Live TV / DVR for Sharing (Unmanaged) Users

General Discussions
1

I love how I can control Live TV access for my managed (“Home”) users, but I’m sad that I can’t also give the same access to my unmanaged (“Sharing”) users. I would like the same access levels (none, live only, live + dvr) for unmanaged users.

I have a friend who’s in the hospital a lot lately and I wanted to give him Live TV access and DVR access to record and watch things so he doesn’t get bored out of his mind. I couldn’t. :frowning_face:

2

It’s a legal issue…

Home users are supposed to live in the same household, and as such, already have access to the cable or what ever you have

An UnManaged user is not in your household, and as such, if watching your TV streams, could be violating licenses.

As such, this ain’t going to happen

5

Thank you for re-opening this, @dane22. You brought up the issue of licensing and I’m not trying to get anyone in trouble. With live OTA TV (the kind through an antenna hooked up through a HomeRun unit), what licensing concerns are there? I didn’t sign a contract to receive the OTA signals. Forgive me if I’m just ignorant of the rules. :slight_smile:

6

With Live TV, using OTA, then I agree that it should be open, but Plex doesn’t work that way, since a tuner is a tuner.

Also consider the fact, that you over OTA can receive a national channel, but if you where allowed to share it, you could share it to a user in another country.

As such, it’s simply not possible for Plex to cover all possibilities here to make sure they doesn’t violate licenses

7

So, I’ve been doing some reading on this… My understanding is that regardless of the source (even with OTA), if the content of the broadcast is copyrighted, it is a violation of US copyright law to receive and then further transmit that content to the public. Reference: 17 U.S.C. § 110 (5)(A)(ii) – https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2011-title17/html/USCODE-2011-title17-chap1-sec110.htm

The question becomes: Is allowing an unmanaged user to view Live TV considered to be further transmitting to the public? Or, maybe better stated, is an unmanaged user considered the public?

Maybe it’s a question we as a community want to avoid altogether…

I can see both sides, but personally I would tend to disagree…
For “Yes” (unmanaged user is the public)…

  • An unmanaged user is outside the private home and solely by virtue of being outside the home is considered the public as they are not a member of the household.
    ** The problem with this argument, however, is it also makes the argument for removing unmanaged users altogether or, at a minimum, putting a restriction such that unmanaged users could only view non-copyrighted work (e.g. home videos) because the source of the work doesn’t matter.

For “No” (unmanaged user is NOT the public)…

  • In order to view the copyrighted work, an unmanaged user must 1) authenticate to the Plex ecosystem (arguably open to the public) AND 2) must be granted access by the server admin (arguably not open to the public). Because access to the server isn’t open to the public, retransmissions should then not be considered directed at the public.
    ** This argument would satisfy Title 17, Section 110 (5)(A)(ii) because the content coming into the private home and being further transmitted outside the home is still being directed at a private audience.

I would further argue that the further transmission to a small group of unmanaged users falls under “fair use” and the four standards presented in 17 U.S.C. § 107. Reference: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2011-title17/html/USCODE-2011-title17-chap1-sec107.htm

  1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
  • The viewing of the copyrighted work is for not-for-profit private viewing.
  1. the nature of the copyrighted work;
  • The copyrighted work was received with the intention for private viewing and that intention is being maintained.
  1. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
  • A substantially unmodified portion of the copyrighted work to the best of the ability of available technology
  1. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
  • No market impact would occur from the viewing of the copyrighted work as the viewer would already have access to the work.

I do, however, agree with @dane22 where he says that an unmanaged user could be outside of the country, which would directly negate #4 above. Also, while more unlikely, a managed user would be less likely to be outside the country then would an unmanaged user. However, I don’t feel that Plex or the Plex community at large would be considered responsible for the misbehavior of an individual server admin. There are multiple technologies readily available for the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted work and it is each individual’s responsibility to ensure the law is followed.

It could easily be a sufficient defense to require the server admin to acknowledge a warning when enabling Live TV and/or DVR for an unmanaged user that they must take care to not violate copyright law through the use of this feature. However, the introduction of this warning could really be unnecessary and potentially open the doors for the requirement of additional warnings which would corrode an otherwise clean UI. For example, when downloading software that contains a restriction on export, the downloader must first acknowledge and agree to not violate export law and distribute the download to restricted countries.

8

The same holds true even without this feature. Plex (as an organization) cannot ensure that a server admin doesn’t add a managed user in such a fashion where the viewing of copyrighted work would violate licenses or copyright law.

Plex and the community at large are not responsible for policing the activities of individual server admins. This is not to say that we should go out of our way to facilitate such activity, but when a perfectly good and valid (and legal) use case exists for the use of a feature (and many more, I’m sure), it only benefits the community to provide a featureset that is aligned with their desires.

10

The fact remains that Plex has chosen to limit the Live TV sharing to only users belonging to the Plex Home. The “why” of that decision just frankly isn’t that important since the decision has already been made.

While it’s possible that Plex could change their mind and allow broader sharing in the future, but the chances at this point in time are very slim.
Hence why similar feature requests have been closed, so that people don’t waste their votes on it.

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11

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