6 ms·

Fire TV: Amazon to block piracy apps in the future

102 points by speckx 1y ago

ronsor 1y ago
Protecting the margins of media companies...errr I mean users from spyware-laden illegal streaming apps!
- freedomben 1y ago
  Indeed, the gloves have been off for a while now and the "IP owners" have demonstrated that they're willing to turn our entire lives into digital prisons in the name of stopping "piracy." They've done an incredible job at radicalizing me against IP protections by making clear that there is no acceptable middle ground to them. I don't believe there is any sating them unless/until (and maybe not even then) it's illegal (and a heavy prison sentence) to have a "non-attested" device in your posession. I wish the big tech cos would push back, but unfortunately for us this sort of lock down fully aligns with their own goals for platform control, so it's not going to happen.
  - GolfPopper 1y ago
    We're headed for Max Headroom territory, where having an off-switch is a capital offense.
- lotsofpulp 1y ago
  Amazon is one of the media companies.
BigTTYGothGF 1y ago
The website doesn't let me view the article unless I agree to accept tracking cookies from "up to 184 partners".
- embedding-shape 1y ago
  Can't believe people don't use adblockers in 2025, together with enabled "anti-annoyance" lists. Or for the ones who used to be able to, but are still using a browser that removed that possibility, that you haven't moved to a different respectful browser yet.
  - mmanfrin 1y ago
    Firefox with ublock and I still get the modal.
    - Fluorescence 1y ago
      I don't. Have you enabled the "annoyances" lists in the ublock settings? They aren't on by default.
      - arthurtakeda 1y ago
        Thanks for sharing that tip, no more annoyances for me!
  - plorg 1y ago
    I have some pretty aggressive filters on Firefox/uBO, and relaxing my dynamic filters as much as I can conveniently this page still loads blank. It's not worth digging any further to figure out what's getting in the way (I'm assuming something in a static filter list)
  - rightbyte 1y ago
    There is a drawback with using adblockers in that it is not as trivial to notice if a site is hostile. It is about the only reason to not use it I can imagine.
    - embedding-shape 1y ago
      uBlock Origin does show a little badge indicating how many resources it blocked on the current page. NYT shows a 9 for me right now, HN doesn't show any number at all, FoxNews shows ~30 but keeps growing every 2-3 seconds.
barbazoo 1y ago
> Fire TV players are repeatedly offered on the internet with piracy apps that are supposed to enable free access to IPTV or VoD content. They’re so close to getting it. So close. They almost understand that this is a response to a completely unusable, expensive and user shitty experience. Build something that integrates all streaming providers and many people will already stop pirating. But even then, people are still expected to pay rent to n different streaming companies. It just doesn’t work. They’re being too greedy.
- CamperBob2 1y ago
  That's basically what an AppleTV box does. However, you still have to pay (and search) a large number of services to find what you want, and there's no guarantee that it will be ad-free no matter how much you pay. The way these people think, the more you're willing to pay to avoid ads, the more your eyeballs are worth. As Gabe Newell put it, piracy isn't a legal problem or a revenue problem, it's a customer-service problem. Serve the customer, or someone else will.
  - brookst 1y ago
    I use IPTV on an AppleTV box. Works great.
  - a4isms 1y ago
    OG HN mainstay Joel Spolsky put it incredibly presciently back when Napster was a thing in 2001. The music studios were all raving about theft, but he pointed out that people weren't filesharing mp3s to save a buck, they were filesharing mp3s because, his words: You can type the name of a song and listen to it right away. https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/04/21/dont-let-architecture-astronauts-scare-you/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/04/21/dont-let-architect... TV still doesn't get this for TV shows. Yes, I can type the name of a show. There are two options, one is some streaming service, the other is Prime. So I select Prime. Psych! It offers me the option to go to that streaming service. And subscribe. Which means thinking about the long term, not this show I want to watch. Or I open the lid of my Mac, type the name of a show, and almost right away I can watch it on my Apple TV.
  - 1y ago
GolfPopper 1y ago
Piracy is just the excuse. What they're saying is that Amazon will allow a collection of corporations (including Amazon) to decide what you're allowed to do with the hardware they pretended to let you buy.
- pixelready 1y ago
  Anything else would be felony contempt of business model: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/felony-contempt-business-model-lexmarks-anti-competitive-legacy https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/felony-contempt-busine...
- freedomben 1y ago
  Indeed. I wonder if in these executive conversations anyone ever asks the question, "Music has been purchaseable now without DRM for quite a while. Why has music piracy essentially died but movies/TV shows/etc is still as hot as ever?"
  - iamben 1y ago
    To be fair, I think the fractured rights thing is a big thing a well. I can subscribe to one music service - Spotify, Amazon, Apple, Tidal - and pretty much every new release is available on all of them (or risk a terrible opening week/zero buzz if you go for the 'exclusive' - but ever then, available a week or so later). The movie/TV companies sell their show to the SVOD platform that offers the most in the territory. Or it's developed by the service themselves. So if you have to subscribe to a handful of services to watch everything your friends recommend. Most of us can afford one music service. If you're forced into 5 streaming services a lot of people will just pirate. And even for those that do pay - the "we'll show this in the UK a week later than the US" means unless you pirate it, it's spoiled on social media within a few days.
    - babypuncher 1y ago
      The economics of shoving the entire output of the entertainment industry on a single $15/mo streaming service don't work out. It arguably doesn't even work that well for music. Ask any musician that doesn't rake in platinum records how well Spotify works out for them.
DrNosferatu 1y ago
Exactly which individual apps are they talking about?
