[Martijn]

Guys can we tell members to add the super repo repositories and addons in order to get the latest versions of popular addons?

Some people are having issues with the AJ addons which I think is due to them using old addons.

I wanted to ask beforehand as I don't want to get banned unnecessarily.

Thanks guys.

No you cannot.
Repo contains piracy addons and so it's also banned from this forum/website/facebook or anything Team XBMC related

[DesiBoi]

Ahh I see. I thought it was just the xbmchub related so didn't think about the piracy addons.

Thanks Martijn.

[wsnipex]

Al Jazeera addons is working fine.

[natethomas]

Guys can we tell members to add the super repo repositories and addons in order to get the latest versions of popular addons?

Some people are having issues with the AJ addons which I think is due to them using old addons.

I wanted to ask beforehand as I don't want to get banned unnecessarily.

Thanks guys.

It's possible a better suggestion to them might be to update to the 13.1 beta, which can fix some issues for people who downloaded an early copy of 13.0 that was slightly messed up.

[DesiBoi]

Guys can we tell members to add the super repo repositories and addons in order to get the latest versions of popular addons?

Some people are having issues with the AJ addons which I think is due to them using old addons.

I wanted to ask beforehand as I don't want to get banned unnecessarily.

Thanks guys.

It's possible a better suggestion to them might be to update to the 13.1 beta, which can fix some issues for people who downloaded an early copy of 13.0 that was slightly messed up.

Thank you Nate. I did advise them to upgrade to beta of 13.1.

Although I have found that when I install a beta release, other addons stop working and become incompatible.

Also are we allowed to tell users to upgrade xbmc through nito TV?

[natethomas]

Also are we allowed to tell users to upgrade xbmc through nito TV?

Um, well, I mean, you're allowed to do whatever you want. Do you mean on this forum? To my knowledge, there's nothing wrong with that, though if users do upgrade using software that we don't provide, our ability to figure out any further issues may be limited.

[Lunatixz]

4. "Pirated content" addons, websites, and services typically do not include the following (to be determined on a case-by-case basis if nessesary):

This case by case process should be elaborated on... What scale of comparison are you using? or are all mods allowed to personally decide what is Pirated, without question?

I ask because a recent thread discussion about a filmon plugin was closed, From what I can see filmon provides rebroadcast'ed OTA channels and their own original channels. How is this considered piracy?
Company's like USTVnow and Aereo are legal, the rebroadcast of OTA content hasn't been deemed illegal by US courts.

So I ask why are plugins like f.t.v and filmon being banned from topics by trigger happy mods?

[natethomas]

4. "Pirated content" addons, websites, and services typically do not include the following (to be determined on a case-by-case basis if nessesary):

This case by case process should be elaborated on... What scale of comparison are you using? or are all mods allowed to personally decide what is Pirated, without question?

I ask because a recent thread discussion about a filmon plugin was closed, From what I can see filmon provides rebroadcast'ed OTA channels and their own original channels. How is this considered piracy?
Company's like USTVnow and Aereo are legal, the rebroadcast of OTA content hasn't been deemed illegal by US courts.

So I ask why are plugins like f.t.v and filmon being banned from topics by trigger happy mods?

I don't know anything about USTVnow. Aereo has only been deemed legal in lower courts because of a loophole in which they claim they are not making a public display, because each users has his own antenna and PVR box that he is merely renting. At present in the United States rebroadcasting content without a license over the internet is invariably considered a copyright violation (aka piracy), unless the company can prove that each user is using his own, individually rented hardware.

[Lunatixz]

4. "Pirated content" addons, websites, and services typically do not include the following (to be determined on a case-by-case basis if nessesary):

This case by case process should be elaborated on... What scale of comparison are you using? or are all mods allowed to personally decide what is Pirated, without question?

I ask because a recent thread discussion about a filmon plugin was closed, From what I can see filmon provides rebroadcast'ed OTA channels and their own original channels. How is this considered piracy?
Company's like USTVnow and Aereo are legal, the rebroadcast of OTA content hasn't been deemed illegal by US courts.

So I ask why are plugins like f.t.v and filmon being banned from topics by trigger happy mods?

I don't know anything about USTVnow. Aereo has only been deemed legal in lower courts because of a loophole in which they claim they are not making a public display, because each users has his own antenna and PVR box that he is merely renting. At present in the United States rebroadcasting content without a license over the internet is invariably considered a copyright violation (aka piracy), unless the company can prove that each user is using his own, individually rented hardware.

