[nickr]

Doesn't matter what is legal in the UK/EU. Kodi Foundation is based in the US and is justifiably basing it's policies on US law and the associated paranoia.

[DarkHelmet]

Yes, and if some copyright holder decides to try to go against kodi I'm not so sure how such a trial would end given that judges have often made decisions that were hard to understand.

For users however the laws of their home countries apply and my knowledge is what jjd-uk pointed out. The statement "streaming is legal" is pretty bold. I would rather say so far no court has said it is illegal purely through lack of any ruling.

Uploading copyrighted material (through torrents for example) is illegal to my knowledge in many, maybe all countries. One more reason to end support for torrent video addons like quasar in this forum in my opinion. For the average users these addons are more dangerous than the streaming addons.

[Ned Scott]

Streaming is legal in the EU....for the time been.

On 5 June 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled that streaming illegal content online is legal in Europe. The Boy Genius Report weblog noted that "As long as an Internet user is streaming copyrighted content online ... it’s legal for the user, who isn’t willfully making a copy of said content. If the user only views it directly through a web browser, streaming it from a website that hosts it, he or she is apparently doing nothing wrong."

https://torrentfreak.com/is-streaming-pi...de-151012/

Sent from my Redmi Note 2

*Ahem*

Please stop spreading this bullshit. The article you cite only says that the end user might not be liable. That does not make the pirated copy legal. It just means you, as a viewer, might not get in trouble for looking at it. The copy itself is not legal, and the person who uploaded it/shared it, and possibly the people who run the server hosting it, are the ones who are liable.

Let me put this another way: Someone waving their penis in public is doing something illegal (in most countries). You can legally watch that person wave their penis in public, because you are just a bystander and are not doing anything yourself. However, saying "it is legal to wave your penis in public" would not be an accurate statement.

[metalkettle]

I tried to explain that kodi does not support that kind of thing and the plugins were actually allowing her to illegally watch copyrighted content. At the point I realised I was wasting my time due to the confused look on both women faces.

Streaming copyright content is legal in the UK........

So. in a nut shell she is not illegally watching content. Just watching illegal content. As stated the watching is not the issue.

[k4sh1n]

Just watching illegal content.

Is the person watching kiddie porn?

I think you mean copyrighted not illegal

[Big Aero]

Its plain and simple, there is no law in europe (currently) to say one can be prosecuted for watching copyright material for free online - therefor the OP is wrong to tell these woman that they were breaking the law by watching copyright content - no wonder you confused them 8-)

[Ned Scott]

Its plain and simple, there is no law in europe (currently) to say one can be prosecuted for watching copyright material for free online - therefor the OP is wrong to tell these woman that they were breaking the law by watching copyright content - no wonder you confused them 8-)

You're forgetting that, even if that does turn out to be the case, it still violates most ISP's ToS/contract. Plus, OP's point was to inform these people that the content was not coming from legitimate sources.

[Woppie]

I'd like to add a bit of a view on the topic, at least for my country, as to why people download or stream from "illegal" sources.

The problem is there's no real alternatives... not always.
Some series/films you simply can't get via over the top services like Netflix and the like, or they just offer certain seasons and not the newest.
With this global economy this isn't working out, availability should be the same within 24 hours... if you're lucky it's available within a week right now but more often than not you're out of luck.

Then you get the stupid geoblocking... I'm not talking about the traditional geoblocking here... let me explain.
If I want to watch a German show, I can't since it's not on the Dutch Netflix... there's no DVD's/Blu-rays... I simply cannot watch this show through any legal means.

Forgot to add; there's also 70/80/90s shows that never got a DVD release, would love 80's cartoons on ott services but most of the good stuff you simply can't get... I'm glad certain people captured VHS tapes and provide them on the internet.

The last thing I blame is the amount of services, or rather exclusivity... favourite series are all over the place and you'd need to shell out 3 times the money to have it all now.


No it's probably not right but these content creators/suppliers are as hard to blame really.
It's (was) pretty much the same with the music industry... and now they earn more money from streaming than loose tracks and physical CD's in my country... now that's telling us something.

Piracy is of all time, thinking you can stop it completely would be an illusion, some people are just not prepared to spend money.

