Plex Cloud's Legal Burden - UPDATE

General Discussions
1

To those who may already know, Plex Cloud has been made available to all Plex Pass members today. On the surface, this would be a great solution to run Plex anywhere, any place.

However, given the nature on how Plex wants to use Plex Cloud, the feature seems to be extremely burdensome with legal concerns that cannot be overlooked.

Here is an article which details in plain english, topically, how cloud services can discontinue your services based on what you host on them:

Please understand, any time you set up Plex Cloud and you link an account to a cloud provider, you are sharing content. Since Plex is not a host cloud provider, to the cloud providers, you are sharing content.

Let’s say you are on Dropbox, Google Drive, or OneDrive and you want to access content on your e-mail, according to the cloud providers, you are sharing content to your email provider if you open access between the e-mail client and the cloud provider.

Please consider this before signing up to Plex Cloud.

UPDATE
@hthighway should be given full credit for finding this great article on how Google Drive is involved in using the same methods discussed in the first article posted above:

Please give this one a read as well before agreeing to Plex Cloud:

2

@SanchezHouse said:
Please understand, any time you set up Plex Cloud and you link an account to a cloud provider, you are sharing content. Since Plex is not a host cloud provider, to the cloud providers, you are sharing content.

This is not true. The cloud providers Plex uses have provided authorized methods to allow Plex Media Server to link to their storage areas. Since this link uses your account information with the respective cloud providers, YOU are accessing YOUR files and therefore is not considered sharing.

Plex does allow you to then share your server with others. However, when others access these files, they are still using your credentials and is no different than if you gave someone your account information. Cloud providers may have their other terms of use regarding giving out your account information.

Just as with regular Plex Media Server, if you are going to share your media with others, you need to have the rights to share that content. It is up to you to follow the appropriate laws regarding sharing of copyrighted materials, whether it is from your own local Plex Media Server or from Plex Cloud. This is clearly listed as the first 2 points of Plex’s acceptable usage policy which can be found at https://www.plex.tv/about/privacy-legal/plex-terms-of-service/.

"You may not, or allow anyone else to, use any of the Services to do the following:

  • Infringe the intellectual property rights, proprietary rights, or rights of publicity or privacy of any third party;
  • Violate any law, statute, ordinance, or regulation, or perform any other action that would incur civil liability or constitute a crime;"

Let’s say you are on Dropbox, Google Drive, or OneDrive and you want to access content on your e-mail, according to the cloud providers, you are sharing content to your email provider if you open access between the e-mail client and the cloud provider.

I do not know how you are accessing these cloud providers through email so I can’t say if this is any different from what Plex is doing.

Please consider this before signing up to Plex Cloud.

We agree it is very important to understand what Plex Cloud is and how it works prior to using it with copyrighted materials. You should also check all the terms and conditions as they relate to the cloud provider you choose to use.

3

@MovieFan.Plex said:

@SanchezHouse said:
Please understand, any time you set up Plex Cloud and you link an account to a cloud provider, you are sharing content. Since Plex is not a host cloud provider, to the cloud providers, you are sharing content.

This is not true. The cloud providers Plex uses have provided authorized methods to allow Plex Media Server to link to their storage areas. Since this link uses your account information with the respective cloud providers, YOU are accessing YOUR files and therefore is not considered sharing.

Plex does allow you to then share your server with others. However, when others access these files, they are still using your credentials and is no different than if you gave someone your account information. Cloud providers may have their other terms of use regarding giving out your account information.

Just as with regular Plex Media Server, if you are going to share your media with others, you need to have the rights to share that content. It is up to you to follow the appropriate laws regarding sharing of copyrighted materials, whether it is from your own local Plex Media Server or from Plex Cloud. This is clearly listed as the first 2 points of Plex’s acceptable usage policy which can be found at https://www.plex.tv/about/privacy-legal/plex-terms-of-service/.

"You may not, or allow anyone else to, use any of the Services to do the following:

  • Infringe the intellectual property rights, proprietary rights, or rights of publicity or privacy of any third party;
  • Violate any law, statute, ordinance, or regulation, or perform any other action that would incur civil liability or constitute a crime;"

Let’s say you are on Dropbox, Google Drive, or OneDrive and you want to access content on your e-mail, according to the cloud providers, you are sharing content to your email provider if you open access between the e-mail client and the cloud provider.

