2014-05-22, 20:32
Yeah, I guess to really be fair, I can't blame any position on the matter right now.
2014-05-23, 16:22
So... currently the sites and the service are considered 'legal' as it stands today, I use quotes as they are allowed to continue to operate until a decision is made
Which then makes the addons legal, and in the case of ustvnow the addon is 'officially' endorsed by them so is not breaching any of their terms of service
In a month or so time when the courts decision comes out, if services such as Aereo, ustvnow, filmon etc are found to be breaching copyright then the services will most likely be shut down or will change to comply with the demands of the broadcasters
So why wait and see? What's there to debate? Whether you agree with how the service works and if it should be considered legal is irrelevant, this is for the courts to decide - though I'm confident they will get it wrong and side with the broadcasters
If they are shut down then the addons die with the service, if they modify their service then the addons continue to be legit
Which then makes the addons legal, and in the case of ustvnow the addon is 'officially' endorsed by them so is not breaching any of their terms of service
In a month or so time when the courts decision comes out, if services such as Aereo, ustvnow, filmon etc are found to be breaching copyright then the services will most likely be shut down or will change to comply with the demands of the broadcasters
So why wait and see? What's there to debate? Whether you agree with how the service works and if it should be considered legal is irrelevant, this is for the courts to decide - though I'm confident they will get it wrong and side with the broadcasters
If they are shut down then the addons die with the service, if they modify their service then the addons continue to be legit
2014-05-23, 21:39
(2014-05-23, 16:22)Eldorado Wrote: So... currently the sites and the service are considered 'legal' as it stands today, I use quotes as they are allowed to continue to operate until a decision is made
The problem is there is a split in the courts, so the services are legal in some states, but illegal in others. You are fine in NYC, but not fine in Utah or California. The services are only allowed to keep running in states where they are legal and have been shut down in other states.
edit: I think they'll probably side with the broadcasters too. It's definitely a weird case though, because somebody who already has a ton of money stands to profit regardless. If they side with the broadcasters, the broadcasters will have all their rebroadcast fees (billions of dollars) affirmed. If they side with Aereo, all the cable companies will immediately begin offering their own services that cost them nothing, all while keeping the cable bill right where it is, saving billions of dollars.
2014-05-28, 03:03
I have devs that imply indirecly they can not look at my log file because it contains third partry add-ons that are for "piracy" . (FYI nobody cares about US copyright laws where I live.) That I should remove repos and resubmit.
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid...pid1721438
1st If the official position of these xbmc forums is as implied by this dev, then state it so, and clearly in the rules.
2nd my log file is hosted on my own server not the forums itself so nobody can even say I made any kind of mention of any 3rd party add on
3rdly the file I was playing in the logs is a file from local SMB share negating the relevance of any add ons in the log file. I could understand if I was playing a file from a 3rd party add on site but in this case it was a video downloaded from an offical add on "youtube", which BTW in itself is piracy in many jurisdictions to copy it from the web site, and an official xbmc add on supports that!
4th If the devs do not want to help , then he should just BUTT OUT , and not reply. If devs have license to make demands like that (that i should remove not only add ons but repos in order to get any kind of help here) you should also state that, including their ability to respond harshly to posts that are contrary to their local laws, religiuos beliefs or personal preferences. This is a global site and I know xbmc is a global project involving devs from all over the world What may be legal in one country may not be legal in another country therefore a certain degree of tolerance is in order unless you want this site to be a bunch of christian white guys in countries with oppressive laws. When a dev makes a comment like that on a thread most always others chime in to support that dev and the implication to others is that they should not respond with a solution or the devs may decide they do not like them too!
I refuse to have devs on this site telling me what I can and can not do in the conuntry where I live but I will respct the PUBLISHED rules of this forum . I will not respect rules that are made up as we go along! I therefore ask for clarification on this and I further ask that the bullying by devs be restricted in those same rules, and that devs recognize that we are all contributing here and even the smallest users calling attention to issues is helpful in the overall development of xbmc.
Flame me all you want for this but where I live there is free speech as in most places in this day and age , you can even block this account as has been done with so many other users here over the years. I am certain I am not the only one who feels this way but I am probably one of the few bold enough to express it!
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid...pid1721438
1st If the official position of these xbmc forums is as implied by this dev, then state it so, and clearly in the rules.
2nd my log file is hosted on my own server not the forums itself so nobody can even say I made any kind of mention of any 3rd party add on
3rdly the file I was playing in the logs is a file from local SMB share negating the relevance of any add ons in the log file. I could understand if I was playing a file from a 3rd party add on site but in this case it was a video downloaded from an offical add on "youtube", which BTW in itself is piracy in many jurisdictions to copy it from the web site, and an official xbmc add on supports that!
