Nintendo & BREIN Target Seller of ‘Pirate’ Retro Gaming System
#31
Impressions are not laws.

DMCA is irrelevant to French laws.m and all non US countries. A large part of Kodi user base.

You can ignore facts and this discussion and continue to argue, this won't change truth.
The public communication is made against everything is legal.
Not we have impressions or only in the US.

Open your eyes. I'm not asking for changing minds or removal of addons just to change a public communication that is highly miss leading and in the end the same as pirates that believe that culture should be free for all. They defends opinions as you do.

But it's opinions not facts.

A stance found in obscure parts of a forum is irrelevant to what is accessible to a user that only use website to download Kodi and addons.
#32
@big aero People are free to download kodi builds from anywhere. But they won't get support here.

Nate, thanks for your post. I wasn't aware of the archive.org exemption. Nor the previous debates.
If I have helped you or increased your knowledge, click the 'thumbs up' button to give thanks :) (People with less than 20 posts won't see the "thumbs up" button.)
#33
But are Kodi builds packed with piracy addons legal @nickr ? XBMC foundation cheif Nathan Betzen seems to think everything on archive.org is legal.
#34
@natethomas, heres a serious question. A few years ago the likes of icefilms and other pirate movie addons were allowed to be openly discussed here on the forum. What was the reason that all discussions of these addons were suddenly forbidden? I mean, streaming of such content has always been LEGAL in the USA has it not? Just how downloading roms "seem" to be legal.

Now to my other question, if someone made an addon which allowed Kodi users to stream ROMS from thepiratebay.org ( rom files are the exact ones which are also hosted on archive.org) would this be okay to discuss on the forum? and have it's own sub forum dedicated to this addon?
#35
I know I'm gonna regret writing in here, but if the DMCA only applies for US citizens, then it's IMO up to archive.org to restrict access to the according content outside the US. Same like any other geo-blocking around these days. If the content would come from a locker site or some other fishy website, it would be pretty clear that stuff is very likely illegal, but as archive.org is well known by all content creators, IMO this site can be considered a legit source. Yes, there might be some piracy on there, but so is on Youtube, and that's nothing we can change either. Should we remove the Youtube add-on as well? What about twitch? I'm pretty sure some of the streams are done by playing a pirated copy of a game.
#36
That's a fair point da-anda.

But on the other hand, for Kodi (well, Internet archive rom launcher) to give users access to a specific section of a site which has a one and only purpose of accessing copyright roms.. then that's a different ball game. You are exploiting the system to give millions of users free access to games which should be paid for.

This is all quite similar to the new law which has come into play in the EU. "Kodi boxes" or streaming devices which have been specifically set up to stream free movies etc, is against the law. Internet archive rom launcher is specifically set up to give users access to copyright video games for free.

Youtube and twitch are not set up for the sole purpose of accessing pirate material.

Let's put it this way, streaming copyright video games which you do not own is the same as streaming copyright movies which you do not own, both are theft. it's as simple as that.

Take note:
from the torrentfreak article

"Despite their age, BREIN says that infringement of all kinds must be punished."
#37
(2017-07-01, 00:59)da-anda Wrote: I know I'm gonna regret writing in here, but if the DMCA only applies for US citizens, then it's IMO up to archive.org to restrict access to the according content outside the US. Same like any other geo-blocking around these days. If the content would come from a locker site or some other fishy website, it would be pretty clear that stuff is very likely illegal, but as archive.org is well known by all content creators, IMO this site can be considered a legit source. Yes, there might be some piracy on there, but so is on Youtube, and that's nothing we can change either. Should we remove the Youtube add-on as well? What about twitch? I'm pretty sure some of the streams are done by playing a pirated copy of a game.

The problem is not the addon or the website, it's about the fact that addons hide things to users.

I'll try with simple words:

A user find Kodi website, install it, install any addon then use it.

He have access to content it's cool. But he have no idea about the website rules or TOS. It's fully hidden to him and since it's written everywhere that everything is fully legal, he have no reason to check the website to verify the status in his country. Or to open the website in his browser to seek for the TOS.

You can't ask the user to know what happens inside the addons and check what applies to them.

https://archive.org/about/terms.php

If the website have a TOS that says "Some of the content available through the Archive may be governed by local, national, and/or international laws and regulations, and your use of such content is solely at your own risk. You agree to abide by all applicable laws and regulations, including intellectual property laws, in connection with your use of the Archive" then the addon MUST show that to the user and people should stop saying it's legal by default. Because this TOS is pretty clear, this may not be legal in many countries.

