Login at Kodi Home

Plebian · 2014-04-10, 15:13

Hello fellow XBMC users,

Last month I stumbled upon a project called 'DiTV'. In short this is a Raspberry Pi with a custom skin of XBMC, or RasBMC, which is sold for ~89 euros. When I asked if they shared their customized source, or would distribute it upon purchasing the product I didn't get any response. When I asked the same question on their Facebook page, my question was deleted.

I'm really pissed off, because I love this project and I can't stand people making (a lot of) money of other people's work. They didn't even link back to XBMC, and give the impression that they made this software on their own.

Just thought you guys should know, really hope someone picks this up..

**Kib** · (This post was last modified: 2014-04-10, 19:51 by Kib.)

I don't see customized source, so this is most likely completely legal.

It is a raspberry Pi + XBMC + one of the atv-lookalike skins + Xot UZG.

This student is smart enough not to show a dubious plugin but instead chooses to show 'Uitzending Gemist' in his videos.
Until recently downloading video and sound was legal in the Netherlands as well, this changed yesterday or the day before.

I'd like to 'pick this up' but what exactly do you suggest we do about it? The license allows you to sell products using the software.
I'm actually glad he doesn't use our logo's like some people do.

**PatK** · 2014-04-10, 20:15

Selling a Raspberry Pi with case & customization's etc... and make a profit, good luck. Here in Canada just the Raspberry Pi with case pwr, SD card & taxes hits over $110 CDN throw in the time for set-up and the poor house is close by, a Pios Xios is the better deal from my stand point.

DITisTV · 2014-04-10, 20:31

Hi,

I'm one of the people behind DIT is TV. Basically what we do is sell plug & play Raspberry Pi's. We use OpenELEC as the base of our install.
As far as we know, we follow all guidelines set by OpenELEC + XBMC. If the XBMC team disagrees we would of course like to fix this.

On our productpage we link directly to the GPL license which is posted on our website; http://ditistv.nl/openelec-gpl-licentie/
We also freely distribute the image of our install. All of our images are also freely available on our website.

As far as deleting messages on Facebook; we try to reply to every and all messages. Our apologies your question should have been answered correctly.

We respect and appreciate all the hard work the community puts into XBMC and hopefully we can contribute actively in the future as well. Let us know if we can do or change anything for you.

Plebian · (This post was last modified: 2014-04-11, 09:40 by Plebian.)

(2014-04-10, 19:51)Kib Wrote: I don't see customized source, so this is most likely completely legal.

It is a raspberry Pi + XBMC + one of the atv-lookalike skins + Xot UZG.

This student is smart enough not to show a dubious plugin but instead chooses to show 'Uitzending Gemist' in his videos.
Until recently downloading video and sound was legal in the Netherlands as well, this changed yesterday or the day before.

I'd like to 'pick this up' but what exactly do you suggest we do about it? The license allows you to sell products using the software.
I'm actually glad he doesn't use our logo's like some people do.

As far as my knowlegde goes on GPLv2, you're forced to share base and or customization to the system. I know they can sell it, but they still have to give out their source (right?)

(2014-04-10, 20:31)DITisTV Wrote: Hi,

I'm one of the people behind DIT is TV. Basically what we do is sell plug & play Raspberry Pi's. We use OpenELEC as the base of our install.
As far as we know, we follow all guidelines set by OpenELEC + XBMC. If the XBMC team disagrees we would of course like to fix this.

On our productpage we link directly to the GPL license which is posted on our website; http://ditistv.nl/openelec-gpl-licentie/
We also freely distribute the image of our install. All of our images are also freely available on our website.

As far as deleting messages on Facebook; we try to reply to every and all messages. Our apologies your question should have been answered correctly.

We respect and appreciate all the hard work the community puts into XBMC and hopefully we can contribute actively in the future as well. Let us know if we can do or change anything for you.

Happy you guys finally respond to me.

Quote:We also freely distribute the image of our install. All of our images are also freely available on our website.

This isn't the same as publishing source for me to customize or redistribute. I can change the content of the image, but would I be allowed to share this? It would help if we got a GPL guru to help.