[Big Aero]

Its plain and simple, there is no law in europe (currently) to say one can be prosecuted for watching copyright material for free online - therefor the OP is wrong to tell these woman that they were breaking the law by watching copyright content - no wonder you confused them 8-)

You're forgetting that, even if that does turn out to be the case, it still violates most ISP's ToS/contract. Plus, OP's point was to inform these people that the content was not coming from legitimate sources.

If your trying to nitpick here and turn this into a "violation of ISP contract by streaming copyright material" thread, then what about the addons in Official Kodi repository - do they not violate terms and conditions for each and every website they grab from? If that's not the case, then what about the Netflix and Amazon Prime addons, which are freely discussed on the forum. The user definitely violates those contracts by using those addons.

If you actually think about it Kodi itself encourages users to violate various contracts. Please don't say otherwise, or else tell me exactly what Kodi was designed for.

[Big Aero]

Taken from the Netflix terms and conditions page

4.5. You agree to use the Netflix service, including all features and functionalities associated therewith, in accordance with all applicable laws, rules and regulations, or other restrictions on use of the service or content therein. You agree not to archive, download, reproduce, distribute, modify, display, perform, publish, license, create derivative works from, offer for sale, or use (except as explicitly authorized in these Terms of Use) content and information contained on or obtained from or through the Netflix service. You also agree not to: circumvent, remove, alter, deactivate, degrade or thwart any of the content protections in the Netflix service; use any robot, spider, scraper or other automated means to access the Netflix service; decompile, reverse engineer or disassemble any software or other products or processes accessible through the Netflix service; insert any code or product or manipulate the content of the Netflix service in any way; or, use any data mining, data gathering or extraction method. In addition, you agree not to upload, post, e-mail or otherwise send or transmit any material designed to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of any computer software or hardware or telecommunications equipment associated with the Netflix service, including any software viruses or any other computer code, files or programs. We may terminate or restrict your use of our service if you violate these Terms of Use or are engaged in illegal or fraudulent use of the service.

[Big Aero]

I tried to explain that kodi does not support that kind of thing and the plugins were actually allowing her to illegally watch copyrighted content. At the point I realised I was wasting my time due to the confused look on both women faces.

Streaming copyright content is legal in the UK........

No it's not.

In fact it's become so high profile as an illegal activity the police have started to raid ths major suppliers of boxes (since it's too difficult to go after individual users), just a couple of examples

https://torrentfreak.com/police-raid-pir...ed-160318/

https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-android-...ce-150612/

How exactly is being the supplier of boxes which enable users to access pirate content related to what i said. I simply said Streaming copyright content is legal in the UK (i.e Watching, from a end users perspective) - This has absolutely zilch to do with facilitating piracy (i.e box seller, supplier, uploader).

[Big Aero]

Your link says nothing of the sort, what it does state is that the legality of streaming of content in violation of copyright has been referred to tbe EU Court of Justice for them to make a ruling tbat would apply EU wide, and as far as I know there has been no ruling yet.

European Union

In Europe, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has ruled that it is legal to look at content (copyrighted or otherwise) online.[2][3] The ruling relates to the British Meltwater case settled on 5 June 2014.[4]

The judgement of the court states that: "Article 5 of Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society must be interpreted as meaning that the copies on the user’s computer screen and the copies in the internet ‘cache’ of that computer’s hard disk, made by an end-user in the course of viewing a website, satisfy the conditions that those copies must be temporary, that they must be transient or incidental in nature and that they must constitute an integral and essential part of a technological process, as well as the conditions laid down in Article 5(5) of that directive, and that they may therefore be made without the authorisation of the copyright holders

[Ned Scott]

Its plain and simple, there is no law in europe (currently) to say one can be prosecuted for watching copyright material for free online - therefor the OP is wrong to tell these woman that they were breaking the law by watching copyright content - no wonder you confused them 8-)

You're forgetting that, even if that does turn out to be the case, it still violates most ISP's ToS/contract. Plus, OP's point was to inform these people that the content was not coming from legitimate sources.

If your trying to nitpick here and turn this into a "violation of ISP contract by streaming copyright material" thread, then what about the addons in Official Kodi repository - do they not violate terms and conditions for each and every website they grab from? If that's not the case, then what about the Netflix and Amazon Prime addons, which are freely discussed on the forum. The user definitely violates those contracts by using those addons.

