[zachmorris]

I happened upon this thread as it was shown as the 'Last Post' in the front of the forum.

Not that my opinion matters much, but just to reiterate whats been discussed in the past:
I asked permission to start a forum post about my addon prior to posting it originally, and was given the go-ahead (for the reasons discussed here). If my addon causes consternation, I've never had a problem with having it removed from the Kodi forum discussions. This is the Kodi foundations prerogative. The extent of the support Kodi has provided me I would suggest is limited to allowing discussion in the forums (whether thats "highly supported" I leave it to you to decide).

The legality of games available on archive.org in general has been discussed before and is covered to the best of my ability in the addon wiki.

I'm just one dude who likes old school games and thought it would be fun to learn python. Kodi really is an amazing application and has a community thats been pretty helpful in me learning and making something fun. Sharing it was just kind of a bonus. The addon is free to all and open source. I've never requested and would pretty much outright refuse money for use or development of it. The addon is not 'official' by any means, it just uses Kodi's approved third party addon framework.

[Tolriq]

IMO there's no problem with your addon by itself it's a welcome addition.

Just a matter of current communication (global not just about your addon) that could lead to problems for some users that does not take time to read a Wiki or things before using some addons.

For me a warning before using gray functions so that users could act with correct knowledge would be enough. People should have easy ways to understand the consequences of what they are doing specially when legality change every day in every country.
And not blindly believe what some says even if they are persuaded to be correct.

[DarkHelmet]

One point in the "legality" of a website is whether or not is has a functioning reporting system if i'm informed correctly. Neither youtube, twitch, reddit nor very likely archive.org can 100% guarantee there is only content on there that is 100% copyright free or where the copyright holder has given explicit approval to hosting that material for download. But they all have a working reporting system in case copyrights are infringed. This makes the difference to hosters of "real" pirate material like the streaming hosts or thepiratebay. These have NO reporting system and if they do, it's very likely disfunct.

[zachmorris]

IMO there's no problem with your addon by itself it's a welcome addition.

Just a matter of current communication (global not just about your addon) that could lead to problems for some users that does not take time to read a Wiki or things before using some addons.

For me a warning before using gray functions so that users could act with correct knowledge would be enough. People should have easy ways to understand the consequences of what they are doing specially when legality change every day in every country.
And not blindly believe what some says even if they are persuaded to be correct.

I personally wouldn't have a problem providing archive.orgs terms of use as a popup / warning in Kodi before the addon is used. That seems like a simple solution. Doing the same with other addons such as the official YouTube addon (that have similar considerations) would give me and other third party developers something to follow.

[Big Aero]

Have you even asked archive.org if it's okay to use their site to push pirate roms out to the massives via Kodi?

[Big Aero]

Because I'm sure I just read the content on archive.org is for research purposes only. No where does it say it's acceptable to use archive.org as a fullblown backend for illegal video game distribution

[Big Aero]

@natethomas, you said - "Nothing about this news changes that. This random guy wasn't given a special right under the DMCA to host this content or install it on machines, so there, by definition, should be no protections for him.

@zachmorris have you been given a special right under the DMCA to distribute your addon?

archive.org may have a exemption to preserve content for research purposes, but they do not have a primary purpose of disturbing pirate content - which is exactly what your addon is doing - and those actions are supported by Team Kodi.

[nickr]

The addon doesn't distribute the roms.

[Big Aero]

Ya, just like the piracy movie addons don't distribute the movies.

[BFeely]

But wait, isn't GPL a simple TOS / contract that the user accept when he download code? Just like a TOS when a user access a website?

The GPL is a license grant to the copyright of the code. Users are fully permitted to redistribute unmodified versions of the code, or they can distribute modifications in compliance with the license terms. When they do so, the resulting works are covered by the GPL license grand and thus those copies are made with permission.

When somebody decides not to comply with the terms of the GPL, and distribute a modified copy of the software, either without providing the source code or by bringing in incompatible, unlicensed, proprietary, or infringing content, these works are unlicensed and thus do not have permission from the original author to be distributed, thus violating copyright law.

When it comes to Kodi, I believe add-ons are considered a derivative work of the Kodi software. If an add-on violates copyright then the GPL cannot cover that code, and thus is one of the reasons XBMC Foundation goes after these pre-loaded boxes. The other is that the Kodi trademark does not cover derivative works, just as unofficial builds of Firefox cannot be legally called Firefox.

[natethomas]

Ya, just like the piracy movie addons don't distribute the movies.

