(2016-02-12, 04:12)Big Aero Wrote: Well what other choice do they have, other than fighting a never ending battle. The fact, is piracy will always remain on Kodi whilst users have the ability to install 3rd party addons. XBMC can fight, send out trademark violation take-downs, but even that will not stop piracy, or distanct themselves from it. Pissing in the wind springs to mind.
I see the point you are making. I don't think the program needs to be locked down, but this really is pissing in the wind with the current approach. It's a strong wind and the Kodi project doesn't have the resources to effectively take down all of the little guys.
The big thing here is reputation and confusion, protecting one and preventing the other. How can we do that in the current environment? In my opinion, and I stress that this is just my opinion, the key is to make Kodi's legitimate features more popular than the piracy. It's not impossible when you consider how popular Plex is for doing the same thing (a platform for people's own media files).
In addition to that, all those other sites and sellers need some incentive to stop using the Kodi name. I wouldn't go with the strong-arm approach. Giving an ultimatum will most likely just be ignored. Human nature is dark, and people will do whatever they want, especially if it's profitable. However, if they think that it is within their best interests to not use the Kodi name, or at least greatly downplay these things, then you can change the direction of the wind. Most of these sites and services are honestly not even Kodi-specific, and the sellers and "help" sites could actually make more money and get more visitors by doing this.
How to actually do that? Hell if I know. Part of it is likely still doing takedowns when possible, so threads like this are still good, but there's a missing factor. Both ideas I mention are basically a marketing problem, but I think they're the best direction to explore.