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2016-11-23, 16:12
Hello KODI users,
I need your help, as a Final year student studying Television and Broadcasting I am to complete a dissertation, completely of my own topic choice.
Being interested in the implication that illegally downloading/streaming has within the industry and how easily accessible it is I wanted to know the ins and outs of illegally sharing with users online. I understand fully that KODI itself is not illegal but some of the add-ons are, I would really appreciate speaking to some members of this forum (You will be annonymous), An interview or just a simple email would really help.
what I am looking for is why peer to peer sharing is so easy and if anything has ever been done to stop it, if you have ever been caught, and how you make a profit from P2P sharing.
Thank you, for taking the time to read this.
Natassa Kattou
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Kodi is a media player. The official Kodi Add-ons are all legal. Sounds like you may want to ask your questions on third party add-on forum sites that have no affiliation with Kodi. Good luck.
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da-anda
Team-Kodi Member
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2016-11-23, 20:06
(This post was last modified: 2016-11-23, 20:07 by da-anda.)
IMO streaming of pirated content only became so popular because of the barriers the movie industrie is creating for customers. Biggest ones DRM and geoblocking. Instead of spending millions on encrypting content and putting barriers in the customers way, they should have spent that money in better broadcasting platforms or distribution systems. The easier the content is to consume, the more people will use it. If you have to pay for 5 streaming services only to see the TV shows you love, and constantly have to jump between websites/apps/devices, then this is surely nothing users are happy to do. Give them one platform with all the content they desire and they'll use it. Some of the streaming services are even not available for all platforms, TVs, settop boxes the users have, which is even more annoying. Amazon Prime not being available for AndroidTV is such an example.
DRM f.e. on Blurays is also totally ridiculous. Who isn't pissed having to do a firmware upgrade on the bluray player only to watch the new movie he just payed for. Pirates otoh only have to press one button these days and are also not forced to watch these lame trailers upfront.
Next reason are likely the suckers trying to make a quick buck by promoting and selling fully loaded devices to users that don't know better or are just really dumb. Yes, one has to be overcredulous to not even have the slightest doubt that something might be wrong when somebody offers them all movies and tvshows on earth for free.
I'm personally just pissed about these illegal streaming add-ons, as they do nothing but harm our project and will only lead to even more restrictions for paying customers.
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2016-11-23, 21:19
(This post was last modified: 2016-11-23, 21:20 by trogggy.)
Although it's often stated here as fact I'm not sure you could call any addon illegal per se.
An addon might allow the user to do something illegal, which is not the same thing.
The actions possible might be legal in one jurisdiction but not in another.
Selling a box with particular addons installed (ie making a profit from them) might be legal in some jurisdictions but not in others - I think this is currently being tested in the eu and Canada, for example.
Whether an addon itself is illegal (so the author / distributor has a liability?) isn't something that's been tested by courts anywhere AFAIK. Happy to be corrected if it has.
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(2016-11-23, 20:15)NatassaKattou Wrote: Thank you, would you know what these third party add-on forums are called?
also if you could maybe fill out my survey https://goo.gl/forms/4zNWJQzg6xu9cmHt1 that would be great!
Your survey is flawed, though:
http://imgur.com/a/Cdzmg
"KodiTV" is not a source.
Kodi is just a video player, just like VLC.
Most of the pirate streaming video add-ons are just python scripts that download lists from the internet. The actual videos are usually hosted on file locker sites like putlocker.
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I'd also suggest that you're leaning towards pay TV in that image ("i.e. Sky, Virgin") vs free OTA (Freeview, Freesat) or even on-demand (iPlayer, YouTube, etc.). And, reflecting Ned's comment, I'm not sure many folks would know if they're using "Putlocker" if they're using an addon or other intermediary, and similarly for many other file locker sites, or BitTorrent sharing, or Usenet downloads. Yes, some folks know what they're doing, but we have a lot of people here who genuinely seem oblivious.
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I still wonder how some official add-ons can be perfectly legal.
For instance, both Rai on demand and Dplay add-ons allow streaming of contents without ads, whereas the respective official apps and websites force the streaming of ads along with their contents. Rai website won't even start playing when detecting adblocks, and Raiplay Android app won't work on devices with adfree or adaway installed.
For those who don't like ads, all these limitations can simply be avoided by just installing Kodi and using its official and allegedly legal add-ons.
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Breaking the terms and conditions of a website does not (necessarily) equate to breaking the law.