[John_Reddick]

I have a question regarding some of the Addons in the SlyGuy repository

https://k.slyguy.xyz/

I noticed he has an Addon for Pluto.TV, Tubi and Samsung TV Plus - all of which offer free live tv on their websites with no account needed. They are all legal free live tv services.

Since the addon strips the ads and just scrapes their official sites for the streams they offer to everyone - are these addons legal to use? Or does the developer need licensing permission to create a Kodi addon for people to use since it strips the ads?

If it is legal to use - can we recruit SlyGuy to add them to the official Kodi Addon repository to get more wide access to these addons?

[Lunatixz]

I have a question regarding some of the Addons in the SlyGuy repository

I noticed he has an Addon for Pluto.TV, Tubi and Samsung TV Plus - all of which offer free live tv on their websites with no account needed...

Since the addon strips the ads and just scrapes their official sites for the streams...

....can we recruit SlyGuy to add them to the official Kodi Addon repository to get more wide access to these addons?

You answered your own question 

Sources that require an account can not be bypassed, and stripping ads are all against repository guidelines.

Unfortunately, many of the "SlyGuy" plugins do not comply with the Kodi repository guidelines...

BTW some of those plugins do not scrape the "Official" source and actually access a private domain not related to the media source you're trying to access.

FYI Tubi has sent takedown requests in the past and it is unlikely to ever be added to the Official Kodi repository.

[John_Reddick]

Ahhh ok gotcha.

As far as Pluto.TV in the official Kodi Repository - is that one legal? Does it strip ads / did Pluto.TV give approval? Just curious.

Also - is the third-party app SmartTube legal? It's just a shell of YouTube without the ads. Wouldn't just every ad blocker software / app be considered legal / illegal?

I just want to make sure all of the addons and apps I use are completely legal and safe.

[Lunatixz]

Ahhh ok gotcha.

As far as Pluto.TV in the official Kodi Repository - is that one legal? Does it strip ads / did Pluto.TV give approval? Just curious.

Also - is the third-party app SmartTube legal? It's just a shell of YouTube without the ads. Wouldn't just every ad blocker software / app be considered legal / illegal?

I just want to make sure all of the addons and apps I use are completely legal and safe.

I'm the developer of the version found in the repository.... No, it does not strip ads, and Yes the plugin has the blessing of the PlutoTV service.

Not familiar with "SmartTube"... if all it does is bypass ads it is not "Illegal" it probably breaks user "Terms of Service".

If you are concerned about plugin safety, limit yourself to what's in the official repository....

If you are concerned with legal sources, limit your installed repositories to what's posted here in the Kodi forums.

To clarify the slyguy repository from what I understand does not contain "pirate" plugins. However, it is clear some sources and means of access are obfuscated/unorthodox. As is; they would not be permitted into the official Kodi repository.

[KingChit]

You should refrain from answering questions regarding anything with matt, Lunatix. Even now your personal feelings are obvious, not sure why.

[Lunatixz]

You should refrain from answering questions regarding anything with matt, Lunatix. Even now your personal feelings are obvious, not sure why.

I'm not sure what you mean? I didn't say anything against Matt. I didn't write anything personal, and stated 100% facts. If you have issue with something I wrote feel free to correct me.

[blackoutworm]

Bypassing ads is not illegal. One could argue that it is dishonest and a rotten thing to do because they're providing a services free of charge.
The Pluto addon does bypass on-demand ads but not the live TV ads.
You're not breaking any laws if you use any of the Slyguy addons as none of them contain pirated content.
And as far as the Tubi addon, they do not have a legal case here no matter how many takedown requests they send out. Blocking ads is not illegal in the US. It's their own fault for not encoding their ads into the video itself. Same goes for Pluto TV, Stirr, Plex and so on.
But be that as it may, Kodi have their guidelines. And according to them, bypassing ads is a no no.

[DiMag]

Bypassing ads is not illegal. One could argue that it is dishonest and a rotten thing to do because they're providing a services free of charge.

Finding myself in total agreement with @blackoutworm 's post above, I felt should add some legalese to amplify its thrust.

• From a legal point of view, use of a copyrighted digital item is not theft ("piracy"), because a digital item is not property. Property is something which cannot be duplicated and is subject to exclusive use by one person or entity, meaning that there can be no parallel exclusive use by more persons/entities. Breach of copyright is just breach of a statute; morality is not involved herein.
  
• The statutory protection accorded to intellectual property is the result of a costs/benefits assessment on the part of the legislator and the courts implementing his words. On the one hand stands the social benefit of free access of all, on the other the social benefit of incentivizing production. We are talking about benefits, not rights; there is no sacrosanct item, all is subject to costs/benefits analysis at the margin.
  
• While "pirates" act irresponsibly, the same may be said of copyright owners who push their contractual terms of service above and beyond what a court would declare legal. They reckon they can get away with it as long as they cultivate a moral backlash against "piracy". (While there is no linear correlation between amount of money spent in advocating a cause and successful imposition thereof as public opinion, a correlation does exists.) Come popular resistance and finally an adverse court judgment, they backtrack as was the original plan.
  