4th If the devs do not want to help , then he should just BUTT OUT , and not reply. If devs have license to make demands like that (that i should remove not only add ons but repos in order to get any kind of help here) you should also state that, including their ability to respond harshly to posts that are contrary to their local laws, religiuos beliefs or personal preferences. This is a global site and I know xbmc is a global project involving devs from all over the world What may be legal in one country may not be legal in another country therefore a certain degree of tolerance is in order unless you want this site to be a bunch of christian white guys in countries with oppressive laws. When a dev makes a comment like that on a thread most always others chime in to support that dev and the implication to others is that they should not respond with a solution or the devs may decide they do not like them too!
I refuse to have devs on this site telling me what I can and can not do in the conuntry where I live but I will respct the PUBLISHED rules of this forum . I will not respect rules that are made up as we go along! I therefore ask for clarification on this and I further ask that the bullying by devs be restricted in those same rules, and that devs recognize that we are all contributing here and even the smallest users calling attention to issues is helpful in the overall development of xbmc.
Flame me all you want for this but where I live there is free speech as in most places in this day and age , you can even block this account as has been done with so many other users here over the years. I am certain I am not the only one who feels this way but I am probably one of the few bold enough to express it!
2014-05-28, 03:24
Fritsch asked you to remove the add-ons to help isolate the issue and make the logs more readable. This is actually mentioned as generally good troubleshooting advice on the Troubleshooting (wiki) pages. It's not a rule, sure, but there's no rule that says the devs have to help anyone out, and it's generally a good idea to be corporative with someone who's willing to help you. It should be seen as no different than a dev asking someone to turn debugging on for the xbmc.log file.
I actually go out of my way to reproduce issues and provide logs using clean installs of XBMC by temp removing my XBMC and userdata settings folders, because I want to help the devs as much as I can. I want to eliminate the number of variables and make things easy to read and make it less likely for something important to be overlooked.
Super Repo has specific issues outside of piracy/bootleg content that can cause issues, due to the very open access it gives and how just about anyone can upload any add-on, without any real vetting or checking. Some specific bootleg add-ons (or even just the wizards or helper tools, which might not have any bootleg content at all) even do weird things like directly access the video DBs, or run extra services in the background, or try to use generic settings in the advancedsettings.xml file.
In short, I think this is a misunderstanding. It is true that some Team members are specifically annoyed by certain add-ons and the groups who make them, and sometimes I'm one of those people, but I don't think that's even a factor here.
I actually go out of my way to reproduce issues and provide logs using clean installs of XBMC by temp removing my XBMC and userdata settings folders, because I want to help the devs as much as I can. I want to eliminate the number of variables and make things easy to read and make it less likely for something important to be overlooked.
Super Repo has specific issues outside of piracy/bootleg content that can cause issues, due to the very open access it gives and how just about anyone can upload any add-on, without any real vetting or checking. Some specific bootleg add-ons (or even just the wizards or helper tools, which might not have any bootleg content at all) even do weird things like directly access the video DBs, or run extra services in the background, or try to use generic settings in the advancedsettings.xml file.
In short, I think this is a misunderstanding. It is true that some Team members are specifically annoyed by certain add-ons and the groups who make them, and sometimes I'm one of those people, but I don't think that's even a factor here.
2014-05-28, 03:43
Ned ,
SuperRepo was not mentioned. It may or may not be installed there he mentioned fusion. Which as far as I kow fusion is not a repo rather a web site configured in file manager.
Asking to remove allows me to say I will not , especially when the add ons bear NO relevance to the problem. The problem is audio and to date I have never seen an add on hinder the audio, so unless this dev saw a specific reason , which he should have stated, his response was out of line, as well as the subsequent xbmc team member who chinmed in only to support the fist and further the implication that anyone who does help may also be blacklisted, whether personally by these two or on the entire forums
I can look at those logs and ignore the irrelevant , I also sometimes know what to search for as I am sure the devs do too. That log was a few minutes long, no longer than necessary. Yes multiple mentions of add ons but the truth of the matter is because he mentioned fusion in his mind he tunes me out because fusion is installed? He would have done better by saying nothing
This is like when I read here a long time ago that xbmc would not start and a dev demanded a log file , but if xbmc would not start then there was nothing in the log for that poster to upload . That dev never got it, just like this one does not get it.
SuperRepo was not mentioned. It may or may not be installed there he mentioned fusion. Which as far as I kow fusion is not a repo rather a web site configured in file manager.