If you actually think about it Kodi itself encourages users to violate various contracts. Please don't say otherwise, or else tell me exactly what Kodi was designed for.

Actually, my point is that ISPs are likely to try and stop users from pirating because they have an easy excuse to do so. Anything that takes up a lot of bandwidth that can be banished is loved by ISPs. It's about how likely these people are to get in hot water over these kinds of issues.

Netflix and Hulu might get annoyed by some ToS violations, but they probably won't send you a letter threatening to terminate service over such things (depending on the infraction, of course).

My problem with these things is not a moral issue or even a legal issue. It's more about being honest with people about what is going on, the risks that might be involved, and not hurting the Kodi brand. Do I break ToS contracts? You bet. Do I pirate? Oh hell yes (just recently I pirated a copy of Star Wars episode 7, but I also bought a physical copy. The law still says it's piracy.). However, I know the risks and I won't be crying if my ISP cuts me off (and since Comcast owns NBC/Universal, Hulu, and more, they have a big incentive to discourage piracy).

Selling boxes with these pirate/bootleg content add-ons to people who think it's all legitimate is much worse than the actual piracy alone, IMO. Doing it in a way that tarnishes the image of Kodi, rather than making it about what the user chooses to do, makes my blood boil.



Related note: I'm all for making it painfully clear that various add-ons are not official and likely break ToS. It actually bothers me that add-ons are named in a way that could be seen as "official". Just as a random example, the HGTV add-on should not be just called "HGTV". I don't know what would be a good naming convention that would be both easy to use and make things clearer, but I do know that we need one. Let the end-user make an informed decision about what they want to use, and that should hopefully be enough to keep the Kodi brand out of hot water (maybe).

[Ned Scott]

I'd like to add a bit of a view on the topic, at least for my country, as to why people download or stream from "illegal" sources.

The problem is there's no real alternatives... not always.
Some series/films you simply can't get via over the top services like Netflix and the like, or they just offer certain seasons and not the newest.
With this global economy this isn't working out, availability should be the same within 24 hours... if you're lucky it's available within a week right now but more often than not you're out of luck.

Then you get the stupid geoblocking... I'm not talking about the traditional geoblocking here... let me explain.
If I want to watch a German show, I can't since it's not on the Dutch Netflix... there's no DVD's/Blu-rays... I simply cannot watch this show through any legal means.

Forgot to add; there's also 70/80/90s shows that never got a DVD release, would love 80's cartoons on ott services but most of the good stuff you simply can't get... I'm glad certain people captured VHS tapes and provide them on the internet.

The last thing I blame is the amount of services, or rather exclusivity... favourite series are all over the place and you'd need to shell out 3 times the money to have it all now.


No it's probably not right but these content creators/suppliers are as hard to blame really.
It's (was) pretty much the same with the music industry... and now they earn more money from streaming than loose tracks and physical CD's in my country... now that's telling us something.

Piracy is of all time, thinking you can stop it completely would be an illusion, some people are just not prepared to spend money.

I think you're right about the first part. I've pirated stuff that has never seen a DVD release, and I feel no guilt for it. Anime fansubs (still technically piracy) likely gave birth to a now-booming market of legitimate anime subscription services. Don't get me started on geoblocking, one of the greatest evils of a global internet.

However, that's not what all this is about. No one is trying to stop piracy. It's a gray issue, and that's before you get into how copyright law has become corrupted over the years. If the "pirate" image/impression wasn't so negative then it's likely that it wouldn't really be an issue for the Kodi project. There would still be trademark issues that would need to be handled, regardless, but the amount of damage from those pirate/bootleg uses would be significantly less.

It sucks, because on principal it shouldn't matter. People should judge Kodi for what it is, and people who are too stupid to understand how Kodi works should be ignored. However, that's not what happened. The court of public opinion matters, and that requires the Kodi project to take active steps to remain neutral. As a result, we have people saying "oh come on, it's for piracy" on one side, and people saying "Kodi isn't doing enough" on the other. I hope that most people understand that something had to be done. Maybe the line in the sand isn't clear, or isn't exactly where it should be, but the Kodi group is doing the best they can in a gray world.