FOX nabs Canadian kid for illegal streaming of ‘Simpsons’ and ‘Family Guy’

Note to self…never get into illegal file sharing or streaming of content I do not own. Actually, as someone who knows quite a bit about copyright law, I can attest to the fact that if you are someone that downloads/shares content that is not made by you i.e. TV Shows, movies, games well then you better have a shit load of money lying around because if someone like a network or internet provider catches your ass…you are going to have to pony up the dough!

Case in point, a kid based in Toronto, Canada recently got drilled into bankruptcy by FOX for having a website that allowed you to stream free episodes of Family Guy and The Simpsons. Recently, the 23-year old ‘Nick’ came forward and spoke with Vice magazine where he noted that although he didn’t make a whole lot of money on the venture, he was merely providing a service for people in Canada where evidently Hulu isn’t a thing, and that he should more or less be seen as a martyr:

“I loved The Simpsons and so did many of my friends, but you couldn’t buy the seasons on DVDs other than to season 10… and there was nothing on the web to help anyone out at the time—so I filled the gap. I was hoping FOX would eventually create their own service that I could link to or use in some way.”

Actually kid, the entire run of The Simpsons will be coming to FXX which WILL be available in your neighborhood rather soon. Maybe a little patience would have avoided you having to pay $10.5 million as part of your conviction. This kid ‘Nick’ would later go on and tell Vice that this wasn’t his first run in with illegal activity as he once set up an internet portal where he had a site called  www.watchxonline.com that allowed you to watch a shit ton of movies for free. He has since taken down the movies at the behest of the MPAA, and provided links to HULU and Netflix. Yep…so even though he claims Canada has no Hulu, he sure knew where to go if he wanted to recommend legal-streaming services. So, you would think this motherfucker would have learned his lesson instead of trying to preach poverty as a defense.

Nick inherently thinks that having access to online content is something that is behind the times and that the entire world should have a Spotify services, but for movies and TV. Welp, if Nick had done his homework, he would have known that although Spotify has been around since 2009, it wasn’t until 2011 that the service launched in the United States. So, he has to realize just because FOX hasn’t put up streaming services in Canada so that they can unload all of The Simpsons and Family Guy, doesn’t give anyone the right to steal the company’s copyrights in the process. Spotify had to pay a whole bunch of money to licencors so that the service could legally provide music. This kid Nick, did none of that and as such he definitely deserves getting fist-fucked into bankruptcy and I hope more follow him. At the end of the day…pay for shit!