of an industry that struggles to pay its way.

Last year I received one of the My Box spam emails. Heaven knows how the company got hold of my details. It did come via a long defunct but still forwarded email address.

Wake up call

The fact that it was spam is a wake up call in itself. But the email wasted no time telling me that I could get content for free without paying a Sky subscription. It looked crooked.

Piracy is in decline. There’s less need to steal content when it isn’t expensive to buy from the likes of Netflix or Lightbox.

Even sport, which comes with more of a premium price tag, is affordable for most New Zealanders. At least in relative terms. A year-long subscription to Bein Sport NZ or Sky Fanpass is roughly a couple of days pay for someone on a minimum wage.

Sky is My Box’s most obvious victim. In a way so are the people who paid the company money and believed they were getting legitimate access to streaming video services.

In theory, any customer would have a good case to demand their money back. I suspect they, like Sky, will find there are few if any assets left in the business.