Canada Joining the Kodi Addons Crackdown with Home Search

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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We have discussed the use of Kodi Addons at length this year. Many of these Addon programs that can be facilitate with the use of Kodi can easily deliver copyright content right to your TV, free of charge. Of course that is not cool with a lot of companies and a lot of laws as well. Ryan passed along this story out of Canada which caught his eye. While most of the Kodi Addon crackdown has been located mostly overseas, this one is happening in the Great White North. Adam Lackman, a Canadian citizen and TVAddons founder, had his home searched and found himself being interrogated for nine hours. Lackman is responsible for "TVAddons" a directory for hundreds of Kodi Addons.


Now the companies are also targeting Lackman and TVAddons — a library of hundreds of apps known as add-ons. Once downloaded on the Android box or a computer with added software, some of the add-ons — such as Exodus and 1Channel — allow people easy access to pirated movies, TV shows and even live television.

According to court documents, the group stayed for 16 hours and the plaintiffs' lawyer and independent counsel interrogated Lackman for more than nine hours. He was given a break for dinner and to speak to his lawyer, who was present.

Lackman was "not permitted to refuse to answer questions" and his lawyer wasn't permitted to counsel him in his answers.

"Any time I would question the process, they would threaten me with contempt of court proceedings," says Lackman.

Besides seizing personal items such as his computer and phone, Lackman says the plaintiffs' lawyer and independent counsel forced him to hand over passwords for his email and social media accounts.

The TVAddons site, does not actually host any of the actual Addon apps, but rather just shows you where to get those. I am not sure on all the laws and regulations in Canada, but some of this would be well over the line in the good old US of A.
 
This is crazy, and people thought Canada was a nicer place to live lol. My attorneys would salivate and cream themselves if someone did this to me stateside.
 
lol, interrogated for 9 hours with a lawyer and no ability to get counsel. Man and this over him supplying copyright infringing addons.
 
I'm not entirely sure of the letter of the law in some of the circumstances above. But we do have far more strict rules when it comes to stuff like free speech, especially in regards to hate speech. We didn't let that church that was protesting soldiers funerals across the border, for example.

We do however have the right to remain silent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_silence#Canada but I'm not sure how it applies here.
 
well this goes to show that it doesn't matter whether someone gets to defend themselves in the court of law. as long as you the plaintiff are able to achieve your objective, nothing else matters. not even the rights of the accused for the PROPER way of how these legal proceedings should have went.

i'm not familiar with Canadian law but, not being able to invoke something similar to the right to remain silent (in this particular case at least), wow that's harsh as hell. Also he wasn't allowed to gain access to a lawyer. intimidation tactics ontop of that, and other baiting to get him to tell on other suspects ?
 
The only reason they were able to do that is because they lied to him and HIS lawyer was absolutely fucking incompetent.

A judge ended up throwing the damn thing out but they are appealing his decision, so it'll probably take a few months to work out.

This is what happens when you place corporations above people. It isn't fascism it's corporatism.
 
Yeah this shit is not okay. Hit The front of CBC, so plenty will hear about this bullshit.
 
One step closer to be able to change our name to United Corporations of America, specially, after we formalize the merge with Canada Inc.
 
NeoNemesis said:
The only reason they were able to do that is because they lied to him and HIS lawyer was absolutely fucking incompetent.

A judge ended up throwing the damn thing out but they are appealing his decision, so it'll probably take a few months to work out.

This is what happens when you place corporations above people. It isn't fascism it's corporatism.
Click to expand...

Good to see that someone took the time to read the article.

I find the political comments disturbing in that politics doesn't really enter into this story. It was a judge that issued a very rare civil search warrant with explicit conditions that they were only to verify that the case evidence still exists and has not been destroyed. Not search for new or interrogate this individual in any way. Our cable companies pissed all over this and that is why the judge threw it out. Yes our telecoms really are this terrible.

Just for fun, I personally don't identity with any political alignment (liberal, conservative or otherwise). I find the debates over it pathetic to be honest. Each alignment has its merits and drawbacks and I believe that all parties go too extreme in their doctrine. This means that sensible solutions cannot be reached...only argue over extremes.

I am very against that Judge's decision to grant this warrant. This is a very unusual event in our legal system. The real criminals here are the telecoms who think that they can do whatever they want and get away with it.
 
Its the big companies in canada like bell and rogers forcing customers to buy there services and not cut are cables causing the whole problem. In the US you guy are lucky heck you can watch for a fee on hbo.com Game of thrones but in canada we are not allowed too. So we turn to andriod boxes and pirate streams to watch it. I mean we would pay for the streaming service from hbo and other networks but the big 3 up here keep sticking to the old system. Since hulu and and others block VPN access now we can never enjoy the freedoms you guys get in the USA. Also since monopolies are legal in canada we have no choice in the matters. Totally sucks.
 
Don't point this at Trudeau - he's at least taking Canada in a better direction. However, this kind of thing about Kodi is simply the next generation of the "media companies exerting pressure on governments against piracy" which has little to do with politics with US/Commonwealth gov'ts, regardless of major party in power, often having less-open copyright laws that favor content producers , unless you live somewhere that is willing to tell corporations to back the fuck off (like some EU nations, but even Nordic countries and Iceland still have this fight). This is nothing new but the same old "MAFIAA" types being behind the times and pissed that people are easily downloading/streaming content. Its one thing to go after hardware companies that include pirated content as part of a sale (ie the "fully loaded Kodi boxes" ) but its something entirely different to go after the addons themselves.