I do not know how you are accessing these cloud providers through email so I can’t say if this is any different from what Plex is doing.

Please consider this before signing up to Plex Cloud.

We agree it is very important to understand what Plex Cloud is and how it works prior to using it with copyrighted materials. You should also check all the terms and conditions as they relate to the cloud provider you choose to use.

What Plex is doing is using a third party (cloud provider) to allow people to add files on to their (cloud providers) servers. If the cloud provider runs a hash check and find material deemed unacceptable, of course Plex won’t discontinue your Plex account, but the cloud provider will because you violated their Terms of Services.

Under any circumstances, you cannot host files on these cloud providers that are copyrighted. This included music files, motion pictures, and television. You can use Plex Cloud for personal photos if you would like because those do not fall under current copyright law. However, any music, motion picture, or television does.

“The cloud providers Plex uses have provided authorized methods to allow Plex Media Server to link to their storage areas”

This is not true given the responses I have received from all three companies. Under any circumstances, you cannot share copyrighted content.

When I speak of e-mail, Outlook allows you to link your Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive account with the client. As long as there are no music, motion picture, or television files there, you are fine. It’s the copyrighted content that they do not condone. Plex has not be given permission by these companies to do this at all.

4

@SanchezHouse said:
What Plex is doing is using a third party (cloud provider) to allow people to add files on to their (cloud providers) servers.

Not quite true. There is no way to upload files using Plex. You upload the files however you would normally upload files to that provider.

If the cloud provider runs a hash check and find material deemed unacceptable, of course Plex won’t discontinue your Plex account, but the cloud provider will because you violated their Terms of Services.
Under any circumstances, you cannot host files on these cloud providers that are copyrighted. This included music files, motion pictures, and television. You can use Plex Cloud for personal photos if you would like because those do not fall under current copyright law. However, any music, motion picture, or television does.

That is correct. But just because the file is there, does not mean they will close your account. Many people use Cloud providers for backing up their computers, which may or may not include copyrighted material. The big issue comes when you create a link and allow others to access those files. Plex does it a little differently. It is unknown if these providers do this check to your files accessed by Plex, nor is it known what will happen if they do discover copyrighted material.

“The cloud providers Plex uses have provided authorized methods to allow Plex Media Server to link to their storage areas”

This is not true given the responses I have received from all three companies.

I do not know who or what you have asked these providers, but Plex worked these companies to get Plex Cloud working. This was not done without their knowledge, which is why we don’t have more providers. We want to make sure the providers know what we are doing.

When I speak of e-mail, Outlook allows you to link your Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive account with the client. As long as there are no music, motion picture, or television files there, you are fine. It’s the copyrighted content that they do not condone.

Again, I have no idea how this is done. I can only speak for what Plex has done.

Plex has not be given permission by these companies to do this at all.

See comment above.

5

Thanks for clarifying things, @“MovieFan.Plex”. I’m glad an employee stepped in and let us know that Plex worked directly with those providers for the Plex Cloud service.

6

@“MovieFan.Plex” -

Thank you for your response and feedback. As being a Plex employee, you would know more about Plex Cloud and the communication the company has between it and cloud providers.

However, this leaves me confused as to who to believe in this situation. I have contacted support for all the cloud providers thus far on Plex Cloud and they have all stated that they do not work with any third party applications. Plex is a third party application.

You stated the following:

“I do not know who or what you have asked these providers, but Plex worked these companies to get Plex Cloud working. This was not done without their knowledge, which is why we don’t have more providers. We want to make sure the providers know what we are doing.”

If this statement is to be taken as true, why are the companies stating differently to customers? Like I’ve stated, I’ve contacted them and their response has been they don’t support any third party applications. If this could be clarified, that would be great.

7

When Plex just came out with the beta, they made a simple statement. I believe it still stands.

“When in doubt, don’t use it”

In other words, if you don’t feel comfortable about any of this and if the fact that many of us have been using the service for 6 months and counting (I have our media on three different cloud accounts), and if the official replies given above don’t satisfy you, you can feel free to skip the cloud and host your own.

8

I thought @MovieFan.Plex was a volunteer.

That part aside, I still don’t know why Plex.tv is allowed to stay up while other streaming and torrent sites get shut down.

9

@wwwizzarrdry said:
I thought @MovieFan.Plex was a volunteer.