• In re SmartTube &c: Youtube has grown to its immense size as a result of two factors (apart from its technological prowess). First, it let people post and organized these posts in a coherent and searchable manner. Secondly and less importantly (but not negligibly either), for a decade or so in the past Youtube was the place where you could find everything pirated which, if posted anywhere else on the general Internet, would have come down after attack by the media industry's associations. Then Google took the pirated material down. But it has reaped the benefits. Today, having reaped the benefits of free access for decades, Google wants to restrict access to anything posted on its Youtube servers unless you take in their new maximal monetization ads as well. Not the well known ---and useful--- side panel where you get a minimum of contextual ads coupled with lots of contextual information, but RSS-like feeds propagating anything from travel to luxurious hotels to penis enlargement products. You think they reclaiming their legal rights under copyright law? More likely they have decided that the revenue collected until they are hit with monumental antitrust remedies outweighs the costs. And until that day of judgment comes, it seems advisable to act like Google and bypass these novel restrictions using whatever hack comes handy.    
  

[matthuisman]

Fyi, I don't bypass any ads intentionally. Most ads are done via client side injection which is not replicated in Kodi.

As for Pluto, they use server side ad injection. so the Ads are in fact there. The issue is that if they detect your in a different country, they won't show them. Instead they show a place holder.

It's actually harder getting ads to work than not work. And I tried as I'd rather see an advert than a repeating placeholder

There is a setting in my addon that should make the ads work by forcing the country the stream is for.

In conclusion, I never attempt to bypass ads. It's always simply a consequence of how the service runs things.

I do sometimes do tricks with headers to appear in different countries etc (x-forwaded for). But even these tricks are becoming less efficient as services catch on.

All the source is public so anyone can do their own homework.

Main reason for not in official repo is due to the many workarounds I need to keep my addons working as best as they can. Eg. They all proxy there requests via an internal proxy to fix / workaround certain limitations in Kodi / inputstream adaptive. Things like this would not be allowed in official repo.

I also ship all my own dependencies. Again, so I can have total control and keep things from breaking.

I also like to do rapid releases to again fix stuff very quickly if I need to. Again, not as possible in official repo.

Nothing against official repo, but for me and my users - I feel things as they are works just fine.

Also, just like Netflix, I'm sure some of the bigger vod services wouldn't like Kodi having an addon for them in the official repo.

Oh, and server side ads are the reason why Kodi often stops playback on the ads. Ffmpeg (kodis internal player) doesn't even support x-discontinuity (used for server side ad injection) so inputstream adaptive has to be used but that still has reported issues and stops. Maybe Kodi shouldn't push ads requirements until their player can play them reliably?

And I don't do a Tubi addon at all. What even is tubi

[DiMag]

And I tried as I'd rather see an advert than a repeating placeholder

Sage decision.

[ntilagoa]

Fyi, I don't bypass any ads intentionally. Most ads are done via client side injection which is not replicated in Kodi.

As for Pluto, they use server side ad injection. so the Ads are in fact there. The issue is that if they detect your in a different country, they won't show them. Instead they show a place holder.

It's actually harder getting ads to work than not work. And I tried as I'd rather see an advert than a repeating placeholder

There is a setting in my addon that should make the ads work by forcing the country the stream is for.

In conclusion, I never attempt to bypass ads. It's always simply a consequence of how the service runs things.

I do sometimes do tricks with headers to appear in different countries etc (x-forwaded for). But even these tricks are becoming less efficient as services catch on.

All the source is public so anyone can do their own homework.

Main reason for not in official repo is due to the many workarounds I need to keep my addons working as best as they can. Eg. They all proxy there requests via an internal proxy to fix / workaround certain limitations in Kodi / inputstream adaptive. Things like this would not be allowed in official repo.

I also ship all my own dependencies. Again, so I can have total control and keep things from breaking.

I also like to do rapid releases to again fix stuff very quickly if I need to. Again, not as possible in official repo.

Nothing against official repo, but for me and my users - I feel things as they are works just fine.

Also, just like Netflix, I'm sure some of the bigger vod services wouldn't like Kodi having an addon for them in the official repo.

Oh, and server side ads are the reason why Kodi often stops playback on the ads. Ffmpeg (kodis internal player) doesn't even support x-discontinuity (used for server side ad injection) so inputstream adaptive has to be used but that still has reported issues and stops. Maybe Kodi shouldn't push ads requirements until their player can play them reliably?

And I don't do a Tubi addon at all. What even is tubi

Nice one Matt
Some people think that just because they have team-kodi member on name that they can despise the work of others that contribute to the OPEN SOURCE that is kodi.
I couldn’t agree more with your answer. Clear and polite. Nicely done.

[skyvalley]

Matt,

your Aussie IPTV addon (and Foxtel addon for that matter) is my favourite addon in Kodi by far. I can't tell you how grateful I am for the work you've done. I live on the Central Coast in Sydney where you need to spend a fortune to get an aerial strong enough to get all the free to air channels so thanks to you I can watch them all. I was just wondering if you have any way of adding any regional stations to the list? On the Central Coast we have NBN but without the good aerial we can't see that here. There doesn't seem to be any way to watch it online from what I can tell.

Thanks again for your awesome work.

[matthuisman]

I can only add streams that are already public. If they have a website with a live stream, then it's 99% of the time possible

[catchbag]

Hey there. Some of the Aus 7 channels no longer work. Perhaps I need an update or host site has changed? Cheers

[Jer2y]

Hi Matt
I am having a problem with the Dstv add on slyguy is there a problem