Dragon Media Inc, the company behind the Android-powered Dragon Box, is being sued for facilitating piracy. As reported by Gizmodo UK and Hollywood Reporter earlier, the company faces a significant uphill battle as both Amazon and Netflix are behind the lawsuit.
The official complaint was filed on January 10 with U.S. District Court in the Central District of California. The complaint names two defendants in the case: Paul Christoforo and Jeff Williams, presumably both behind the Dragon Box. Including Amazon and Netflix, the plaintiff includes a fair number of heavy hitters, such as Columbia Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal Studios and Warner Brothers.
The nature of the complaint chiefly states that the Dragon Box facilitates piracy by including apps that stream content illegally. The document specifically points a finger at the Dragon Box’s inclusion of Kodi. The plaintiffs write, “The Dragon Media application provides Defendants’ customers with a customized configuration of the Kodi media player and a curated selection of the most popular addons for accessing infringing content.”
At the time of writing, Dragon Media still prominently features Kodi as a key application available upon purchase with its primary Dragon Box website. The current official website does not mention free movies. Images from an authorized dealer’s now-disabled website, BuyTheDragonBox.com, however, prominently promotes free movies currently in theaters, commercial-free TV, free NFL games, free sports and free live TV.
Major media companies have ramped up lawsuits against individuals engaging in piracy. Last year, a handful of third-party Kodi add-on developers in Europe received take-down notices from the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE). As a result, a large number of popular third-party add-ons were discontinued. This followed a major lawsuit against popular Kodi fan site TVAddons, which had its web domain and social media accounts seized. TVAddons later restarted using a different domain address.
Sam Cook is a full-time content strategist by day, a part-time freelance content writer since 2015. In another life, he was a high school English teacher for nearly a decade. Based in sunny New Orleans, he writes long-form educational content on technology, including Insurtech, Fintech, HRtech, and content streaming. He loves whittling down complex ideas within these areas that make decisions easier for buyers. When he’s not reading books with his son Miles and playing video games with the family, you can find him immersed in his growing collection of Euro-style board games.
