Articles about Kodi

Kodi boxes, and other so-called illicit streaming devices (ISDs), are the big-target for anti-piracy organizations at the moment. It’s a war being fought on many fronts. While bulling third-party add-on developers into retiring using legal threats is one of the most high-profile approaches, it’s far from the only tactic being used.

Governments and anti-piracy organizations are also using heavy doses of FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) to persuade Kodi lovers to seek other -- legal -- methods for streaming content.

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LibreELEC is a fantastic open source Linux-based operating system designed to run Kodi. It is particularly well suited for devices like Raspberry Pi. If you want to build your own Kodi box, it's ideal.

Today, the LibreELEC team releases a new build that it expects will be the last from the current branch -- going forward the focus will be firmly on LibreELEC (Leia) 9.0 development.

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Kodi, and "fully loaded" Kodi boxes in particular, are frequently in the news. Mainstream media likes to spread a lot of FUD about the hugely popular streaming software.

If you’re a Kodi user streaming content via third-party add-ons, you know there’s a danger that those add-ons might stop working, or disappear altogether due to legal action, and there’s always the (very distant) threat that rights holders might start targeting end users. Now there’s another concern to keep you up at night -- your Kodi box might kill you.

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After the Exodus Kodi add-on shut-down many users switched to its replacement, Covenant. There’s bad news for users of that add-on however, as the Colossus repository has now been deleted following legal threats.

This affects not only Covenant but other add-ons hosted there, including Bennu and DeathStreams.

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There’s a lot of negativity surrounding Kodi at the moment. The media center software is synonymous with piracy, even though you need to install third-party add-ons to use it for illegal streaming purposes.

Team Kodi has been rolling out regular updates, but now says "enough is enough" as it pushes out the final release for the stable version of its media center software. It recommends everyone upgrade to this release, regardless of what platform they use.

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The Apple TV has long been a wonderful device for consuming media on your big-screen television. From video to music, it is a great experience. Some people weren't satisfied with the default functionality, however, opting to jailbreak Apple's media box. In fact, the jailbroken Apple TV 2 was one of the most popular XBMC/Kodi boxes for this reason.

Are you running one of those jailbroken Apple TV 2 devices? You should be worried then. You see, as the folks over at TVAddons warn, the jailbreak process installed OpenSSH by default. This means your network could be compromised by the fairly outdated media box. A hacker only needs your ip address to attack you.

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While many folks prefer to leverage legal streaming services like Netflix on hardware such as Apple TV and Roku nowadays, other people still prefer accessing locally stored media files. Is that concept dying? Yeah, but it will be a while before it is dead completely. Not to mention, music and movie pirates will keep locally stored downloaded media content alive for quite some time.

Don't get me wrong, not everyone that watches locally stored media files are pirates, but some certainly are. Whether you are accessing downloaded media or streaming content using an addon, the Kodi media center is a great way to experience it. Taking it a step further, a Linux-based operating system that exists just to serve Kodi is even better. Today, one of the best such distros, LibreELEC, gets a major update to version 8.2.0.

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Kodi is rarely out of the news these days, and the media center software has become synonymous with piracy.

Users who install third-party add-ons that allow them to stream TV shows and movies illegally should be aware that developers could be monitoring their devices, looking for 'infringing' add-ons that facilitate piracy. Worse still, if any of these add-ons are found, a nag screen will appear demanding their removal.

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Popular media center software Kodi continues to be in the news, often for the wrong reasons. Most recently the organization behind the program called for unofficial Kodi add-ons site TVAddons to be be shutdown, and said that users who stream illegal content should 'bugger off'. It’s clear the Kodi Foundation is frustrated with its reputation as a means to allow users to view pirated content.

If you’re a Kodi fan, then you’ll be interested to know that a new update for the software is available from today.

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A week ago, Kodi took to Twitter to express its hatred for popular third-party add-ons site TVAddons, claiming that it should be shut down as it brought "nothing but misery to everyone."

The media software developer has continued its war of words since, attacking not only TVAddons again, but also end users, stating that anyone who uses Kodi to stream content illegally "can just bugger off and never come back." And that’s not all.

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Roku has started to clamp down on pirate channels such as XTV. In addition to the channel closures, Roku is also displaying an FBI anti-piracy warning to those who try to access them.

In recent months the focus has been on piracy on Kodi, but the problem also exists on other platforms. Roku closed down the XTV channel -- which was "known and loved by hordes of Roku users looking for free access to cable channels and popular network shows" -- and it didn't take long for it to reappear as XTV-2. This too has now been closed down, and the anti-piracy warnings have started.

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TVAddons is famous -- some would say infamous, even notorious -- in Kodi circles. The controversial Kodi addons site has been the subject of a lawsuit and even abuse from Kodi itself. Last week the site was mentioned in the Online Notorious Markets report produced by the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) -- and TVAddons is not happy.

The report refers to the site as a "piracy add-on repository," but TVAddons is quick to point out that it has never received a single DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) complaint from MPAA members or affiliates. The site accuses the MPAA of deciding to "drag our reputation through the mud."

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If you’re a Kodi user then you’ll no doubt be familiar with TVAddons. The site hosts many of the best unofficial Kodi addons around and is a must-visit for many users.

TVAddons has had a lot of well-documented legal problems lately, but received an unexpected boost from digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which came out in support of the site a few days ago. But while TVAddons might have a lot of supporters, one organization definitely isn’t a fan -- Kodi itself.

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The war against copyright infringement has always been a difficult one for rights holders. Aside from the scale of the problem, there are multiple platforms that make illegal downloads, streams, and sharing possible. For many years, the main target for anti-piracy bodies was BitTorrent, but in recent months a new number one enemy has surfaced in the form of Kodi, and in particular various companies and addons associated with the media center software.

While in Europe and the UK, sellers of "fully loaded" media center boxes seem to be the primary focus for Kodi-related lawsuits, in Canada and the US, it’s hosting site TVAddons and the ZemTV Kodi addon that are in the firing line. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) was setup to "defend civil liberties in the digital world" and it has now weighed in on the Kodi situation, pointing out the shaky legal grounds these cases rest on.

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Kodi is in the news a lot at the moment, and not for the best reasons. Although using the software itself isn’t illegal, third-party add-ons that make it possible to stream copyrighted content have caught the attention of anti-piracy groups, resulting in lawsuits.

Inevitably, the threat of legal action, and possibly jail time, has spooked a lot of third-party add-on creators, and we’ve seen many of these disappear in recent months.

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