- Jordan-117 1y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45776274 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45776274
_fat_santa 1y ago
Part of me wants to be angry at this change but another part of me is honestly going "ok whatever". It's not like FireTV is the only game in town. These days you can buy an RPI Zero or next to nothing and program it to basically the same thing as a FireTV with zero restrictions and no possibility for future restrictions.
- cheeze 1y ago
  That sounds like a pain in the ass though. Explaining to my dad how to use Downloader on a FireTV is a lot easier than "hey dude buy a raspberry pi"
  - bluescrn 1y ago
    If there's a demand, someone will sell them ready to use, with preloaded microSD card, case, and cables.
  - ls612 1y ago
    I mean even among android tv sticks alone there are plenty of no name chinese options out there, these things are dirt cheap to make and are basically commodities.
    - clueless 1y ago
      any you would recommend that would compete with a fire-stick 4k Max level of hardware? and is open software, but that would also allow the installation of other media apps, like netflix, HBO max, etc?
      - ls612 1y ago
        I’m not in this market I have a plex server so idk.
      - Fabricio20 1y ago
        Xiaomi has a really good one I've been using for years at this point. The 4K one. I'm sure there are more reputable chinese brands with alternatives as well!
mindracer 1y ago
How long till they block apps like plex or kodi
pessimizer 1y ago
Do they even really have a choice about this? When all your platforms are locked down and proprietary you can't allow piracy apps. I never understood why people buy products like this, but I don't have to understand - some people just don't mind if Amazon or Google own their televisions, or even every sound made in their homes. And they allowed piracy apps until now, so I was overestimating how fast the frog was boiling anyway. Must have been a good deal while it lasted. Weird how people are acting like this is a collapse: everything was always locked down until FOSS alternatives came to free you. Megacorps invited you back by letting you pirate a bit, for a while, and now that the alternatives have been adequately starved it's time to get in line again. Why in the hell would Amazon let you pirate the things it sells (rents?), forever? I think a lot of people got caught up in a free promotion handing out samples of a zero-marginal cost product. It didn't cost them anything to pretend like you were going to have any real control over their completely controlled device.
Farbklex 1y ago
The blacklist is easy to circumvent by offering apps with randomly generated package IDs and probably also with randomly generated signing keys per user. This is of course more effort than just building and signing the app once, but doable. Of course you can't have any api keys or functionality in the app, that is bound to a specific app id or signing key.
exe34 1y ago
I gave up on my Chromecast when Google broke it with an update. I'm never going to buy a single use computer again anyway. I won't buy anything with DRM, thanks.
dmalik 1y ago
The ads and recommendations on Firetv sticks has been getting worse and worse. I tried modifying it to use a custom launcher but they keep breaking it. I think I'm going to just trash it and get a Onn. 4k Pro and install projectivy on it.
- donmcronald 1y ago
  I bought 2 recently. They’re awful. I’ll never buy another. I was going to put Projectivy on them after I saw how nasty the stock launcher has become, but you can’t do a complete replacement.
- sfRattan 1y ago
  I can happily recommend that option from experience. I've used Walmart's "Onn" Google/Android TV boxes on both 1080p and 4K televisions. They work, and with Projectivity as the launcher you can pretty much rid yourself of any and all advertising placements. If you want to be super thorough, use adb to remove the default launcher once Projectivity is installed and set to default. I now use an NVIDIA Shield in basically the same way. Projectivity Launcher set to default and advert-buttons on the remote control overridden in software. Jellyfin & SmartTube as primary apps for streaming. VLC & FCast Receiver for random video thrown around the network. LocalSend to easily sideload apps (sadly ending within a few years). Moonlight for game streaming from my PC (via gigabit ethernet). HDHomeRun app as a backup for any Jellyfin failures with live OTA TV streaming. Other apps from Google Play only as absolutely necessary (Google Play TV apps include a number of popular VPNs, along with tailscale). It's honestly better than my experience with Apple TV 4K. And if Google continues to close down and wall off AOSP, there's already at least one community build of Lineage OS with Android TV for the Raspberry Pi.
mlrtime 1y ago
How to block OTA updates on your firewall: https://xdaforums.com/t/psa-firetv-ota-update-url-has-changed.4537905/ https://xdaforums.com/t/psa-firetv-ota-update-url-has-change...
- donmcronald 1y ago
  Do it before you plug them in. They auto-update out of the box.
ridiculous_leke 1y ago
Don't see a list there. Will they also ban apps like Stremio and Kodi?
- Jordan-117 1y ago
  Claimed list of apps affected (nothing I've ever heard of before): Flix Vision Live Net TV UK Turks FileSynced Blink Streamz Ocean Streamz Cinema HQ https://www.nationalworld.com/culture/television/dodgy-amazon-fire-sticks-which-apps-have-been-banned-service-clamps-down-on-illegal-streaming-5383668 https://www.nationalworld.com/culture/television/dodgy-amazo...
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
NoSalt 1y ago
And, another use for a RaspberryPi.
rpdillon 1y ago
> blacklist maintained by the anti-piracy coalition ACE (Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment) Can we see what's on the blacklist? I haven't been able to find it despite searching everywhere.
- Jordan-117 1y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45776274 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45776274
not4uffin 1y ago
This just feels like such an Apple thing to do. Tell people what they are and are not allowed to install on their device, then use piracy as the reason, when in reality it's simply because Amazon wants control over the device they sold to you. Also, app store revenue splits.
wkat4242 1y ago
Hmm VLC and Plex still work for me but it looks like I'll need to buy another stick long term. I wish there was a FOSS AOSP distro for android TV, just like lineageos for phones.

