[natethomas]

I've been using Kodi long enough that i'm pretty sure these 2 features aren't included; Fresh start (reset to default settings) and a simple "info" disclaimer msg inside settings. A simple button in settings that when clicked displays info about your trademark stance, your feelings about people infringing your trademarks and a screenshot of what a default Kodi homescreen looks like. Also, a button that will wipe your addon data and addons folder that basically returns you to a default fresh install. I have bought boxes that come pre loaded with garbage and i always wished there was a simple way to remove it. You could also add the equivalent of an "install from untrusted sources" button that enables outside repos distancing yourselves a little more from "them". It's what i would do with 16 so close to final. Heck, i already have a standalone .py for fresh start if you need it.

There actually are fresh start or factory reset or whatever you want to call them buttons for each settings page. I'm not sure if we've ever considered making a factory reset for addons.

[Geeba]

The rest of your ramblings is super unclear. When Xbox launched, nobody posted up questions asking 'where can I find the latest download of a movie in the theaters?' 'why doesn't my torrent downloader work' they were related questions on the system. I was there, in #xbmp, and #xbmc, and on xboxhacker and xbox-scene, and nobody asked where to obtain content, which is essentially the problem now.

This was never a problem with the xbox scene.

Ahhhh the good old days!

People didn't know what a torrent file was, 90% of Xbox users had no idea what a mod-chip or indeed what XBMP was... now every kid from London to Lithuania has a device that runs Kodi.

[Ned Scott]

But look at your press release now - we are sorry, Amazon probably was right, yes you could see us as enablers, we are trying our best, please help us in the effort - those damn ebay seller essentially "got to us".

It doesn't say that at all. I would wager that you've gotten the wrong impression from multiple blog posts and other public statements. It's the only way I can make sense of what you're talking about.

Even about the support stuff, you seem misunderstand what was being said. Most people typically understand what pirating is, but some honestly don't know where this stuff is coming from and are stupid enough to think it is okay. It's just one example, and no one is trying to be dishonest about the situation.

Don't confuse a different perspective with being dishonest.

[halikus]

I'm aware of defaulting the xmls but to entirely wipe a system willingly is a different matter. Even if an end user was to manually delete all addons there is still alot of leftover modules and junk scattered about. I basically flush the thumbs, cache, wipe userdata, create a temp zip of any core addons\modules\repos i wish to save, wipe addons, restore temp zips, and then a forceclose kill command. I have never profited from Kodi (unless you include a few free beers over the course of a decade) but i am my friends go to "Kodi guy". The number 1 thing i find myself helping them with is not to get nefarious content, but rather how to remove nefarious content that came from resellers and provide simple maintenance like manually flushing their thumbs, etc. If the resellers crap actually worked i would maybe have a different stance, but they have so many errors and outdated plugins it's deplorable. It's like buying an OEM laptop pre-bundled with timebombed trial ware; it's criminal and infuriating.

[harlekin]

@harlekin, you make a ton of assumptions, broadly worded statements. Kodi's never been in a legal battle.

You seem to be obsessed with the past too.

And now the personal attacks start. Legal battle was the wrong wording. You hadnt fully backed the brand yet and had to get some legalities sorted as far as I understand.

After opening what you saw as an exploitable inconsistency - entirely separate from the argument we are having, you chose to put an accusation forward that I qualify as a lie.

I dont just care about the past. I wish you had handled it differently when you still had a chance to - but who doesnt.

What I do care about is the current effort of Kodi to whitewash what happened in their "relationship" with Amazon and construct a narrative where both sides could hold their heads up high and speak of "simple but small mistakes - that play no part in the current developments". The opposite is true from my point of view.

As for the term "assumptions".

I am assuming that you generally dont take a press statement from a Fortune 500 company at its bare face value, because those get crafted, by a PR team for a purpose.

But Kodi now obviously does - because they see it as a potential benefit in crafting - what - a redemption story? Why are you stretching your hand out so far to essentially the person that slapped you in the face?

Amazon entirely mistakingly believing that Kodi is actively enabling piracy - makes no sense whatsoever. You'd have to convince me that they dont read the device logs that they are collecting, that they are incapable of making sense of the thing once they discover that it is in wide use on their devices, that they are incapable of reading up on its history - and that all of their decisions basically are made by execs that dont know their market and whose actions dont get challenged.

Your current press release crafts a version of past events thats highly unlikely - and from my point of view, simply untrue.

Why have you chosen to validate Amazons press statement - when it is entirely irrational to do so? Thats the question. Why is Kodi now suddenly saying "we are accepting Amazons judgement" - when almost the entire rest of the world, including the technologically inclined press outlets rightfully wasnt?

