Court Suspends Ban on Roku Sales in Mexico
A federal judge in Mexico has suspended the ban on sales and imports of Roku media players, at least temporarily. Roku is happy with the decision and says it will continue to work with entertainment industry stakeholders on a variety of anti-piracy measures.
Last week, news broke that the Superior Court of Justice of the City of Mexico had issued a ban on Roku sales.
The order prohibited stores such as Amazon, Liverpool, El Palacio de Hierro, and Sears from importing and selling the devices. In addition, several banks were told stop processing payments from accounts that are linked to pirated services on Roku.
While Roku itself is not offering any pirated content, there is a market for third-party pirate channels outside the Roku Channel Store, which turn the boxes into pirate tools. Cablevision filed a complaint about this unauthorized use which eventually resulted in the ban.
The news generated headlines all over the world and was opposed immediately by several of the parties involved. Yesterday, a federal judge decided to suspend the import and sales ban, at least temporarily.
As a result, local vendors can resume their sales of the popular media player.
“Roku is pleased with today’s court decision, which paves the way for sales of Roku devices to resume in Mexico,” Roku’s General Counsel Steve Kay informed TorrentFreak after he heard the news.
Roku
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TorrentFreak has not been able to get a copy of the suspension order, but it’s likely that the court wants to review the case in more detail before a final decision is made.
While streaming player piracy is seen as one of the greatest threats the entertainment industry faces today, the Roku ban went quite far. In a way, it would be similar to banning the Chrome browser because certain add-ons and sites allow users to stream pirated movies.
Roku, meanwhile, says it will continue to work with rightholders and other stakeholders to prevent piracy on its platform, to the best of their ability.
“Piracy is a problem the industry at large is facing,” Key tells TorrentFreak.
“We prohibit copyright infringement of any kind on the Roku platform. We actively work to prevent third-parties from using our platform to distribute copyright infringing content. Moreover, we have been actively working with other industry stakeholders on a wide range of anti-piracy initiatives.”
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