**Kib** · (This post was last modified: 2014-04-11, 09:47 by Kib.)

If you don't modify source there is nothing to share. I seriously doubt there is much source modification done to me, it all seems very out of the box.

@DITisTV
That being said, the site has some very dubious legal standing, which very recently got much much worse.
"U streamt de video alleen; er wordt niks gedownload!" is complete misdirection of the current interpretation of the law. Streaming == downloading in the Netherlands, it just happened to be legal to do so when audiovisual material was the subject because of the 'thuiskopieheffing' - of which the European Court has now stated it does not cover the rights of the movie and music authors, making streaming and downloading completely illegal in the Netherlands as of immediately.

If this were my own company I would consider stopping selling 'streaming of movies', (or at least stop advertising it as such)

Plebian · 2014-04-11, 09:46

(2014-04-11, 09:36)Kib Wrote: If you don't modify source there is nothing to share. I seriously doubt there is much source modification done to me, it all seems very out of the box.
That being said, since a few days the acts of selling people a way to view copyrighted material is most likely illegal in the Netherlands, there has not been a verdict yet.

In that case I will drop this. Isn't the new legal move mostly focused on parties hosting 'ilegal' content?

**Kib** · 2014-04-11, 09:49

I was editing my last post to be more clear while you replied.

No, basically the European court ruled that the thuiskopieheffing has never covered the rights of the content creators, which makes downloading and streaming illegal.
It is very unlikely anyone will target individual downloaders, but the same can not be said about people who enable others to commit a crime.

Plebian · 2014-04-11, 10:05

(2014-04-11, 09:49)Kib Wrote: I was editing my last post to be more clear while you replied.

No, basically the European court ruled that the thuiskopieheffing has never covered the rights of the content creators, which makes downloading and streaming illegal.
It is very unlikely anyone will target individual downloaders, but the same can not be said about people who enable others to commit a crime.

That's certainly true. Their main selling point is watching streamed movies. I wonder if they (as in the government, or copyrightholders) actively going to prosecute this new law.

nickr · 2014-04-11, 11:34

A distributor is obliged to make the source available, and pointing to the github page is not necessarily enough. If, for example, XBMC folded and/or the github page disappeared then the distributor needs a copy so he can still make it available.

Themes and (non binary) addons are plain text and when you send them to a customer, the source is necessarily included, so the obligation to provide source is satisfied by the distribution of the machine with the code included.

nickr · (This post was last modified: 2014-04-18, 03:53 by nickr.)

Oh and to add: to distribute an addons you need to check and comply with the licence for each addon. Addons include themes.

Shenkie · 2014-07-14, 21:25

These guys are still charging 25€ for an "update". Distasteful!

**Kib** · 2014-07-15, 08:52

Oh definitely distasteful. Not illegal though.

schumi2004 · (This post was last modified: 2014-07-15, 10:16 by schumi2004.)

I don't even understand why people buy those overpriced stuff but that's me.
Nice example though on how XBMC is dragged in to something illegal and promoted as such.

(2014-04-10, 20:31)DITisTV Wrote: On our productpage we link directly to the GPL license which is posted on our website; http://ditistv.nl/openelec-gpl-licentie/
We also freely distribute the image of our install. All of our images are also freely available on our website.

Both claims are falls, gpl license link is dead and didn't find the images used.,

Shenkie · 2014-07-15, 11:40

(2014-07-15, 10:09)schumi2004 Wrote: I don't even understand why people buy those overpriced stuff but that's me.
Nice example though on how XBMC is dragged in to something illegal and promoted as such.

(2014-04-10, 20:31)DITisTV Wrote: On our productpage we link directly to the GPL license which is posted on our website; http://ditistv.nl/openelec-gpl-licentie/
We also freely distribute the image of our install. All of our images are also freely available on our website.
Both claims are falls, gpl license link is dead and didn't find the images used.,

They remodeled their website and all GPL stuff including the images disappeared.

On facebook they claim it's not an update it's a totally new OS and that's why you have to pay. Previously they stated that all future upgrades will be free.

again, distasteful and deceitful