Im not only saying - get your PR process fixed - I'm also saying your "call to action" is incongruent - because you are blaming some issues (the two I have touched on) on "easy targets" - without seemingly understanding your current position in the market.

edit: To take away some of the harshness out of the last statement. You seemingly want to be "true neutral" without having a definition of where your "red lines" are.

[harlekin]

On a broader note - what are the problems here?

Kodi becoming unmanageable because of what I call "drive through" support demands.

First step - simply stop caring so much about people wanting support for their "I paid for FREE" addon problems. There are many of them out there (if reddit is an indicator), but they come in waves - and after a while they are gone. With the current popularity spike - it may take a while. Dont falter, dont help (so much), just move them along. Also you moving against eBay sellers again should help.

As for other third party content creators that produce legitimate content - they want better usability and visibility - so maybe think about the possibility of aggregating them in a separate, but featured repo. Vetting is a real problem not to be underestimated (and you dont want to become... ), as is sorting out old projects.. But in some sense, this is the and maybe even your future - so at least think about somehow channeling the demand. You can offer them better discoverability - but dont offer them support - make it clear that they are responsible for that, because you cant scale that dynamically (Youtube doesnt offer it either). If this turns out to be not manageable in the end, maybe you have to stick to the course currently announced. (Dont use our brand.)

I'm even for the Youtube crackdown - it might not be popular, but currently its a SEO focused mess over there. Be firm. Be reasonable also. You want your statement to be heard and accepted.

Have an internal discussion on what it means to be the currently most popular, and possibly last remaining Open (in the real sense) Media Center out there - in a "streaming age", where everyone else out there is out to "sell their box - and get you signed up for a recurring payment". What role it might have in a "transitioning" economy and how content should be able to be discovered and consumed (that also might include some thoughts on the piracy issue, or on the "facebook surfaces everything I could ever be interested in" caricature).

Make peace with the notion that other companies might not like you. But thats essentially why we do.

edit:

Maybe create a rough mission statement such as the one I just made up in the last 15 minutes..

We will use Netflix over piracy if you give us the option to choose. For most its not even a money issue. We'd like to think of Kodi as the great "equaliser" in an economy that is aimed to become more and more segmented, and more and more curated by companies or algorithms. We care about discoverability and usability - where others care about an optimized storefront and automated recommendation engines. While Kodi and Amazon fight each other, Kodi brings usable Youtube to Amazon devices, and probably the Amazon Cloud to Google devices as well. We dont care about something being "dumbed down to be easy" (prepackage a channel with Kodi, then tell you viewers to download the package), because we see that this can be destructive at the same time. We use Kodi, because we as consumers dont care about your content deals, but we care about your content. We use Kodi - because you say "web interface" and we say content. You say optimized for mobile - we say content. You say "subscribe to my channel" - we say usability (rss just isnt a dead concept), you say watch my other videos - we say usability. You say walled garden, we say diversity and openness even to a fault. You produce a remake, we went and saw the first episode of the original somewhere else. Probably on the Internet Archive. ( https://archive.org/details/freaks1932 ).

[coremailrx8]

We are all getting hung up with too much nuance, let's chill. Ultimately, the foundation can proceed as they see fit.

I do see now that Kodi team members are not doing a moral stance, which totally changes how we perceived their legal crusade. It is their right to pursue by all means necessary the way their brand is positioned. Whether they succeed or not, it is a different story.

They should quell the box sellers. Why is amazon still selling XBMC/Kodi boxes with pictures of Genesis, Cliq, SportsDevil in their marketing images?

I still maintain my position that going after youtube authors (or whatever they are called) is a bad idea, because as much harm they have allegedly done (how do you quantify this damage), they can serve a better purpose. Quickly looking at just Husham, Soloman and JoeNobody subscribers, there are probably 150K+ with a Kodi install base. That is not accounting for people watching that aren't subscribed while it is also true that some of the subscribers are also the same person for each of this guys. I am not trying to defend these guys, I don't know them.

As I said before to Keith, these guys on youtube, can be a good thing. When I mentioned disclaimers/disclosures, it wasn't in a written form, it is youtube after all. They can mention at the beginning of each episode that the addons they are reviewing are unofficial, not associated nor supported by the Kodi Foundation, and something among those lines. They can change the format of their presentation as well. All these are agreeable terms. If I were some of those guys, I wouldn't see why not.

If anybody should have a beef with these guys, it should be tvaddons.ag. They are making more ad money at TVaddons' expense more than you would say it is at Kodi's expense. In fact, the infamous Genesis addon got discontinued because these youtube guys made it too popular.

