[efigalaxie]

(Couldn't figure our where to ask this, so please excuse me and move it if this is the wrong place)

I’ve used XBMC/Kodi for many years on my Mac Mini based home theater system and I’ve often wanted to share something from my system with a friend – as you might share a YouTube video – but I’ve never figured out how.

I recently decided to research if there’s an add-on, plug-in or other software that can do this ...and ended up totally overwhelmed by technology options that were so complicated that I couldn't tell whether their functionality included the one simple thing I was looking for.

All I want to do is to send an email that says “Hey Mom, watch this great video I was telling you about on my home server [URL].

Simple question: Is this possible?

Thanks in advance!

Get Emby. Subscribe to the Emby premium service. Set up Emby on a spare machine that has some OOMPH. For your local machines with Kodi, install the Emby addon. Go to your friend's house. Log onto your Emby machine over the net. Watch what you will. Note: Sharing your ripped library is legally dubious. While sharing your physical library is ok...(only a single person can watch the movie)

This is the easiest way to do what you want.

Kodi's staff are, understandably, treading lightly. They do NOT wish to get associated with piracy. Myself, I think that blaming a tool and suing it out of existence is stupid. That would be like suing hammer manufacturers because a skull was bashed in with one. Any tool can be used rightly or wrongly. I am convinced that this fear is what killed the Boxee Box. IMHO - If Kodi can be sued out of existence, then so can ANY media player. The only thing Kodi does extra is metadata and a 10 ft interface.

What Kodi does that protects them - They are a media player only. They do not rip, stream, or copy. They do expose an interface for plugins. Any plugin of dubious nature is not in the official Kodi repositories.

[nickr]

Does this mom/friend live in a separate household? Do you own the copyright in this material?

Really The hall monitor from grade school If I own a DVD and I take it to a friends house, I can watch it Si If I have ripped the DVD, put it on my NAS, go to my friend's house, stream it to his TV....what is the difference None!! Not piracy as I see it.

These things are, of course, subject to local legislation, and it's interpretation by each country's laws. The argument counter to yours runs:

• Copying is legal only if it is 'fair use'
  
• Copying or ripping to your hard drive for use in your own houshold is 'fair use'
  
• Sharing your ripped material with other households isn't 'fair use'
  

[efigalaxie]

Does this mom/friend live in a separate household? Do you own the copyright in this material?

Really The hall monitor from grade school If I own a DVD and I take it to a friends house, I can watch it Si If I have ripped the DVD, put it on my NAS, go to my friend's house, stream it to his TV....what is the difference None!! Not piracy as I see it.

These things are, of course, subject to local legislation, and it's interpretation by each country's laws. The argument counter to yours runs:

• Copying is legal only if it is 'fair use'
  
• Copying or ripping to your hard drive for use in your own houshold is 'fair use'
  
• Sharing your ripped material with other households isn't 'fair use'
  

If I have the DVD of Star Wars and take it with me to my friend's and watch it there......How is that different from me going to my friend's house and we watch it through a stream pulled from my server?

[Dangelus]

Really The hall monitor from grade school If I own a DVD and I take it to a friends house, I can watch it Si If I have ripped the DVD, put it on my NAS, go to my friend's house, stream it to his TV....what is the difference None!! Not piracy as I see it.

These things are, of course, subject to local legislation, and it's interpretation by each country's laws. The argument counter to yours runs:

• Copying is legal only if it is 'fair use'
  
• Copying or ripping to your hard drive for use in your own houshold is 'fair use'
  
• Sharing your ripped material with other households isn't 'fair use'
  

If I have the DVD of Star Wars and take it with me to my friend's and watch it there......How is that different from me going to my friend's house and we watch it through a stream pulled from my server?

When you purchase a DVD you are paying for the license to watch one instance of that content on that medium. If you take that medium with you and watch it somewhere else in a non public place that it just fine. You can only watch one instance of that content whenever you play it.

If you rip that DVD it is permitted in some parts of the world for "archival and backup purposes" as long as you own the original but this is usually a grey area. If you then put your rip on the server potentially:

More than one instance of that content could be being watched at one time. Somebody could watch your original DVD and somebody else could be watching the rip or 2 streams of the rip could be being watched in different rooms etc. Violates the license.

Streaming the rip to another household violates the license. Streaming the content directly from the dsic to another household violates the license too as you are simply ripping the disc on the fly.

Personally I would call the above examples as a "violation of copyright license" rather than outright "piracy" but the law is complicated, unclear and varies from region to region...

[efigalaxie]

I despise laws that try to remove property rights from me after I have purchased property. I bought the DVD. As long as I do not sell copies of it in any form, I should be able to copy it for my own use, modify it for my own use...anything.