Asking to remove allows me to say I will not , especially when the add ons bear NO relevance to the problem. The problem is audio and to date I have never seen an add on hinder the audio, so unless this dev saw a specific reason , which he should have stated, his response was out of line, as well as the subsequent xbmc team member who chinmed in only to support the fist and further the implication that anyone who does help may also be blacklisted, whether personally by these two or on the entire forums
I can look at those logs and ignore the irrelevant , I also sometimes know what to search for as I am sure the devs do too. That log was a few minutes long, no longer than necessary. Yes multiple mentions of add ons but the truth of the matter is because he mentioned fusion in his mind he tunes me out because fusion is installed? He would have done better by saying nothing
This is like when I read here a long time ago that xbmc would not start and a dev demanded a log file , but if xbmc would not start then there was nothing in the log for that poster to upload . That dev never got it, just like this one does not get it.
2014-05-28, 04:00
Sorry, fusion/hub whatever, which is not as open as SuperRepo. However, some of the same can still be said, or at least reasonably assumed.
You are right that you don't have to comply, but don't argue with them about it. If they just wanted to be dicks then they wouldn't be trying to help you. It's a sensitive subject, I know, but I think you are looking too far into this and are seeing motives that are not there. Certainly not with Fritsch, who's one of the nicest guys I've met here, and goes out of his way a ton to help people, issues big and small. What Martijn said probably wasn't directly relevant to the discussion, but from his perspective it probably seemed that way because you reacted so strongly.
I can understand why you might come to this conclusion, and I know you have no reason to believe me, but I think you've read the situation wrong, at least in part. So everyone just calm down and carry on.
You are right that you don't have to comply, but don't argue with them about it. If they just wanted to be dicks then they wouldn't be trying to help you. It's a sensitive subject, I know, but I think you are looking too far into this and are seeing motives that are not there. Certainly not with Fritsch, who's one of the nicest guys I've met here, and goes out of his way a ton to help people, issues big and small. What Martijn said probably wasn't directly relevant to the discussion, but from his perspective it probably seemed that way because you reacted so strongly.
I can understand why you might come to this conclusion, and I know you have no reason to believe me, but I think you've read the situation wrong, at least in part. So everyone just calm down and carry on.
2014-05-28, 05:01
(2014-05-28, 03:03)tekno Wrote: 4th If the devs do not want to help , then he should just BUTT OUT , and not reply.
The irony here is that fritsch wanted to help and was explaining what he needed to be able to see in order to help. If you don't want his help, it is your option not to do as he requested, but it's probably worth noting that he is one of the primary audio devs and almost certainly the only audio dev likely to provide help to you. Whether his requirements for providing free support are bullying or not is, I suppose, a matter of opinion.
Out of curiosity, what is your plan now? So far, you've insulted the only developer who appeared both capable of and interested in helping you, and you've slammed the rest of us by somehow implying we exist in some kind of gestapo state where we force users to only use the software the way we want (even though we have, over and over again, stated that users are welcome to use the software however they like). So that's a fairly significant amount of the totally free, volunteer help that's probably not going to be super useful for support anymore. XBMC doesn't provide a for-profit telephone help desk that you can call into and complain. Seems like the remaining option is to either hope some other random user has bumped into the problem before and can provide a non-code solution, or to just accept the choppy audio. Neither is a fantastic option.
I believe I've mentioned it before, but it always surprises me how frequently people on this board have absolutely no problem verbally attacking the very people who have volunteered to help for free. I'm assuming it's because so many of us have been conditioned by a world where purchasing a product comes with an implied warranty to abuse customer service.
2014-05-28, 16:51
The only valid point to tekno's rant is why are devs even in the position of having to censor users! Shouldn't that be the job of mods and bots?
Personally I'm tired of telling users to edit their posts in fear that some day my thread will be trashed like livestream was!
Enough already! if this fourm is going to insist on banning plugins. Add them to a blacklist and have a bot censor the offending name.
I'm not for censorship, but I'm tired of compromising my ethics on free speech, Inorder to moderator my thread.
Personally I'm tired of telling users to edit their posts in fear that some day my thread will be trashed like livestream was!
Enough already! if this fourm is going to insist on banning plugins. Add them to a blacklist and have a bot censor the offending name.
I'm not for censorship, but I'm tired of compromising my ethics on free speech, Inorder to moderator my thread.
2014-05-28, 17:16
(2014-05-28, 16:51)Lunatixz Wrote: The only valid point to tekno's rant is why are devs even in the position of having to censor users! Shouldn't that be the job of mods and bots?
Personally I'm tired of telling users to edit their posts in fear that some day my thread will be trashed like livestream was!