That part aside, I still don’t know why Plex.tv is allowed to stay up while other streaming and torrent sites get shut down.

There are no similarities between movie streaming sites, and plex.

Plex does not allow you to download pirated contetn
Plex does not host any of your content

Everything you put on your plex server, is local to you, its not on plex servers. They are not liable for what you put on your media server

10

@wwwizzarrdry said:
I thought @MovieFan.Plex was a volunteer.

That part aside, I still don’t know why Plex.tv is allowed to stay up while other streaming and torrent sites get shut down.

It’s extremely wrong to plug Plex with streaming and torrent sites. At best, Plex helps with the relationship between a person’s content and the rest of the technology world. Content providers want you to pay for access every single time you want to access content.

For example, you want to see Moonlight. Moonlight is available everywhere, but if you buy a copy on iTunes, there’s no way you can see it on Roku. How can you see Moonlight on your computer, Roku, and any other computer device without having to buy multiple copies of this motion picture? Well, that’s where Plex comes in. In my opinion, content providers are not actually happy with Plex because in order to get your movies, television, music, and the like on Plex, a user would need to rip this content physically in order to have a digital copy. Content providers hate this notion. Music labels even hate the fact that Apple’s iTunes software allows for people to rip their CD’s into a digital file.

In its entirety, Plex exists because content is might to be used for private use, if I understand the nature of how Plex is suppose to work. The MPAA and most media companies argue that you can’t legally copy or convert commercial DVDs and Blu-rays for any reason. Because everything is local, there is no real way in knowing whether a file is pirated or not. Plex has nothing to do with that.

As it regards to Plex Cloud, Plex is playing in the cloud provider’s playground. They have respect their use of that playground at all costs. Since it’s been a problem to uploaded motion pictures, television, and music on cloud providers, it’s probably best to not have this feature in the first place.

11

@wwwizzarrdry said:
I thought @MovieFan.Plex was a volunteer.

I think the Ninjas are volunteers. Anyone with the designation “Plex Employee” behind their name can reasonably be expected to carry out the company’s official policies.

12

I’m not saying I’m not happy Plex found a murky loophole. I’m just saying that it’s definitely, almost exactly the same as the Pirate Bay, et al.

You provide a hosted service on plex.tv that allows users to stream and download any content they have access to whether they own it or not.

Ex. My friend could stream, sync or download my copy of Iron Man for free because he has access to my shared library.

Sounds exactly like the majority of torrent sites that are invite only. Except, in this case a torrent site is just a little more legal than Plex. Since they truly don’t host any content, just provide an indexed view of where to find content. Plex on the other hand has a distributed network of servers that host a mixture of content that is downloadable, streamable and syncable. Whether that content was legitimately acquired is moot the minute that library is shared. It’s like a really fancy Pirate Bay for the people who the library is shared with.

They don’t own the content, or maintain the server, or even know (most likely) that they are consuming their shared media illegally. Unless I’m wrong and it’s not illegal to rip a blue ray and distribute it to all your friends. I guess that FBI warning at the beginning of every movie is just a hoax.

13

Either way I’ll enjoy it while it lasts. I imagine the only reason it hasn’t been shut down or sued into the ground is because it remains a fairly niche market. But since Plex is trying to become a third nipple on Apples chest (following their same model of a locked down, we-know-what’s-best-for-you-and-screw-what-you-want style ecosystem) and trying to grow bigger and bigger, they will eventually get noticed in a big way when the lawyers at Paramount realize their content is freely available to anyone with a friend who runs a Plex server.

14

I think @SanchezHouse just proved my point already by stating how easy it to subvert copyright law and avoid purchasing content legally for the device/service it’s intended for. Not saying it’s right to scam people out of their money multiple times for content they already purchased once before, but media corporations have been doing that for years. When you were a kid, did Capital Records send you a free copy of Chumbawumba when you upgraded your cassette player to a compact disc player? Nope. You had to go buy it again so you could get knocked down, but get up again.

15

@wwwizzarrdry said:
I’m not saying I’m not happy Plex found a murky loophole. I’m just saying that it’s definitely, almost exactly the same as the Pirate Bay, et al.

You provide a hosted service on plex.tv that allows users to stream and download any content they have access to whether they own it or not.

That’s not how Plex works. You simply cannot download any content and keep it on your computer. This is in no way like a torrent site that allows you to download entire files.