102 points by speckx 1y ago

ronsor 1y ago

Protecting the margins of media companies...errr I mean users from spyware-laden illegal streaming apps!

freedomben 1y ago
Indeed, the gloves have been off for a while now and the "IP owners" have demonstrated that they're willing to turn our entire lives into digital prisons in the name of stopping "piracy." They've done an incredible job at radicalizing me against IP protections by making clear that there is no acceptable middle ground to them. I don't believe there is any sating them unless/until (and maybe not even then) it's illegal (and a heavy prison sentence) to have a "non-attested" device in your posession. I wish the big tech cos would push back, but unfortunately for us this sort of lock down fully aligns with their own goals for platform control, so it's not going to happen.
- GolfPopper 1y ago
  We're headed for Max Headroom territory, where having an off-switch is a capital offense.
lotsofpulp 1y ago
Amazon is one of the media companies.

BigTTYGothGF 1y ago

The website doesn't let me view the article unless I agree to accept tracking cookies from "up to 184 partners".

embedding-shape 1y ago
Can't believe people don't use adblockers in 2025, together with enabled "anti-annoyance" lists. Or for the ones who used to be able to, but are still using a browser that removed that possibility, that you haven't moved to a different respectful browser yet.
- mmanfrin 1y ago
  Firefox with ublock and I still get the modal.
  - Fluorescence 1y ago
    I don't. Have you enabled the "annoyances" lists in the ublock settings? They aren't on by default.
    - arthurtakeda 1y ago
      Thanks for sharing that tip, no more annoyances for me!
- plorg 1y ago
  I have some pretty aggressive filters on Firefox/uBO, and relaxing my dynamic filters as much as I can conveniently this page still loads blank. It's not worth digging any further to figure out what's getting in the way (I'm assuming something in a static filter list)
- rightbyte 1y ago
  There is a drawback with using adblockers in that it is not as trivial to notice if a site is hostile. It is about the only reason to not use it I can imagine.
  - embedding-shape 1y ago
    uBlock Origin does show a little badge indicating how many resources it blocked on the current page. NYT shows a 9 for me right now, HN doesn't show any number at all, FoxNews shows ~30 but keeps growing every 2-3 seconds.

barbazoo 1y ago

> Fire TV players are repeatedly offered on the internet with piracy apps that are supposed to enable free access to IPTV or VoD content. They’re so close to getting it. So close. They almost understand that this is a response to a completely unusable, expensive and user shitty experience. Build something that integrates all streaming providers and many people will already stop pirating. But even then, people are still expected to pay rent to n different streaming companies. It just doesn’t work. They’re being too greedy.

