Kodi Community Forum

Hey guys!

I'm new here but actually I'm being using Kodi since several years. I simply love this software and I consider it quite revolutionary and think that it will probably be the future of media.

I'm a Law student and I'm already doing some research on Kodi, since I consider that it is very interesting to have a legal approach on this software. The main focus of my research is related to the self-regulatory elements or measures carried out by Kodi to avoid incurring in legal (copyright) liability for possible unlawful uses of copyrighted works. For those who don't know what "self-regulation" is, I cite the following definition: "Self-regulation is the process whereby an organization is asked, or volunteers, to monitor its own adherence to legal, ethical, or safety standards, rather than have an outside, independent agency such as a governmental entity monitor and enforce those standards" (http://itlaw.wikia.com/wiki/Self-regulation).

In that order of ideas, I would like to show in my research how Kodi monitors its compliance with the law, mainly with regards to copyright law (self-regulation in other areas are also welcome).

For instance, I would like to know whether you have an addon or plugin take down policy or possible actions from Kodi to disable them: the establishing of copyright policies, rules and/or informing users about the ilegallity of some plug-ins.

In that sense, it will also be interesting to know whether the copyrighted content accesible via "third-party" plugins are hosted in your servers or if they are just transmitted through them or if they are only hosted on third-parties servers (the server of the addon developer? another server? which one?)

Furthermore, I would like to know whether you have some control on the contents provided by third-parties through non-official plugins.

I believe that kodi is like an "empty toolbox" and it is up to the users to decide on what tools to put inside that box. I just want to know if you have any self-regulatory scheme by which you try to voluntary adhere to law standards.

Any information will be highly appreciated (tutorials, books, cases, guidelines, etc).

Kodi does not provide content in any way and it's totally up to the user what he does with our software. As you wrote correctly, Kodi is more of a toolbox for users to create their own, customized media center experience. We have an official repository, where we try to only add community add-ons that play by the rules (copyright, ...). Some of the add-ons might however violate the TOS of some websites, where they aggregate the content from, as they are in most cases no official add-ons. Community/third-party add-ons that are not in our repository are not regulated or monitored in any way by us, so they potentionally can violate copyright etc and it's up to the users if they decide to use them or not.

But regardless of the source of the add-ons, every content provided by add-ons is hosted on some third party servers, which in case of the banned/illegal add-ons are likely hosted off shore by some piracy group or whoever.

KODI is a media player. That is it. It has plugins and the ability to write your own plugins. Nothing illegal is hosted by KODI and the KODI foundation is actively refusing hosting or support of anything dubious.

KODI is as much liable here as Google is. It's Google Android platform that is running the OS that KODI is running on (Or Microsoft\Apple\etc) So should the OS also get sued?


Claiming KODI could do anything about piracy is like saying Ford could stop armed robbery. If Fred used a Ford Pick-up to do an armed hold-up of the local grocery store then that is nothing to do with Ford. There are other laws that apply to what Fred does with that car. It is also nothing to do with Smith and Wesson either... just because Fred chose one of their guns to break the law with, then it is nothing to do with the gun maker.

KODI makes sure the core application, addons and support are 100% legal. Anything shady is refused support.

KODI can't "ban" add-ons as this is a hobbiest product. Add-ons are designed to be written by anyone. If you tried to force "official only" addons then you will loose a lot of very good legal addons from KODI.


Though also remember - KODI is used worldwide, so laws change around the planet. One country's "illegal" is another country's "fair use".



Where you may find more meat for your thesis is on some of the dubious addons forums. Places like tvaddons where there are the pirate addon makers playing fast and loose with the law. Though the most comical thing going on over there is "no honesty among thieves" as their seems to be groups stealing from other groups. Now that becomes the Wild West!

(2016-06-22, 18:28)RevolutionSummer Wrote: [ -> ]For instance, I would like to know whether you have an addon or plugin take down policy or possible actions from Kodi to disable them: the establishing of copyright policies, rules and/or informing users about the ilegallity of some plug-ins.

We do have have any method of disabling addons, nor do we believe we have any obligation to notify/inform users about the potential illegality of addons that come from 3rd parties. We do include a warning now when people enable 3rd party addon installers, but we do not believe that was legally necessary. More just "nice to have." We believe our only requirement in this area is to stop hosting addons in our own repository, and even then, our actual legal obligations are extremely tenuous, gray area.

(2016-06-22, 18:28)RevolutionSummer Wrote: [ -> ]In that sense, it will also be interesting to know whether the copyrighted content accesible via "third-party" plugins are hosted in your servers or if they are just transmitted through them or if they are only hosted on third-parties servers (the server of the addon developer? another server? which one?)

3rd party addons are by definition 3rd party. They are hosted on servers that have no relationship to us. Addons are actually just zipped files that you can host anywhere.

(2016-06-22, 18:28)RevolutionSummer Wrote: [ -> ]Furthermore, I would like to know whether you have some control on the contents provided by third-parties through non-official plugins.

We do not. We could theoretically blacklist or whitelist addons, if we wanted to, but that would just result in a pointless whack-a-mole campaign that we have not, to this point, been interested in waging.

(2016-06-22, 18:28)RevolutionSummer Wrote: [ -> ]I believe that kodi is like an "empty toolbox" and it is up to the users to decide on what tools to put inside that box. I just want to know if you have any self-regulatory scheme by which you try to voluntary adhere to law standards.

Any information will be highly appreciated (tutorials, books, cases, guidelines, etc).

As noted, the only place in which we do any work with regards to self-regulation is in our own repository. There we tend to try policing fairly stringently. If people send us notices that they believe we are infringing, we first try to work out some amicable agreement, and if that doesn't work, we willingly remove the addon from the repo.