Hollywood Strikes Back Against Illegal Streaming Kodi Add-Ons

DooKey

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An anti-piracy alliance supported by many major US and UK movie studios, broadcasters and content providers has dealt a blow (WARNING auto play video) to the third-party Kodi add-on scene after it successfully forced a number of popular piracy-linked streaming tools offline. In what appears to be a coordinated crackdown, developers including jsergio123 and The_Alpha, who are responsible for the development and hosting of add-ons like urlresolver, metahandler, Bennu, DeathStreams and Sportie, confirmed that they will no longer maintain their Kodi creations and have immediately shut them down. Sounds like the studios are getting serious and they're going to shut down all of the illegal streaming apps given enough time. Without illegal streaming apps is Kodi sustainable?

The action comes after The_Alpha reportedly received a hand delivered letter to their UK home: "This letter is addressed to you by companies of the six-major United States film studios represented by the Motion Picture Association (MPA), namely Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc., Disney Enterprises, Inc., Paramount Pictures Corporation, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Universal City Studios LLLP and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., Netflix, Inc. and Amazon Studios LLC (represented by MPA via the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE)), Sky UK Limited, and The Football Association Premier League Limited," the opening paragraph reads.
 
It was only a matter of time...

But Kodi could very well have life without illegal mods. It all depends on what the for proft streamers do with their hardware. This includes Amazon, Google, apple, and Roku. If they get invasive or supply egregious terms of use then Kodi could be the alternative.

My Roku has recently started streaming notification ads into my Roku app. I uninstalled it as a result.
 
It's just addons. Kodi works fine for me without anything illegal installed in it. If I wanted to access streaming content, all I need to do is hop on my browser and go there. I don't need Kodi to do it for me.
 
Cut off one head two more shall take its place.

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Maybe the studios should put their efforts in making content more accessible for everyone, making streaming illegally less appealing. Also those region based restrictions for content are just stupid.
So, make content cheaper and accessible everywhere.
Stop spending millions trying to stop pirates and give people less incentive for pirating.
 
Kodi will do just fine. It's a media application and a damn good one. People will just go back to torrents or something else and plug a hard drive into whatever device they're using.
 


Pirating is not ethical. Sure you think you are sticking it to the corporate shirts and overpaid actors. But you are also screwing over set workers, catering co.,local economies, etc.

These people get paid in one form or another. Since entertainment is non essential to life or well being, then content holders they have a right to charge you for services.

Content providers also have a right to get greedy and have someone else replace them with new content the new party creates.

Everybody is in panic mode now because revenues are down across the board as people watch less and less.
 
Pirating is not ethical. Sure you think you are sticking it to the corporate shirts and overpaid actors. But you are also screwing over set workers, catering co.,local economies, etc.
While I agree that pirating content isn't ethical, it also doesn't directly hurt the actors or the "set workers, catering co., local economies, etc" as they were already paid for the filming and they get $0 from movie ticket and DVD/Blu-ray sales. Now it could have an affect if movie studios decide to make fewer films due to piracy, but I don't see that happening right now.
 
Without illegal streaming apps is Kodi sustainable?


Well, I can't speak for anyone else, but I have three Kodi boxes in my house (livingroom, bedroom and guest room) and have been using Kodi for 5+ years, since back when it was named XBMC. (In fact, I remember thinking the new name sounded pretty stupid when they introduced it.)

In that time I have never once even tried to use a piracy streaming plugin.

I have used legal plugins, but those aren't really why I use Kodi. I don't like streaming, legal or pirated. I prefer the quality and reliability of local content. I have a PVR plugin for my mythTV backend and I play my media library stored locally on my NAS via ethernet.

I still think it's the best media center frontend I've ever used.
 
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Without illegal streaming apps is Kodi sustainable?

This gets grouped with all the other stupid statements on Kodi/XBMC. It existed long before these addons existed and it'll exist if they're gone. It's designed to be a media player, not your personal streaming piracy tool. If all the pirates quit using it, those of us that use it for a media player will still be here using it. And frankly, if someone wants to pirate content, nothing would stop users from downloading content and playing it with Kodi (or Plex or any other media player).
 