And Kodi itself is open source (and forked to high heaven, sometimes for good sometimes for ill), and while most addons are open source especially those piracy focused (ie and not on the "official" Kodi addon repos - you have to add your own repos or install them manually) can sometimes be proprietary. However, many "pirate" addons are open source themselves but basically connect to various pirate streaming sites which oif course are under the control of whomever is hosting them - it isn't like these are all entirely peer to peer or anything.
 
bAMtan2 said:
fascism is when people elect an authoritarian to break the rules for them, then they get stabbed in the back because they gave up their liberty.

this thread is about capitalism, which is when companies have more power than people and get whatever they want.
Click to expand...

No, it is corporate fascism, corporatocracy or crony "capitalism" aka mercantilism.
 
If the addons are open source, the MPAA and FACT can go after these so called 'pirates' all they like: Someone else, possibly a conglomerate of coders, will just fork the code and keep on truckin!

I can't help but notice how it's the UK Sun that's pushing the propaganda regarding these so called 'illegal boxes' - The damn boxes themselves are in no way illegal and neither is Kodi.

I use Kodi right throughout my house, I have three Android based Kodi boxes as well as a Kodi based HTPC in my home theater (yes, some of us still use them!) that stream legitimate media from my server and stream FTA TV via TVheadend and it's downright fantastic! I don't care for the illegal addons as I never really found them to be that reliable.
 
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well the CRTC which governs this crap here in Canuckistan is all made up of retired Bell and Rogers exec's who both happen to be the 2 largest TV providers in Canada...kind of a self serving industry. even our 3rd party internet providers have to use Rogers Cable or Bell copper and pay them a fee and fall within their rules.
 
THRESHIN said:
Good to see that someone took the time to read the article.

I find the political comments disturbing in that politics doesn't really enter into this story. It was a judge that issued a very rare civil search warrant with explicit conditions that they were only to verify that the case evidence still exists and has not been destroyed. Not search for new or interrogate this individual in any way. Our cable companies pissed all over this and that is why the judge threw it out. Yes our telecoms really are this terrible.

Just for fun, I personally don't identity with any political alignment (liberal, conservative or otherwise). I find the debates over it pathetic to be honest. Each alignment has its merits and drawbacks and I believe that all parties go too extreme in their doctrine. This means that sensible solutions cannot be reached...only argue over extremes.

I am very against that Judge's decision to grant this warrant. This is a very unusual event in our legal system. The real criminals here are the telecoms who think that they can do whatever they want and get away with it.
Click to expand...

They overplayed their hand and then they doubled-down by going for an appeal. If this gets to the SCC the cable companies are going to get spanked very hard.
 
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THRESHIN said:
Good to see that someone took the time to read the article.

I find the political comments disturbing in that politics doesn't really enter into this story. It was a judge that issued a very rare civil search warrant with explicit conditions that they were only to verify that the case evidence still exists and has not been destroyed. Not search for new or interrogate this individual in any way. Our cable companies pissed all over this and that is why the judge threw it out. Yes our telecoms really are this terrible.

Just for fun, I personally don't identity with any political alignment (liberal, conservative or otherwise). I find the debates over it pathetic to be honest. Each alignment has its merits and drawbacks and I believe that all parties go too extreme in their doctrine. This means that sensible solutions cannot be reached...only argue over extremes.

I am very against that Judge's decision to grant this warrant. This is a very unusual event in our legal system. The real criminals here are the telecoms who think that they can do whatever they want and get away with it.
Click to expand...
Yes. This isn't a normal occurrence. Follow Canadian media for more info. And remember, Canada is a sovereign country with distinct and different laws. This is civil law, as well, not criminal.
 
Putz said:
well the CRTC which governs this crap here in Canuckistan is all made up of retired Bell and Rogers exec's who both happen to be the 2 largest TV providers in Canada...kind of a self serving industry. even our 3rd party internet providers have to use Rogers Cable or Bell copper and pay them a fee and fall within their rules.
Click to expand...
Not a CRTC issue but a copyright issue.
 
Todd Walter said:
They overplayed their hand and then they doubled-down by going for an appeal. If this gets to the SCC the cable companies are going to get spanked very hard.
Click to expand...

We can only hope. I do enjoy when our idiot telecoms get a good spanking. Not that they ever learn.
 
bAMtan2 said:
fascism is when people elect an authoritarian to break the rules for them, then they get stabbed in the back because they gave up their liberty.

this thread is about capitalism, which is when companies have more power than people and get whatever they want.
Click to expand...
No, this thread is about corruption of the judicial branch. Or at least this one judge.
 
THRESHIN said:
We can only hope. I do enjoy when our idiot telecoms get a good spanking. Not that they ever learn.
Click to expand...

You're not wrong, sadly. I'd expect them to bail out of the appeal at the first sign the appellate court judge is technically competent but that's a rarity. The BC woman's case versus Facebook in front of the SCC indicates that they, at least, are wising up though. Fingers crossed!
 
Putz said:
well the CRTC which governs this crap here in Canuckistan is all made up of retired Bell and Rogers exec's who both happen to be the 2 largest TV providers in Canada...kind of a self serving industry. even our 3rd party internet providers have to use Rogers Cable or Bell copper and pay them a fee and fall within their rules.
Click to expand...

Those 3rd party providers have to use their lines because they cannot afford to run their own. They are not forced too, if I had a farm and you wanted to use or run something over my property I would expect some form of compensation for it.
 
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