Ex. My friend could stream, sync or download my copy of Iron Man for free because he has access to my shared library.

Incorrect. Your friend cannot sync or download any item on a server he does not own. Only the admin of the Plex Server can sync content.

Sounds exactly like the majority of torrent sites that are invite only. Except, in this case a torrent site is just a little more legal than Plex. Since they truly don’t host any content, just provide an indexed view of where to find content. Plex on the other hand has a distributed network of servers that host a mixture of content that is downloadable, streamable and syncable. Whether that content was legitimately acquired is moot the minute that library is shared. It’s like a really fancy Pirate Bay for the people who the library is shared with.

Incorrect. Plex does not have a distributed network of servers that host a mixture of content. YOU have a Plex Server that YOU populate with media.

They don’t own the content, or maintain the server, or even know (most likely) that they are consuming their shared media illegally. Unless I’m wrong and it’s not illegal to rip a blue ray and distribute it to all your friends. I guess that FBI warning at the beginning of every movie is just a hoax.

If you allow anyone access to your media, it’s up to you to understand the laws and operate within them.

There is no difference between having your media on a computer in your house that you share with friends via remote access, and the cloud based server that you share with friends via remote access. It’s not the location, it’s not Plex, it’s YOU that is responsible for any content you put on it and then share to your friends.

16

Sorry, I’m not talking about the cloud vs a local instance.
I’m talking about Plex wherever it may reside. And don’t get me wrong - I’m really happy they have a working loophole for now, but you are very misinformed in what you think Plex actually does.

• All of your content is illegal.
• I don’t think they ever legalized breaking the encryption on DVDs and BluRays (AACS). They just realized it’s an unwinnable battle…

But to your point specifically:

1) Wrong.
You can check a box in the settings that allows your friends to sync your shared content.
I doubt your Mom knows that she is breaking the law whenever she streams or syncs one of your shared movies or TV shows or vinyl rips.

2) Wrong
The government didn’t consider each individual Peer-Hosted torrent a separate and unique instance on KickAss Torrents. Nope, they grouped them all together under a single company. The same will be true for Plex. They will never come after you and I. They will have to sue Plex in the same manner. Remember KAT didn’t host any content either…

Your argument is like saying you can’t arrest a Mob boss, only his foot soldiers. But I’m afraid the courts have already proven they won’t take Peer-to-Peer Sharing cases on an individual basis. They will group the infringements together under a class action against the parent company that provides access to the service.

And finally, a reminder that I love these guys have a loophole for white-collar crime. I hope they never get busted. I also think that if you are worried about breaking the law, remember that in the US, everything is illegal. The best you can do is choose what type of criminal you will be forced, one way or another, to become. https://www.exposingtruth.com/10-ridiculous-us-laws/

17

@wwwizzarrdry said:
Either way I’ll enjoy it while it lasts. I imagine the only reason it hasn’t been shut down or sued into the ground is because it remains a fairly niche market. But since Plex is trying to become a third nipple on Apples chest (following their same model of a locked down, we-know-what’s-best-for-you-and-screw-what-you-want style ecosystem) and trying to grow bigger and bigger, they will eventually get noticed in a big way when the lawyers at Paramount realize their content is freely available to anyone with a friend who runs a Plex server.

I think size matters here also. Plex if successful will be at risk of legal challenges.

18

Yep, that’s exactly the first sentence of my post, [only reason it hasn’t been shut down or sued into the ground is because it remains a fairly niche market.]

Hopefully it stays that way.

19

There is no difference between having your media on a computer in your house that you share with friends via remote access, and the cloud based server that you share with friends via remote access. It’s not the location, it’s not Plex, it’s YOU that is responsible for any content you put on it and then share to your friends.

So, the ultimate question in my mind is, will Plex be held responsible for someone uploading “illegally” obtained content, whether from a ripped DVD or from Piratebay…doesn’t seem to matter, and be sued or will Plex point the finger at the uploader who paid Plex to host their content? Does Plex know what content is on a person’s device and how that content was obtained ? Is there any way to tell digitally how content was obtained at all? I’ve read the Plex privacy statement five times in two days thoroughly and if Plex , or gracenote, or AWS can’t determine how content was obtained, how can any individual be held responsible unless there is something AWS and Plex are not telling users?