Ha, you have no idea how much of a can of worms that particular point is, and it is very much dependent on on the jurisdiction you are looking at. In the United States, the only applicable case law says that linking to movies in this way is not the same as distributing movies, as the violation going on isn't a copyright violation, but is rather more similar to theft of services, except their is no one actually being harmed under theft of services rules, so there linking in this way appears to be some kind of super weird gray area loophole. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flava_Work..._v._Gunter

Meanwhile, in the EU, the same act is not viewed as linking, but rather as extremely temporary copying to RAM, which is covered under EU law as only allowed under certain specific circumstances, which the piracy addons aren't, which is why they were found illegal in the EU.

Big Aero, to answer your question, the decision to ban those addons was entirely a "cover our ass" decision. We thought they probably were illegal or would be found illegal if they ever came to trial, and we didn't want any part of that. That Flava Works case didn't come out until after we'd already banned them, and we didn't even know about it until a few months ago. There was no statutory protection anywhere that we knew of to protect us, so we did what we considered the safe thing and removed them. And even now, that Flava Works case seems like hardly any protection at all, as it's not a supreme court case and can be overturned at any time or even narrowed for the specific use case of piracy addons.

The difference in the case of archive.org is not a moral one or some kind of "we think they're lovely people" thing. It's entirely due to the fact that there is actual statutory protection that we can point to and say, "Look, we are under the impression this is legal. If you disagree, take it up with the people doing the hosting and the government providing the protection."

If zachmorris wants to throw up a warning saying "Please visit archive.org and determine whether this addon is legal in your jurisdiction before using it," then I'd be perfectly fine with that and think it would make for an excellent "cover your butt" action.

[Tolriq]

Ya, just like the piracy movie addons don't distribute the movies.

Ha, you have no idea how much of a can of worms that particular point is, and it is very much dependent on on the jurisdiction you are looking at. In the United States, the only applicable case law says that linking to movies in this way is not the same as distributing movies, as the violation going on isn't a copyright violation, but is rather more similar to theft of services, except their is no one actually being harmed under theft of services rules, so there linking in this way appears to be some kind of super weird gray area loophole. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flava_Work..._v._Gunter

Meanwhile, in the EU, the same act is not viewed as linking, but rather as extremely temporary copying to RAM, which is covered under EU law as only allowed under certain specific circumstances, which the piracy addons aren't, which is why they were found illegal in the EU.

Big Aero, to answer your question, the decision to ban those addons was entirely a "cover our ass" decision. We thought they probably were illegal or would be found illegal if they ever came to trial, and we didn't want any part of that. That Flava Works case didn't come out until after we'd already banned them, and we didn't even know about it until a few months ago. There was no statutory protection anywhere that we knew of to protect us, so we did what we considered the safe thing and removed them. And even now, that Flava Works case seems like hardly any protection at all, as it's not a supreme court case and can be overturned at any time or even narrowed for the specific use case of piracy addons.

The difference in the case of archive.org is not a moral one or some kind of "we think they're lovely people" thing. It's entirely due to the fact that there is actual statutory protection that we can point to and say, "Look, we are under the impression this is legal. If you disagree, take it up with the people doing the hosting and the government providing the protection."

If zachmorris wants to throw up a warning saying "Please visit archive.org and determine whether this addon is legal in your jurisdiction before using it," then I'd be perfectly fine with that and think it would make for an excellent "cover your butt" action.

So US laws != EU laws != African laws != Asian laws?

And you ban things that are for sure illegal to cover your butt, but for things that may be illegal in other countries than US, you prefer to advertise as legal instead of covering your user's butt with warning them?

I understand better why you avoid the discussion then (You see I can write short text that says the exact same thing as before)

[christara]

If zachmorris wants to throw up a warning saying "Please visit archive.org and determine whether this addon is legal in your jurisdiction before using it," then I'd be perfectly fine with that and think it would make for an excellent "cover your butt" action.

I like that. better to cover yourself as much has possible.


I also belief this message could carry a little message by saying using add-ons from unknown sources could mean the new items added in your kodi could be breaking copyright laws in certain country's after applying them?
Also maybe a link back to Kodi regarding copyright and where to find the necessary information, Maybe just to try educate the public.

[voochi]

If Team Kodi wants to be consistent in their anti-piracy stance then any addon that fetches roms should be banned from the forum.

I'm actually shocked that such an add-on has been freely discussed here for years alongside the crusade against streaming add-ons.

Add-ons which can pluck thousands of copyrighted roms from online sources should be grouped with add-ons that stream copyrighted movies from online sources. There is no difference morally or legally.

The stance regarding roms should be to let the users supply them.

[natethomas]

If Team Kodi wants to be consistent in their anti-piracy stance then any addon that fetches roms should be banned from the forum.

I'm actually shocked that such an add-on has been freely discussed here for years alongside the crusade against streaming add-ons.

Translation: I haven't read any of the above conversation and just wanted to add my two cents.

I think this conversation has about reached its conclusion. If anyone else has anything to say that has actually read through this conversation, please do so soon, as I think we can close this fairly soon.