You bring up a great point, so you are saying it's XBMC's responsibility to contact each media source and find out the hardware they use, and what licensing agreements they have? (<--Sarcasm)

How many official repo plugins would you say have licensing agreements with the sources they parse? A lot of the sources clearly have copyright terms that indicate reuse of material is forbidden. Just because a site gets a stream legally, doesn't give us access to it! So what defines piracy?

I'm all for cleaning up XBMC's forums and protecting itself from litigation. But I also don't see this heading in a clear direction... it's almost a free for all on what is banned and what isn't. We all know piracy when we see it, but some sources like the one I mentioned are in a grey area, which I feel is being overly targeted... Go back ten years and we would be using youtube as an example source of piracy...

As a neophyte developer I find it really hard to skate around a blind edge, I don't want to break any rules... So I avoid almost everything... which isn't productive.

I understand it's impossible to monitor every plugin source, but a white list would be nice. It's no wonder the only active plugin development for the XBMC is else were, video plugins have grinned to a halt here. I see plenty of talented developers using legitimate sources, and releasing else where... most likely to avoid the scrutiny by vague unclear rules.

[Ned Scott]

As far as I can tell, FilmOn is okay and the thread shouldn't have been trashed. Unfortunately, I have little sway on such things in the group, and I've given up trying to clarify with sources are piracy or not.

EDIT: which is not to say that I disagree with what Nate is saying here, in case my comment seemed to imply otherwise.

[natethomas]

You bring up a great point, so you are saying it's XBMC's responsibility to contact each media source and find out the hardware they use, and what licensing agreements they have? (<--Sarcasm)

How many official repo plugins would you say have licensing agreements with the sources they parse? A lot of the sources clearly have copyright terms that indicate reuse of material is forbidden. Just because a site gets a stream legally, doesn't give us access to it! So what defines piracy?

You are mixing two different things. A lot of sources have terms of service that indicate reuse of material is forbidden. Creating addons for those sites isn't a violation of copyright. It's arguably not even a violation of the terms of service. But if a violation is occurring, it's purely a contractual one, not a copyright one.

An addon would only need a licensing agreement to avoid copyright violations if it had a server somewhere that physically copied and stored the content it received from the source it is parsing. Because most addons don't do that, they aren't performing piracy.

This is why it is called a "copy"right violation. If an addon author is copying tons of material to his server, or using a server that has illegally copied tons of material, then a "copy"right violation has occurred. If not, then it has not.

[natethomas]

Also, I still don't know anything about filmon. Or USTVnow. If these addons don't either copy to a 3rd party server or provide access to an illegal 3rd party server, then there's an argument to be made that they should not be shut down.

[Ned Scott]

Hmm, I think the confusion here is that mikey1234 made the first FilmOn add-on, and so it has been commonly associated with things like xunity, hub, etc.

[Lunatixz]

Hmm, I think the confusion here is that mikey1234 made the first FilmOn add-on, and so it has been commonly associated with things like xunity, hub, etc.

This is exactly to my point, some addons because of the community developing the plugin are automatically deemed banned or illegal and get placed into the trash...

From my research I can see that filmon has made attempts to become as legit as it can in its chosen market, Same with Aereo and USTVnow.

I'd like to know that if I develop features that access theses source that my plugin won't be considered piracy...

[natethomas]

Hmm, I think the confusion here is that mikey1234 made the first FilmOn add-on, and so it has been commonly associated with things like xunity, hub, etc.

This is exactly to my point, some addons because of the community developing the plugin are automatically deemed banned or illegal and get placed into the trash...

From my research I can see that filmon has made attempts to become as legit as it can in its chosen market, Same with Aereo and USTVnow.

I'd like to know that if I develop feature that access this source that my plugin won't be considered piracy...

I did more reading on the topic. Honestly, I'd say we should all wait a minute. The Supreme Court is going to put out a ruling in about a month determining whether aereo and filmon (just read up on it) are or are not piracy. Now that I know FilmOn works the same way Aereo does, I agree that it should not be considered piracy, but based on current court rulings, both are legal in some states and illegal in others.

Essentially, for the moment, the guy who trashed the FilmOn thread is right AND anyone who says it shouldn't have been trashed are also right. Which is idiotic. But that's America for you. We'll all know the actual answer in about a month.