Lastly, about support. I see many legitimate questions about legitimate addons in Kodi's repository being unanswered. the developers are giving away something for free and can't response to every single question. Heck, I still don't know why every fresh Kodi installation, at least on Windows, has the dllfreelibrary error line at the end. I have seen this question posted, but yet to be answered. It's ok, it doesn't do any harm to the installation, but it still says error so it bugs me. I take this valid question of low importance, as not being purposely ignored by the kodi team. Why can't you purposely ignore piracy related questions? Why do you have to response or indulge or delete such a thing? OK, i get it. It could hijacked the thread into a discussion about pirated content. But aren't there scripts to weed these things out?

[getochkn]

If anybody should have a beef with these guys, it should be tvaddons.ag. They are making more ad money at TVaddons' expense more than you would say it is at Kodi's expense. In fact, the infamous Genesis addon got discontinued because these youtube guys made it too popular.

They have said they don't care if they make money, as long as it's not on the Kodi name directly, which TVAddons is about the only one that really does. They plaster all over their site, their builds, everything, that there are not related to official Kodi, don't go to Kodi.tv for support, go to tvaddons.whatever it is for support. Really, TVAddon's should be the one least to have a problem with as they seem to comply with what Kodi wants.

If their beef is with simply a box seller selling a box with kodi and when the addon quits working, the forums get flooded with support questions that the Kodi team doesn't want to support, than go after that. If they're more butthurt that the Youtubers are making money and they're not, well, that's another issue and it seems those couple of Youtube guys that keep getting mentioned, are really sticking a sore spot with a few dev's on how much money they are potentially making. Is them making money, or them making money and you not?

[Kib]

We do not care about money, but it stings when the youtubers are accusing us after "attacking us because we are losing money". We are a frigging non-profit tax exempt organisation with almost no cashflow that is in danger of losing actual legitimate deals with companies to create cool free and legal add-ons and losing the non-profit status because people drag our new name through the mud and pretend to be us.

[coremailrx8]

They have said they don't care if they make money, as long as it's not on the Kodi name directly, which TVAddons is about the only one that really does. They plaster all over their site, their builds, everything, that there are not related to official Kodi, don't go to Kodi.tv for support, go to tvaddons.whatever it is for support. Really, TVAddon's should be the one least to have a problem with as they seem to comply with what Kodi wants.

No, I didn't say Kodi team should have a beef with the TVaddons guys. I said, or I tried to say, that TVaddons should be the ones after the youtube guys. The youtube guys are hurting TVaddons in a bigger way than these youtube guys are hurting Kodi's reputation.

The youtube guys are promoting the addon, they are not promoting Kodi itself. So they are not directly making money off kodi. They are making money off the addon. The unintended consequence is that by doing that, they are indirectly showing Kodi as the gateway for such a thing, painting Kodi as an enabler for piracy, hence, damaging their reputation. I just want to be clear, they are not making money off Kodi's hard work. Forking kodi and selling it, is a more accurate depiction as making money off kodi's team hard work.

[bibi]

As Davilla said, The only solution is to prevent addons installation from not allowed repository.
And remove installation from zip.

Bibi

[BatterPudding]

I've been using Kodi long enough that i'm pretty sure these 2 features aren't included; Fresh start (reset to default settings) and a simple "info" disclaimer msg inside settings. A simple button in settings that when clicked displays info about your trademark stance, your feelings about people infringing your trademarks and a screenshot of what a default Kodi homescreen looks like. Also, a button that will wipe your addon data and addons folder that basically returns you to a default fresh install. I have bought boxes that come pre loaded with garbage and i always wished there was a simple way to remove it. You could also add the equivalent of an "install from untrusted sources" button that enables outside repos distancing yourselves a little more from "them". It's what i would do with 16 so close to final. Heck, i already have a standalone .py for fresh start if you need it.

There actually are fresh start or factory reset or whatever you want to call them buttons for each settings page. I'm not sure if we've ever considered making a factory reset for addons.

A FULL KODI RESET button would be a good start. The bizarre thing is the couple of boxes I have seen actually have these added to them via their own add-ons where they reset to a vanilla KODI. This really needs to be a built in feature as it will allow a dodgy box purchaser to wipe the dodgy bits and come into the clean and happy KODI fold.

I also totally agree with halikus's other points. Get statements into the product itself just like a Google App store. You have to flick switches and agree to warnings to install anything not in the official Google App Store. KODI needs to do the same so that a polite clear message can appear in front of the person who has innocently bought a box from a dodgy source. This then will present KODI as the good guys who will help get a media player working and the supplier is the one clearly tweaking to other unsupported uses.

Remember - the people buying these boxes are NOT computer people. Some of them will barely know what a forum is. So present messages to them from within KODI and politely educate them. The two boxes I have seen so far both were in the hands of people who didn't even use a home computer.

[nero12]

KODI disclaimer is important to POP UP at first run.
Form a kodi team, give them authority to take down any illegal site and work on taking down all listings.

We cant eliminate piracy but we can make it a hell for those that wants to use it that way.thats the only way forward.

