EU Opinion: Streaming Services Are Not Liable for VPN ‘Pirates’
&gt;One of the key questions for the CJEU is whether online streaming services are liable for copyright infringement if their subscribers use VPN services to bypass geo-blocking efforts. EU Advocate General Maciej Szpunar shared his advice on the matter this week... The opinion of AG Szpunar compares the current case to existing EU jurisprudence on hyperlinks, concluding that a streaming service doesn’t violate the law when subscribers bypass its geo-blocking efforts.<p>Why do EU folks use malware laden streaming services that harm the earth (wastes electricity) rather than torrent stuff as needed then hold onto it in the medium term?<p>Aside from being worried about leaving... extreme content... behind on the hard drive... it doesn&#x27;t make sense to stream over and over, especially if it&#x27;s an unreliable source like some shady streaming service that&#x27;s probably got all sorts of weird javascript lurking alongside whatever is used to play the video.<p>(With &quot;the video&quot; probably just being something on Youtube hoping no one copyright flags it)<p>I never kept a formal library, just would fill the empty space on my hard drive with axxo rips, stuff rotten tomatoes said was good, and whatever was well seeded that wasn&#x27;t hardcore pornography.<p>(I always found the mix of &quot;Welcome to the internet, here is a high(ish) resolution DVD rip of your favorite Sofia Coppola film. Would you also like some incredibly degrading pornography?&quot; you get when you sort by what&#x27;s well seeded incredibly dark in a bad way, and that&#x27;s speaking as someone who may have briefly ended up on a department of homeland security watchlist because I researched United States v. Valle too much back when I was attempting OSCP.)<p>Anyways, good decision IMHO but I&#x27;m not European right now, so I guess my opinion doesn&#x27;t matter :-)