So again last try to open some minds:

Impressions are not each countries laws, US laws are not other countries laws. Please check your communication as most of your users are not US citizens but most users will blindly believe what the Team says.
And when a problem arise to them, I'm not sure that they could defend themselves by saying "Kodi Team said it was legal".

_____

About emulation, I owned a full size arcade cabinet with Mame before my wife made me sell it Sad And I documented myself about legality.

In France it's very clear:

- All console BIOS are copyrighted material and illegal to own, so any core that require a BIOS and an addon that automatically download it, makes something illegal in France. (Have no checked if any current cores does actually need any BIOS just global fact about retrogaming).
- All ROM dumps are copyrighted material and more than 80% of them are still under copyright laws. So any addon that allow to download the ROMS is illegal if the user does not own the original.

Most french sites that allowed to download ROMS were closed due to those legality problems.

Retrogaming is cool today so even Nintendo sells retrogaming things: https://www.nintendo.fr/Divers/Nintendo-...38330.html

So yes if that addons goes in official repository it will be illegal in many countries and users should be fully aware of that ......
#38
(2017-07-01, 11:10)Tolriq Wrote:
(2017-07-01, 00:59)da-anda Wrote: I know I'm gonna regret writing in here, but if the DMCA only applies for US citizens, then it's IMO up to archive.org to restrict access to the according content outside the US. Same like any other geo-blocking around these days. If the content would come from a locker site or some other fishy website, it would be pretty clear that stuff is very likely illegal, but as archive.org is well known by all content creators, IMO this site can be considered a legit source. Yes, there might be some piracy on there, but so is on Youtube, and that's nothing we can change either. Should we remove the Youtube add-on as well? What about twitch? I'm pretty sure some of the streams are done by playing a pirated copy of a game.

The problem is not the addon or the website, it's about the fact that addons hide things to users.

I'll try with simple words:

A user find Kodi website, install it, install any addon then use it.

He have access to content it's cool. But he have no idea about the website rules or TOS. It's fully hidden to him and since it's written everywhere that everything is fully legal, he have no reason to check the website to verify the status in his country. Or to open the website in his browser to seek for the TOS.

You can't ask the user to know what happens inside the addons and check what applies to them.

https://archive.org/about/terms.php

If the website have a TOS that says "Some of the content available through the Archive may be governed by local, national, and/or international laws and regulations, and your use of such content is solely at your own risk. You agree to abide by all applicable laws and regulations, including intellectual property laws, in connection with your use of the Archive" then the addon MUST show that to the user and people should stop saying it's legal by default. Because this TOS is pretty clear, this may not be legal in many countries.

So again last try to open some minds:

Impressions are not each countries laws, US laws are not other countries laws. Please check your communication as most of your users are not US citizens but most users will blindly believe what the Team says.
And when a problem arise to them, I'm not sure that they could defend themselves by saying "Kodi Team said it was legal".

Am liking the discussion going on and also like to read and I think I get the jest of whats being said?
With the new stable version installed a few days ago I was confronted with a popup message regarding enable add-ons from an unknown place.
Image
Now wouldn't be nice to have something like this to cover Kodi and educate people that 3rd party add-ons are breaking laws and could put something in place like the end user licence when you install some program on your computer.
That would take away from an uneducated audience that what they are doing could then be consider breaking the law? Also takes away from blindly downloading add-ons when not knowing the legal side of what they are doing. (In regards to NOT visiting the site or unknowingly know anything about piracy?)
All this message could come in a simple popup regarding copyright infringement?
All my images can be found here LINK And can be downloaded in full?
#39
I don't know about others... but I ALWAYS visit the website that an add-on is streaming from. Just to see if I need an account, and what type of content there is...

I just thought this was common sense...
My Signature
Links to : Official:Forum rules (wiki) | Official:Forum rules/Banned add-ons (wiki) | Debug Log (wiki)
Links to : HOW-TO:Create Music Library (wiki) | HOW-TO:Create_Video_Library (wiki)  ||  Artwork (wiki) | Basic controls (wiki) | Import-export library (wiki) | Movie sets (wiki) | Movie universe (wiki) | NFO files (wiki) | Quick start guide (wiki)
#40
(2017-07-01, 12:34)Karellen Wrote: I don't know about others... but I ALWAYS visit the website that an add-on is streaming from. Just to see if I need an account, and what type of content there is...