Forget about thinking KODI will now take down all piracy related content, that will never happen, next day u see a copy of kodi with a new name "XBMC". and there will be lots, and as every site wants to become famous. (no doubt about that).

so please focus on creating a legal team, and work on the prominent sites like ebay amazon facebook and graigslist youtube, that is 50% done already. its possible and am sure u can find a reliable Team from this forum, that will work actively towards anti piracy.

Its unfair to make core developers work on legal issues. its not their job!

my 2 cent

[wrxtasy]

On a broader note - what are the problems here?

Kodi becoming unmanageable because of what I call "drive through" support demands.

First step - simply stop caring so much about people wanting support for their "I paid for FREE" addon problems.

I used to try and provide support in the Kodi Android subforum . I don't care at all anymore. The time wasted is completely unproductive and I would rather support legitimate manufacturers and sellers in the Hardware sub-forum. The legal, intelligent guys who might actually contribute to the Kodi project or help out.

I still maintain my position that going after youtube authors (or whatever they are called) is a bad idea, because as much harm they have allegedly done (how do you quantify this damage), they can serve a better purpose.

A Trademark is a Trademark is a Trademark. There can be no exemptions. Abuse the Kodi Trademark especially on YouTube, expect to get targeted. No exemptions for popularity. Its black and white.
If those YouTube channels that are currently abusing the Trademark do not start changing their ways, like immediately they will soon cease to exist one would think.

Remember that Team Kodi do not care about user numbers. This battle is all about abuse of the Trademark and facilitating piracy.

We do not care about money, but it stings when the youtubers are accusing us after "attacking us because we are losing money". We are a frigging non-profit tax exempt organisation with almost no cashflow that is in danger of losing actual legitimate deals with companies to create cool free and legal add-ons and losing the non-profit status because people drag our new name through the mud and pretend to be us.

Exactly. Go after these leeches with all guns blazing.
Pick some big targets and publicise the shit out of closing down a YouTube Channel or whatever, get the message out there. Post a hitlist on the Kodi Frontpage of channels closed down. Shout it from the rooftops, back it up with stats of user numbers and popularity of the Kodi Trademarks abuser.

This is a PR war you are waging here as much as a Trademark one. Get the message across in a far far stronger manner. Burying such closures messages in the sub-forums does not do the job at all. Not one little bit.

[harlekin]

I used to try and provide support in the Kodi Android subforum . I don't care at all anymore. The time wasted is completely unproductive

I know the feeling... :/ and since kodi.tv is now back online - I just saw the screenshot.

Part of the problem imho is "150 character - smartphone enhanced - reddit culture" folks that look up how to videos on youtube in their free time. People that flood communities with "give me my personal solution" requests. Understand that the "well maybe I just read for a while..." lurker mode has become all but equalized in the social media age. People demand services. For free. Even under false pretenses, when they think it does help with their case..

Its using a geek - because who has the time to read for themselves these days?

I recognize, that there might be a large overlap with the group that payed for Kodi boxes, because they deemed it pure convenience.

But on a positive note - they usually drop off after a while. But then any influx in popularity will mean that a few more of them will show up.

Kodi until recently had largely been gated by an upfront knowledge that had been needed to access it on different devices. Now it became accessible for the masses. And they happily bought into it - without understanding even in the slightest of what they bought into. And to make a point - their opinion leaders on youtube didnt care to explain it either - they only cared about clicks (Put on a smile, act excited, if someone talks at you - make them feel heard, ... (What do you think? Please subscribe...)).

Without understanding how they are impacting the development communities that grew around it. Understand that on reddit - people are more than willing to switch to Plex - because they never could figure out how to add a SMB share or even a harddrive to Kodi itself. They then also promote Plex as the easier and therefore better solution, and become dedicated fans for life.

Asking into the ether "What app do I have to use to...:" is their problem solving mechanic. They dont understand, nor do they care in most cases - that this process doesnt hold true regarding open source projects at all. They dont even care if the current "app" they are using is "good" from an objective standpoint - they just like it, when stuff works for them.

They dont want to write emails to a dev, but asking their "very individual problem" in an anonymous forum for "anyone to pick up" - they have no qualms to do that whatsoever. Understand, that on facebook after a few days not even they themselves care or are reminded of what they have written If no one else picks it up.

Point being - you'd have the same problems if your popularity increase came from somewhere else.

That it came from people selling prepackaged piracy boxes under the Kodi label is quite a serious problem on top of that.
From a brand awareness point of view.

But - If you can - dont monitor your success by looking at what image your competitors try to pin on you. Thats ultimately a really bad idea.

And by all means - speak out and move against the misuse of your brand to drive sales or clicks for bystanders trying to ride the wave, they also partly might have helped creating - but that becomes harder and harder to support.

Raising awareness is the right move.