While I agree that pirating content isn't ethical, it also doesn't directly hurt the actors or the "set workers, catering co., local economies, etc" as they were already paid for the filming and they get $0 from movie ticket and DVD/Blu-ray sales. Now it could have an affect if movie studios decide to make fewer films due to piracy, but I don't see that happening right now.

Actors often get a percentage of the ticket sales and residuals for licensing deals.

Also that seed money comes from somewhere. Likely a producer or production company, or studio. And if they are making $0 then they won't invest in quality movies any more.

Haven't you noticed the surge in small production indie companies?

Might explain why we see more and more bad movies at the theater and ticket prices going up.
 
Pirating is not ethical. Sure you think you are sticking it to the corporate shirts and overpaid actors. But you are also screwing over set workers, catering co.,local economies, etc.
Fuck'em. As far as I'm concerned they're also part of the problem. There needs to be a regulation that allows any streaming service to stream any content they can buy the license to. Which means all content should have a license that anyone can purchase to stream. I'd rather have Netflix and Amazon fight each other over how they deliver their service, and not what content they delivery their service with.

These people get paid in one form or another. Since entertainment is non essential to life or well being, then content holders they have a right to charge you for services.
I have a right to pirate. Who gave me that right? I did.

Like it or not, they have to compete with piracy. Netflix was literally the result of people pirating. People jumped on Netflix cause for $8 a month it's far better than hunting for torrents online. But just having Netflix alone isn't enough anymore and that's a real problem.
Content providers also have a right to get greedy and have someone else replace them with new content the new party creates.
Entertainment doesn't work like that. If I wanna watch Dragon Ball Super, then I'm gonna watch it. There is no equivalent to it. But Netflix won't have it, so I gotta get another streaming service. Like how I gotta get Disneys service, and the one used to watch that new stupid Star Strek shows, and Crunchy Roll for Anime. See the problem? Too many streaming sites. Better off pirating and let them figure out what they're doing wrong.
Everybody is in panic mode now because revenues are down across the board as people watch less and less.
That's not related to this. Too much entrainment today is stupid or boring, or both. That's a new set of problems they have to deal with.
 
Actors often get a percentage of the ticket sales and residuals for licensing deals.

Also that seed money comes from somewhere. Likely a producer or production company, or studio. And if they are making $0 then they won't invest in quality movies any more.

Haven't you noticed the surge in small production indie companies?

Might explain why we see more and more bad movies at the theater and ticket prices going up.
If the industry refuses to innovate then let it crash. Just like when the video game industry crashed, then Nintendo appeared and reinvigorated the industry with new ideas. Too many movies are crap remakes or crap based on a real story, or just plain old crap. If it's based on a video game, then the person obviously never played the game or wasn't even a fan of it. If it's based on an Anime, then the people involved have never watched or was ever a fan of the show.

There's nothing wrong watching an industry fall apart if they refuse to innovate. The consequences of supporting the industry is Dragon Ball Evolution. Do you want another Dragon Ball Evolution?

 
It's designed to be a media player, not your personal streaming piracy tool. If all the pirates quit using it, those of us that use it for a media player will still be here using it.

"I only read Playboy for the articles"
 
Maybe the studios should put their efforts in making content more accessible for everyone, making streaming illegally less appealing. Also those region based restrictions for content are just stupid.
So, make content cheaper and accessible everywhere.
Stop spending millions trying to stop pirates and give people less incentive for pirating.

I would like this/vote a million times over if possible. Seriously, it seems like an ad/media campaign is needed to get the point across. The amount of stupidity and ignorance involved in their greed based decisions is astounding.
 
If the industry refuses to innovate then let it crash. Just like when the video game industry crashed, then Nintendo appeared and reinvigorated the industry with new ideas. Too many movies are crap remakes or crap based on a real story, or just plain old crap. If it's based on a video game, then the person obviously never played the game or wasn't even a fan of it. If it's based on an Anime, then the people involved have never watched or was ever a fan of the show.

There's nothing wrong watching an industry fall apart if they refuse to innovate. The consequences of supporting the industry is Dragon Ball Evolution. Do you want another Dragon Ball Evolution?



I got it. You want the benefit of enjoying someone else's hard work without paying for it because they are greedy and not doing what you want.

As others know, I dont mince words. Don't take it personally. I'm just calling you on it.
 
Kodi forms the center of my home theater system and I find it great without illegal addons, in fact the illegal addons are usually so buggy that Kodi's better without them.

