The company has already removed some channels, and a few pirate outfits have preemptively announced plans to drop Roku support on the assumption that their channels will disappear.

The crackdown isn't coming out of the blue. Roku wants to offer public stock in 2017, and that means cleaning house so investors don't see its media players as piracy havens. Also, Mexico recently banned sales of Roku devices over pirate channels -- Roku's not going to get back into the country's good graces unless it can show that content thieves aren't welcome. Like it or not, the laissez faire culture of Roku boxes may have to go away for the company to grow its fledgling empire.