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from the Don't-blame-$foo.-Blame-$foo-misuse. dept.
In an interview with Variety, the Motion Picture Association of America's CEO Chris Dodd spoke out about the growing popularity of Kodi open source media player:
While torrent sites have been a thorn in the side of the MPAA for more than a decade, there's a new kid on the block. Speaking at the Berlin Film Festival, MPAA chief Chris Dodd cited the growing use of the Kodi platform for piracy, describing the problem as the "$64,000 question."
[...] Legal battles over the misuse of the platform are ongoing, mainly in the UK and the Netherlands, where test cases have the ability to clarify the legal position, at least for sellers of so-called "fully loaded" devices. Interestingly, up until now, the MPAA has stayed almost completely quiet, despite a dramatic rise in the use of Kodi for illicit streaming. Yesterday, however, the silence was broken.
In an interview with Variety during the Berlin Film Festival, MPAA chief Chris Dodd described the Kodi-with-addons situation as "new-generation piracy". "The $64,000 question is what can be done about such illegal use of the Kodi platform," Dodd said.
While $64,000 is a tempting offer, responding to that particular question with a working solution will take much more than that. Indeed, one might argue that dealing with it in any meaningful way will be almost impossible.
First of all, Kodi is open source and has been since its inception in 2002. As a result, trying to target the software itself would be like stuffing toothpaste back in a tube. It's out there, it isn't coming back, and pissing off countless developers is extremely ill-advised. Secondly, the people behind Kodi have done absolutely nothing wrong. Their software is entirely legal and if their public statements are to be believed, they're as sick of piracy as the entertainment companies are. The third problem is how Kodi itself works. While to the uninitiated it looks like one platform, a fully-modded 'pirate' Kodi setup can contain many third-party addons, each capable of aggregating content from dozens or even hundreds of sites. Not even the mighty MPAA can shut them all down, and even if it could, more would reappear later. It's the ultimate game of whac-a-mole.
Previously: XBMC Is Getting a New Name: "Kodi"
Middlesbrough Trader Prosecuted for Selling Streaming Boxes Preloaded With Kodi
Five Arrests in 'Fully Loaded' Kodi Streaming Box Raids
[Ed Note: This is the same Chris Dodd who served 30 years as a US Senator from Connecticut. Probably best known for the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by jasassin on Friday February 17 2017, @06:41AM
I'm feeling the Streisand effect.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17 2017, @07:10AM
Having said that, I am not sure if all the plugins are using things in the expected manner.
There are plugins supporting WCBS, WNBC, WABC, SyFy, and a number of others. None of which appear to spawn ads, but not having flash available I can't check their official websites for how they work and if ads are spawned.
Additionally there are audio plugins for online radio including SomaFM, ALL PBS stations, Italian Virgin Radio (UK Virgin used to have a regular webstream that worked in xmms a decade or so ago, but I think they broke/discontinued it possibly at the content producers request.)
Quite frankly, if any of these services are discontinued I will just switch to spending my free time on other media, like videogames, or websites, rather than choosing to pay for the content. There are only maybe 2 dozen worthwhile shows each year of interest to me. And if the ones freely available are discontinued I will either go back to gaming full time in lieu of them, or picking up DVDs of the shows until DVDs are discontinued for good. Blurays are not an options thanks to online DRM. At that point I might as well just pirate. And sadly the libbluray decryption key library only contains popular titles, not the esoteric blurays I might be interesting in viewing. Furthermore if I ever lose that DB, the disks become worthless, unlike CSS where outside of decryption library everything you need is on the disc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17 2017, @07:25AM
Streaming is not a crime, remember?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17 2017, @02:11PM
Copying blah blah yes I'd download a car.
(Score: 3, Informative) by DannyB on Friday February 17 2017, @02:19PM
Downloading a car would be a crime. Streaming a car would not be a crime.
Copying == theft! (omg!)
Streaming != theft (unless the MPAA says so)
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday February 17 2017, @06:22PM
It may not be theft, it can be copyright infringement. I'd argue that the copyright terms are too long and allow too many renewals, but that's a separate argument. Saying it isn't theft is true, but (nearly) irrelevant.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Friday February 17 2017, @07:40PM
I was hoping the snark would come through in my post. Starting with the absurdity of accepting without criticism the notion of downloading a car.
Copyright Infringement is not theft.
Copyright length should allow exactly zero renewals to the length of copyright which is already absurdly too long.
I don't engage in copyright infringement because I find increasingly little from either MPAA or RIAA that I would even consider worth wanting to have a copy of. Legally or otherwise.
As for MPAA offerings that I do want to see, if it isn't on Netflix, HBO, Starz, Prime, Hulu then it does not exist as far as I am concerned. End of story. I don't care how much they think it is worth. It's not. Really.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday February 18 2017, @01:15AM
Well, I suppose "downloading a car" is a legitimate snark...this year. And it's the "this year" which is why it didn't come through...but I've heard analogous arguments that were intended seriously, and were also currently impossible.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Friday February 17 2017, @11:08PM
It's hardly irrelevant when copyright thugs keep trying to insist that it is theft.
(Score: 3, Informative) by mmcmonster on Friday February 17 2017, @11:04AM
I love Kodi as well. It's extremely easy to use. I rip my own DVDs and BluRays (filling in with stuff from Red Box) and grow a collection like that. Once you have it set up, it's exceedingly easy for the family to use.
That being said, I work in a non-tech field and people at work have 'Kodi hot boxes' and are streaming all sorts of stuff. They know it's illegal and just don't care. Not a single one has mentioned getting a letter from their ISP, so it's all under the radar up until now.
Now the cat is out of the bag and never going back in. A few of the people with the hot boxes know about my ripped collection. They'd drop off a hard drive and I'll fill it up and give it back to them. There's no way that will ever get caught (except in a raid). A year later I will re-copy my collection. (I buy and rent a lot of movies.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17 2017, @07:33PM
it's not under the radar. isp's know that their customers are "pirating" it's just not in their best interest to do anything about it. good! fuck the mpaa.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 18 2017, @08:00AM
That notion starts to break down when it's cable companies providing the Internet access, as they're losing money thanks to these streaming options enabling cord cutting.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 18 2017, @07:52AM
Check out the Exodus [tvaddons.ag] video add-on. Makes streaming sites (which it's just scraping) a lot less of a pain thanks to entirely circumventing the ad and pop up hell most of them are.
Though given this, it almost seems the MPAA's best fight against Kodi is actually to encourage MORE users, as it puts the pressure on the streaming sites while choking out their revenue stream. Soon enough they'll be in a battle with add-on developers and the MPAA needn't spend a cent.