I run an Ubuntu based server running media storage as a raid 10 array under mdadm and TVheadend server streaming FTA DTV throughout the house. The front ends consist of a HTPC running Ubuntu and Kodi with the TVheadend front end addon and an assortment of Android media boxes also running Kodi with no illegal addons. All up the system cost me nothing and I'm finding Ubuntu to be far superior to Windows 7 as a HTPC OS, I can even watch FTA DTV in bed on my Nexus 9!

Personally I couldn't give a stuff what happens to the illegal addons, as long as the legal addons aren't affected. Having said that, it's open source, screw it up and someone will just fork it - This is what Hollywood just can't seem to comprehend.
 
In my country it's completely legal to stream but not to distribute.
 
Pirating is not ethical.
In my anecdotal experience, the people who can afford to buy stuff (Blu-Rays, games, Netflix, ...) actually do so.

The pirates are mostly people who don't have money: students, kids of non-rich parents, the working poor. Their pirating is not costing the movie industry money. A capitalist might argue that these slackers should find a way to raise the capital necessary to legally acquire media content, but most of them already are. If they are using alternative means to enjoy cultural participation until they have grown up / finished their studies / found a better job, I don't see nothing unethical about it.

When people who could afford stuff pirate it, the reason is usually that the media mafia made it very inconvenient, if not impossible, to get it legally.
 
I got it. You want the benefit of enjoying someone else's hard work without paying for it because they are greedy and not doing what you want.

As others know, I dont mince words. Don't take it personally. I'm just calling you on it.
You don't get it. For one, I'm advocating that all media have a purchasable license, which means someone like me who pays for Netflix can enjoy watching Disney crap as well as all the other crap Netflix has. But I can't, so while I have Netflix I also refuse to buy all the other streaming services to supplement what's missing from Netflix. Like I said, Star Trek Discovery requires I get CBS's streaming service. You think I paid for 1 month of that shit? What they should have done is what Disney did with DuckTales 2017 and just upload it on YouTube for free, that way you can gauge if people like it or not first before airing it on TV.

All these streaming services with unique content will have people like me who pay for Netflix but then pirate everything else. Netflix themselves won't innovate either as they still require SilverLight.

 
I wish the entertainment industry would stop this nonsensical charade. Just like any other piracy-related site, there will be more Kodi addons in the future. However, I am rather frustrated that the UK allowed them to basically threaten the developers into abandoning the addons, not just having to do with hosted content. That's a failure of the legal system in my opinion. Its one thing if they were hosting the site with all the pirated content, its another thing entirely if they were hosting a site that merely provided upload/viewing opportunities for third parties to actually upload/download/stream (in which case they need only respond to DMCA complaints from a local jurisdiction etc) , and its also separate if they basically developed an addon that pointed to these sites for Kodi but had nothing to do with the running of them! Only the first example here should even potentially make them culpable.

That said, no matter what its a losing proposition for Hollywood and content cartels. Kodi is an excellent program and its addons - legal and otherwise - are part of its allure. The same can be said for Emby and Plex. Regarding thew whole issue with legit streaming sites, they are becoming more and more fragmented and with less and less content because of major publishers backing out out of greed; consider the aforementioned Disney example or how CBS not only refuses to put their streaming content on Hulu with the rest of the major networks they also are trying to tie their Star Trek show exclusively to the streaming platform. These days, even Hulu Plus and the like can include commercials even when paying (unless you pay even more) and sometimes they restrict past seasons, LiveTV or other content. Some of these services offer premium channels like HBO as addons, but they're often full price (ie Hulu or Amazon HBO NOW addon is $15! ) and rarely have a "I want everything" bundle (HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, Starz, PLEX, etc..) much less a discounted one. I really am glad to see some attempts at IPTV streaming services (ie Hulu's $40 plan, PSVue, or one or two others I forget), but frankly they need to be more accessible with better features and with more content. I can think of many improvements such as Premiums like HBO offering both their full catalog of current shows/movies on demand like it is at the moment, but also offering "Channels/Playlists" that replicate from their cable company offerings for when you want to see what's on/random/new. They all ready put these together for their live TV subscribers so it wouldn't be hard to basically set up little "random shuffle, or pick from this playlist" for different themes. Ultimately however, there needs to be better compatibility both across devices, and ideally using standardized, open technologies to access the content.