Enough already! if this fourm is going to insist on banning plugins. Add them to a blacklist and have a bots censor the offending name.
I'm not for censorship, but I'm tired of compromising my ethics on free speech, Inorder to moderator my thread.
I wouldn't worry too much, Lunatixz. Any of the really established threads that start crossing the line into heavy piracy discussion as often as not result in a week long internal conversation and the thread author is almost always contacted about ways to fix the problem before thread trashing.
2014-05-28, 17:19
It's simple, if you want the best chance of getting help then produce a clean log that shows only the issue you are seeking help with, and is not filled with other errors.
No one is saying you can't use a particular add-on, but some add-ons and services produce a lot of log spam making it more difficult to read, for someone like fritsch, who tries to help as many people as possible, then that can still be a lot of log spam to wade through, although the spam might be relatively short in each individual log.
Is it really that much of a hassle to temporarily backup the Userdata folder & remove the add-ons, then reproduce the problem & take the log, then restore the add-ons after. If you can't spare your valuable time to do this then why should anyone else waste their valuable time helping you out?
No one is saying you can't use a particular add-on, but some add-ons and services produce a lot of log spam making it more difficult to read, for someone like fritsch, who tries to help as many people as possible, then that can still be a lot of log spam to wade through, although the spam might be relatively short in each individual log.
Is it really that much of a hassle to temporarily backup the Userdata folder & remove the add-ons, then reproduce the problem & take the log, then restore the add-ons after. If you can't spare your valuable time to do this then why should anyone else waste their valuable time helping you out?
2014-09-20, 16:57
This whole no-piracy discussion "policy" is laughable when you got entire threads dedicated to ROM Collection Browser (which is still in the main repo as of Gotham). According to US copyright law, ROMs are completely illegal because they're for "archival purposes" only. The second you start playing them (even if you back them up yourself), they stop being archives and are actively used copies - or so quite a few lawyers have explained. Before people start shouting "What about abandonware?", just because it's abandoned doesn't make it legal either - it just means the IP owners will most likely not be capable of and / or interested in pursueing violators. Copyright grants the creator protection to not only how or where something is used or distributed, but also to control the availability and market value / currency of the project.
That being said, I feel US copyright laws and crap like the "Mickey Mouse Protection Act" have degenerated the entire concept of copyright into nothing but corporate greed and bullshit, which I'm completely against, that has become counterproductive its original purpose of enhancing /contributing to "the progress of science and the arts" given how entities like Nintendo literally just regergitate the same 8-bit Mario games over and over with no cross-buying (want to play SMB on your 3DS even though you own it on Wii U, gotta shell out another $5) or account based licenses (all console tied) which force fans to re-buy the EXACT same game every time they upgrade (which I now dub the "Miyamoto Tax", not to mention the fee play each game you already bought from Wii Virtual Console on the Wii U Virtual Console shows just how money hungry they've become - the "Wii U Tax") instead of actually, you know, making new games and not resting on their laurels like lazy asses as they pump out uninspired remakes and / or sequels. //endrant
Conclusion & TL;DR Edition: In short, XBMC / Kodi are just making themselves giant hypocrites when considering RCB is the top thread in the Program Add-Ons sub-forum, standing out like a sore thumb because in the US ALL ROM usage violates the law, even if you back it up yourself, since they lose their archival status once you actively use them, thus being entirely defeated by the add-on / plug-in. (*insert facepalm here*)
That being said, I feel US copyright laws and crap like the "Mickey Mouse Protection Act" have degenerated the entire concept of copyright into nothing but corporate greed and bullshit, which I'm completely against, that has become counterproductive its original purpose of enhancing /contributing to "the progress of science and the arts" given how entities like Nintendo literally just regergitate the same 8-bit Mario games over and over with no cross-buying (want to play SMB on your 3DS even though you own it on Wii U, gotta shell out another $5) or account based licenses (all console tied) which force fans to re-buy the EXACT same game every time they upgrade (which I now dub the "Miyamoto Tax", not to mention the fee play each game you already bought from Wii Virtual Console on the Wii U Virtual Console shows just how money hungry they've become - the "Wii U Tax") instead of actually, you know, making new games and not resting on their laurels like lazy asses as they pump out uninspired remakes and / or sequels. //endrant
Conclusion & TL;DR Edition: In short, XBMC / Kodi are just making themselves giant hypocrites when considering RCB is the top thread in the Program Add-Ons sub-forum, standing out like a sore thumb because in the US ALL ROM usage violates the law, even if you back it up yourself, since they lose their archival status once you actively use them, thus being entirely defeated by the add-on / plug-in. (*insert facepalm here*)