I just thought this was common sense...

Totally agree I,d do the same. Because like you am aware of things. (Bad add-ons/piracy/copyright/theft etc)

But to the Joe public who don,t frequent sites/forums/and copyright places I guess they are still living in the dark. (Or that greyish area? OOh I didn't know. Sad)
Plus at no time during an install of an add-on/software is Joe public made aware of what they are entering into too, Regarding possible piracy and copyright infringement.

Just thought it would give an upper hand to Kodi to educate the public and a safeguard to help the prosecutors that the end user didn,t know?
When a popup could educate them?
All my images can be found here LINK And can be downloaded in full?
#41
(2017-07-01, 12:34)Karellen Wrote: I don't know about others... but I ALWAYS visit the website that an add-on is streaming from. Just to see if I need an account, and what type of content there is...

I just thought this was common sense...

Common sense says do not purchase random box that promise impossible things, yet see the amounts.
Common sense says read the rules when you register to a forum, yet see the amounts. (Also fun is that most yell at those people that do not respect this forum TOS, but encourage TOS breaking with most addons).

When you deal with public and millions of users, you can't assume common sense, so you need to take steps to ensure users security or put a disclaimer.
This is not the same about users downloading addons from a random site, and addons from a default repository from something that is supposedly legal.

I had the same lost debate earlier about Kodi webserver, it's known to have security problems still not solved. Yet there's not a single warning when the user activate Kodi webserver without password.
And the answer from some people, is everyone should know. What? Everyone should have searched a random forum about the security risks of enabling a random settings in an application?
This is not how average Joe works.

Event the Wiki: http://kodi.wiki/view/Webserver does says that password is optional and does not talk about any security issue.

Most just do not even understand what a network is.

Anyway lost debate again Sad Some knows better and all users are stupid to not know things hidden to them.
#42
I'd not be opposed to a one time dialog on first usage of certain add-ons to inform people to visit a certain website to check for the legality in their country or whatever else makes sense for the particular add-on.
Issue is, most add-ons simply hook into our VFS and only return a folder structure, as that's the simplest thing to do. On smart devices, there is no such thing, and apps need to write their own interface where they can integrate TOS and whatever else needed. Now, this possibility also exists in Kodi, but writing an add-on with custom UI (which we actually would like to see being done much more often) is quite some work, which is why add-on devs go the easy way.

However, a rather simple approach to this would be support for a "first launch" dialog in Kodi, by simply checking for the existence of a certain TXT file in the add-on folder (I'd probably not put it in the add-on XML) and show the content of this file on first launch.

edit: Another approach would be to trigger a "firstrun.py" file if available, which allows additional logic. But add-ons actually can already trigger dialogs for stuff like credentials, even though they are basically only returning a VFS structure, so nothing is stopping devs from also showing TOS or whatever else warnings/infos.

So the final question would be, who is responsible to take care that this info is shown. The add-on author or Team Kodi members when adding the add-ons to the repo? It's already a lot of work to review the add-ons, if we'd now also need to check the sources the add-on is getting data from and check it's entire legal requirements, then this is simply too much IMO. That's nothing one can demand from volunteers. If we'd be a company, then that's a different story ofc.
#43
Thanks.

First launch or before install like the new dependency viewer. If addon have a TOS, show a button to display it and a checkbox / button accept TOS (Or actually force the display + accept).

This at least inform users and really transfers the risks to the users that act with full knowledge and not with false assumptions. (Of course most already present addons should backfill this information).
#44
I'm sorry, I edited my post above via quick edit, not noticing you already replied. So feel free to also read my added paragraph above
#45
Then put a default TOS that is more a disclaimer that explains that Team does it's best to verify bla bla and from US country point of view but users needs to ensure of his country laws and if addon provide one then display it.

My only problem is really that after the other site taken down, communication became way too much oriented everything is white and legal and no more it's maybe grey but we follow our stance and it's miss leading.
I'm usually not taking stance about legality as I also think grey. (Specially when coming from France where it's illegal to bypass copy protection, but at the same time pay very large taxes on storage media to support private copies .....)
But external communication is important as directly impact users themselves and not just the people who gives their opinion.

Users should be aware of possible issues and have a warning shown so at least they can't say we don't know, it was written on Twitter/.../... that is was legal, without taking the necessary step to ensure the reality of this.

Logout Mark Read Team Forum Stats Members Help
Nintendo & BREIN Target Seller of ‘Pirate’ Retro Gaming System0