However since we're talking about Kodi, lets go there first of all -If the industry is so worried about these Kodi addons, why don't they offer one themselves? I have a few media boxes that can run Android, but actually work even better on LibreELEC, which is basically a slimmed down Linux distro for ARM devices to handle Kodi and media related tasks. Why don't Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, HBO, Spotify, all the IPTV and streaming subscription services offer an official Kodi addon? It would certainly encourage people to subscribe if they had an easy to use, high quality, open source addon for their media platforms of choice. I've even found unofficial ones that can work well like the Crunchyroll addon, which works well with a Premium account and though its UI could use a little bit of an upgrade it certainly lets me watch videos, tracks my queue and generally does all of the functions one could do on a webpage or via the Android app regarding their videos.

Once again the industry is stuck in a rut and lashes out at what they don't understand, when they should be using it as a starting point to offer quality services. Making their streams a good value with lots of content, technically competent/open, and available on as many platforms as possible including compatibility with Kodi, Emby, and Plex, will bring them success in the cord cutting era.
 
My reaction exactly as I see you self-entitled crybabies complain about each avenue that closes.
 
Kodi was sustainable before streaming and will be after I would imagine.

They have been trying to get out from this, at least as much as an open source project can.

I just use Kodi to interface with the vids on my NAS, but yesterday the upgrade nag said something like "Using 15.Something when 17.Something - The Last - is available". The Last sounds kinda ominous.

In my anecdotal experience, the people who can afford to buy stuff (Blu-Rays, games, Netflix, ...) actually do so.

The pirates are mostly people who don't have money: students, kids of non-rich parents, the working poor. Their pirating is not costing the movie industry money. A capitalist might argue that these slackers should find a way to raise the capital necessary to legally acquire media content, but most of them already are. If they are using alternative means to enjoy cultural participation until they have grown up / finished their studies / found a better job, I don't see nothing unethical about it.

When people who could afford stuff pirate it, the reason is usually that the media mafia made it very inconvenient, if not impossible, to get it legally.

So if a poor college student can't afford a Ferrari, he just just steal one until he can round up the cash to buy it?

Sorry, being broke means you miss out. I think I deserve to travel on a private jet, but I can't afford it. I miss out. I think I deserve to spend the summers in Italy, but I can't afford it. I miss out.

"using alternative means to enjoy cultural participation" is the smoothest way I have ever heard stealing described.
 
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So if a poor college student can't afford a Ferrari, he just just steal one until he can round up the cash to buy it?

Sorry, being broke means you miss out. I think I deserve to travel on a private jet, but I can't afford it. I miss out. I think I deserve to spend the summers in Italy, but I can't afford it. I miss out.

"using alternative means to enjoy cultural participation" is the smoothest way I have ever heard stealing described.


You're talking about theft. Piracy is not theft.


You're a "pirate" in the industry's eyes if you already bought a movie on VHS, DVD, Bluray, and have it on a Netflix account but then stream it through Kodi or another avenue instead. Guess we should just allow media companies to charge home users that set up viewing parties with friends since they'd like that too.
 
You're talking about theft. Piracy is not theft.

But stealing is gaining something that somebody is selling without paying for it. If I get to watch a movie that the studio is charging money for without paying, then I am gaining something without paying, and that is stealing. Put another way, why would I want to watch something that I felt had no value? Just bay watching it I am admitting that I find value in it, and if I'm not paying for that, I'm stealing.
 
So if a poor college student can't afford a Ferrari, he just just steal one until he can round up the cash to buy it?

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That's kind of a disingenuous comparison. If you steal a car or any other physical possession, someone loses that possession.

If you download something illegally that you either lack the means to pay for, or would just go without if you had to pay for it, then no one loses anything at all.

Take the example of the kid several years ago who was fined for his ipod with 30,000 songs on it. There is no way in hell he would have bought those 30,000 songs if he hadn't downloaded them. He couldn't possibly have paid $30k at 99 cents a song on the Apple store. Yet the RIAA still claimed a monetary loss of $30k and tried to throw the book at him

Pirating stuff is still not the right thing to do, but in the grand scheme of things it's a rather minor infraction, especially if you would never have paid for it if you didn't download it.