CamperBob2 1y ago
That's basically what an AppleTV box does. However, you still have to pay (and search) a large number of services to find what you want, and there's no guarantee that it will be ad-free no matter how much you pay. The way these people think, the more you're willing to pay to avoid ads, the more your eyeballs are worth. As Gabe Newell put it, piracy isn't a legal problem or a revenue problem, it's a customer-service problem. Serve the customer, or someone else will.
- brookst 1y ago
  I use IPTV on an AppleTV box. Works great.
- a4isms 1y ago
  OG HN mainstay Joel Spolsky put it incredibly presciently back when Napster was a thing in 2001. The music studios were all raving about theft, but he pointed out that people weren't filesharing mp3s to save a buck, they were filesharing mp3s because, his words: You can type the name of a song and listen to it right away. https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/04/21/dont-let-architecture-astronauts-scare-you/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/04/21/dont-let-architect... TV still doesn't get this for TV shows. Yes, I can type the name of a show. There are two options, one is some streaming service, the other is Prime. So I select Prime. Psych! It offers me the option to go to that streaming service. And subscribe. Which means thinking about the long term, not this show I want to watch. Or I open the lid of my Mac, type the name of a show, and almost right away I can watch it on my Apple TV.
- 1y ago

GolfPopper 1y ago

Piracy is just the excuse. What they're saying is that Amazon will allow a collection of corporations (including Amazon) to decide what you're allowed to do with the hardware they pretended to let you buy.

pixelready 1y ago
Anything else would be felony contempt of business model: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/felony-contempt-business-model-lexmarks-anti-competitive-legacy https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/felony-contempt-busine...
freedomben 1y ago
Indeed. I wonder if in these executive conversations anyone ever asks the question, "Music has been purchaseable now without DRM for quite a while. Why has music piracy essentially died but movies/TV shows/etc is still as hot as ever?"
- iamben 1y ago
  To be fair, I think the fractured rights thing is a big thing a well. I can subscribe to one music service - Spotify, Amazon, Apple, Tidal - and pretty much every new release is available on all of them (or risk a terrible opening week/zero buzz if you go for the 'exclusive' - but ever then, available a week or so later). The movie/TV companies sell their show to the SVOD platform that offers the most in the territory. Or it's developed by the service themselves. So if you have to subscribe to a handful of services to watch everything your friends recommend. Most of us can afford one music service. If you're forced into 5 streaming services a lot of people will just pirate. And even for those that do pay - the "we'll show this in the UK a week later than the US" means unless you pirate it, it's spoiled on social media within a few days.
  - babypuncher 1y ago
    The economics of shoving the entire output of the entertainment industry on a single $15/mo streaming service don't work out. It arguably doesn't even work that well for music. Ask any musician that doesn't rake in platinum records how well Spotify works out for them.

DrNosferatu 1y ago

Exactly which individual apps are they talking about?

Jordan-117 1y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45776274 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45776274

_fat_santa 1y ago

Part of me wants to be angry at this change but another part of me is honestly going "ok whatever". It's not like FireTV is the only game in town. These days you can buy an RPI Zero or next to nothing and program it to basically the same thing as a FireTV with zero restrictions and no possibility for future restrictions.

cheeze 1y ago
That sounds like a pain in the ass though. Explaining to my dad how to use Downloader on a FireTV is a lot easier than "hey dude buy a raspberry pi"
- bluescrn 1y ago
  If there's a demand, someone will sell them ready to use, with preloaded microSD card, case, and cables.
- ls612 1y ago
  I mean even among android tv sticks alone there are plenty of no name chinese options out there, these things are dirt cheap to make and are basically commodities.
  - clueless 1y ago
    any you would recommend that would compete with a fire-stick 4k Max level of hardware? and is open software, but that would also allow the installation of other media apps, like netflix, HBO max, etc?
    - ls612 1y ago
      I’m not in this market I have a plex server so idk.
    - Fabricio20 1y ago
      Xiaomi has a really good one I've been using for years at this point. The 4K one. I'm sure there are more reputable chinese brands with alternatives as well!

