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Roku devices are coming back to Mexico after court ruling

Roku devices are coming back to Mexico after court ruling

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The earlier ban on the streaming devices due to piracy concerns has been overturned

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Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Roku is once again selling its products in Mexico after a court ruling overturned a July 2017 ban on the popular streaming devices due to concerns that hackers were using them to illegally stream pirated content.

A new ruling from the 11th Collegiate Court in Mexico City has overturned the earlier ban, and the streaming devices should return back to stores “in the coming weeks.” Roku devices were originally banned following a court complaint from cable provider Cablevisión, which alleged that hackers were cracking the devices to offer additional unsanctioned channels that offered free access to its channels, even going as far as selling subscriptions to the pirated channels over WhatsApp.

For its part, Roku doesn’t allow services to stream unauthorized copyrighted content. The company announced earlier this year that following more aggressive anti-piracy policies, 99.5 percent of all streaming time on the platform worldwide is spent on legitimate, legal channels. However, Roku didn’t provide what earlier figures looked like, so it’s hard to tell how much of an improvement that is.