The difficulty arises when a large number of people justify their downloads based on this rationale, claiming they would never pay for it anyway, yet it is probably unlikely they would never consume any media if piracy were not an option.
 
IDK about the justification of piracy, but I can't feel bad for these content creators and their blatant greed. The expectation for an average Joe to subscribe to 3+ services for double digit dollars ON TOP of overpriced cable subs is ridiculous. Especially piecemeal stuff like CBS All Access. Maybe if it had every show CBS every aired since the beginning of time, but even, still. I love the money I saved cutting the cord too much, I'll go without if it comes down to it.
 
But stealing is gaining something that somebody is selling without paying for it. If I get to watch a movie that the studio is charging money for without paying, then I am gaining something without paying, and that is stealing. Put another way, why would I want to watch something that I felt had no value? Just bay watching it I am admitting that I find value in it, and if I'm not paying for that, I'm stealing.

No. No matter how you want to look view it even the justice system sees theft and piracy differently than you. Theft/Stealing is when you deprive someone of their owned property while piracy does not deprive someone of property as it's still there for them to use. Are you stealing if you record a movie or sporting event from the TV? Most people would say no but this industry has fought against that very act. It sounds ridiculous but had they won that battle then you'd be arguing that the media industry is in the right and that you're stealing if you do so. The industry considers changing the format of the content that you've already bought to be illegal. So if you've copied your previously bought DVD of 'Avatar: The Last Airbender' to your HTPC you might as well turn yourself in as that's "stealing".

I don't watch what I haven't bought but they want to control when and how you consume content in your own home after you've already given them money; fuck them.
 
So if a poor college student can't afford a Ferrari, he just just steal one until he can round up the cash to buy it?

Sorry, being broke means you miss out. I think I deserve to travel on a private jet, but I can't afford it. I miss out. I think I deserve to spend the summers in Italy, but I can't afford it. I miss out.

"using alternative means to enjoy cultural participation" is the smoothest way I have ever heard stealing described.
The problem with this is that piracy can be good too, because accessibility helps your brand. If you release a new movie and hardly anyone saw it, then who would want to see it? There have been cases where a movie that was released in theater didn't do well but later aired on TV or released on DVD/Blu-Ray it got fame.

Because entertainment isn't like a car or a ride on a private jet. Those are things you want cause of the results they give, but entertainment is a hit or a miss. Nowadays it's more of a miss than a hit. This is what happens when the box office movie releases are 99% crap. Because of this no amount of advertisement is going to get people into movie theaters. But 1% of the time a good movie does appear and lots of people will find out about it through piracy. Then they become fans and they start buying merchandise and even a copy of the movie on Blu-Ray.

This is literally Japans problem as majority of people over there pirate. So the Japanese focus on getting fans to buy merchandise rather than having more people watching it on TV. This is why anime is heavily focused on sexy woman with revealing clothing cause this is the shit they will obsess over. They will literally buy the figurine of whatever female character they like and keep it in their home. So yea the content is a mixture of fan service and fantasy, exactly what the audience wants. This is also why nothing gets more than two seasons as the fans have a limit to how much of these toys they'll buy. If you fail to make a good show, then you pay a very expensive price.

Sora-no-Otoshimono-Soraoto-Heaven-s-Lost-Property-Icaros-Uranus-Queen-Toy-Figure.jpg
 
here is the thing...basically companies are encouraging internet piracy. Piracy offers what people dream of having. If companies can learn from it and smarten up, more and more people would start paying for a product that makes sense.
ex. napster/mp3 change the world in how we do digital music, which is way better than how it use to be.

1. unlimited access to all tv shows and movies commercial free without paying several different streaming services.
2. cable/tv companies offers crap (crap hardware, BS support and ridiculous high fees)
3. if companies can start offering something that makes more sense for everyone, I would be so happy to sign-up!
4. americans need to stop offering the best to themselves only, please include your friends and neighbors, why would Netflix Canada be any different than Netflix us, makes no sense. stupid rights.
 
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Might explain why we see more and more bad movies at the theater and ticket prices going up.

Or, you know, maybe try some innovation like stream rental of new movies day 1? I'll have to go to a theater to see Star Wars next month, and I'll hate having to do it. Theaters suck. But, no, they just have to stay stuck in their past ways.
 
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