mindracer 1y ago

How long till they block apps like plex or kodi

pessimizer 1y ago

Do they even really have a choice about this? When all your platforms are locked down and proprietary you can't allow piracy apps. I never understood why people buy products like this, but I don't have to understand - some people just don't mind if Amazon or Google own their televisions, or even every sound made in their homes. And they allowed piracy apps until now, so I was overestimating how fast the frog was boiling anyway. Must have been a good deal while it lasted. Weird how people are acting like this is a collapse: everything was always locked down until FOSS alternatives came to free you. Megacorps invited you back by letting you pirate a bit, for a while, and now that the alternatives have been adequately starved it's time to get in line again. Why in the hell would Amazon let you pirate the things it sells (rents?), forever? I think a lot of people got caught up in a free promotion handing out samples of a zero-marginal cost product. It didn't cost them anything to pretend like you were going to have any real control over their completely controlled device.

Farbklex 1y ago

The blacklist is easy to circumvent by offering apps with randomly generated package IDs and probably also with randomly generated signing keys per user. This is of course more effort than just building and signing the app once, but doable. Of course you can't have any api keys or functionality in the app, that is bound to a specific app id or signing key.

exe34 1y ago

I gave up on my Chromecast when Google broke it with an update. I'm never going to buy a single use computer again anyway. I won't buy anything with DRM, thanks.

dmalik 1y ago

The ads and recommendations on Firetv sticks has been getting worse and worse. I tried modifying it to use a custom launcher but they keep breaking it. I think I'm going to just trash it and get a Onn. 4k Pro and install projectivy on it.

donmcronald 1y ago
I bought 2 recently. They’re awful. I’ll never buy another. I was going to put Projectivy on them after I saw how nasty the stock launcher has become, but you can’t do a complete replacement.
sfRattan 1y ago
I can happily recommend that option from experience. I've used Walmart's "Onn" Google/Android TV boxes on both 1080p and 4K televisions. They work, and with Projectivity as the launcher you can pretty much rid yourself of any and all advertising placements. If you want to be super thorough, use adb to remove the default launcher once Projectivity is installed and set to default. I now use an NVIDIA Shield in basically the same way. Projectivity Launcher set to default and advert-buttons on the remote control overridden in software. Jellyfin & SmartTube as primary apps for streaming. VLC & FCast Receiver for random video thrown around the network. LocalSend to easily sideload apps (sadly ending within a few years). Moonlight for game streaming from my PC (via gigabit ethernet). HDHomeRun app as a backup for any Jellyfin failures with live OTA TV streaming. Other apps from Google Play only as absolutely necessary (Google Play TV apps include a number of popular VPNs, along with tailscale). It's honestly better than my experience with Apple TV 4K. And if Google continues to close down and wall off AOSP, there's already at least one community build of Lineage OS with Android TV for the Raspberry Pi.

mlrtime 1y ago

How to block OTA updates on your firewall: https://xdaforums.com/t/psa-firetv-ota-update-url-has-changed.4537905/ https://xdaforums.com/t/psa-firetv-ota-update-url-has-change...

donmcronald 1y ago
Do it before you plug them in. They auto-update out of the box.

ridiculous_leke 1y ago

Don't see a list there. Will they also ban apps like Stremio and Kodi?

Jordan-117 1y ago
Claimed list of apps affected (nothing I've ever heard of before): Flix Vision Live Net TV UK Turks FileSynced Blink Streamz Ocean Streamz Cinema HQ https://www.nationalworld.com/culture/television/dodgy-amazon-fire-sticks-which-apps-have-been-banned-service-clamps-down-on-illegal-streaming-5383668 https://www.nationalworld.com/culture/television/dodgy-amazo...

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

NoSalt 1y ago

And, another use for a RaspberryPi.

rpdillon 1y ago

> blacklist maintained by the anti-piracy coalition ACE (Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment) Can we see what's on the blacklist? I haven't been able to find it despite searching everywhere.

Jordan-117 1y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45776274 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45776274

not4uffin 1y ago

This just feels like such an Apple thing to do. Tell people what they are and are not allowed to install on their device, then use piracy as the reason, when in reality it's simply because Amazon wants control over the device they sold to you. Also, app store revenue splits.

wkat4242 1y ago

Hmm VLC and Plex still work for me but it looks like I'll need to buy another stick long term. I wish there was a FOSS AOSP distro for android TV, just like lineageos for phones.