Daily Kodi News From Kodi Community
Kodi has been popular for more than a decade but still, there’re streamers who are fighting for it.
Yes, I am talking about non-other than our most favorite – the UK, where Kodi crackdown is still a debate, but now new shocks have been added to the list; so streamers! Stay vigilant.
Kodi tends to be in the news for long, and rarely for positive reasons. From the EU and UK to the likes of Sky, Amazon, the Premier League, Facebook, and eBay; I would almost everybody tried to stop the spread of “fully loaded” Kodi boxes in just recent months.
Rewind to April 2016, when Kodi was still a relative niche media streaming platform, loved by cord-cutters and home theatre enthusiasts, but unluckily still a mystery to the masses.
Everything changed back in 2017 when streamers find – illegal – ways to access TV shows, films, and live sports for free.
Am I sounds like Kodi boxes are legal?
Let me break this wall!
Is Kodi Boxes Legal?
We all know that Kodi is free, open-source software developed by an NGO – XBMC Foundation that turned into an entertainment hub for our love of videos, music, podcasts and other content; thanks to the developers for fetching the web and local or network storage for us.
Kodi is legal that is why millions of netizens are streaming TV shows, films, live sports, and whatnot for free; all credit goes to all the piracy-configured add-ons, created by third-party developers.
Sadly, such add-ons are not only helping users to fetch the content but also supporting them to break the laws. This is the reason why addons are illegal.
Since the process of tracking down and installing addons isn’t straightforward, the demand for cheap media players that are already pre-loaded with Kodi (along with a selection of reliable piracy-configured addons) has stretched.
These “fully loaded” Kodi boxes soon become troublesome for broadcasters, studios, and the law-makers, largely they’re cheap, readily available and easy to use.
How did Kodi Crackdown start?
- April 2017: The European Court of Justice ruled out the sale of Kodi boxes, as it was exploiting the rights of copyright holders; previously, it was just against the law to download the content.
Since then, UK courts got active in Kodi-related actions; the most high-profile cases were;
- October 2017 – Kodi box seller Brian Thompson suspended for two years and handed an 18-month prison sentence, after pleading guilty to selling and advertising devices or facilitating the ignorance of effective measures.
- July 2018 – Two men were handed suspended prison sentences for selling Kodi boxes using the name Oobersticks. One of those, Glenn Burrows, was sentenced to 22 months, while the other, Darren Wicks, received a 20-month sentence behind bars. At the same time, another Kodi box seller John Haggerty, who sold 8000 Infusum boxes and earned over £750,000, was jailed for more than five years.
- August 2018: Warren Gleave from Burnley was also sentenced to 16 months behind bars, who earned more than £200,000 selling the illegal devices for three years.
As Kodi crackdown continues, there’s more shocking news for illegal streaming fans.
The new crackdown stopped more people to stream illegally, Kodi addons are continuously under pressure, rising concerns for rights holders, broadcasters, and authorities; those with illegal Kodi addons have been dealt a blow.
Talking about the news of illegal content, how one can forget the pioneer – Reddit, for being a popular place for e-pirates to turn to, with illegal streams posted there.
For those not interested to watch the action on their PCs or smartphones, Kodi addons are there to display content on a TV.
For good or bad, Reddit reportedly clamped down on subreddit pages that used to promote piracy.
According to Cord Cutters News, Reddit has finally shut down the NBAStreams subreddit page, which was loaded with illegal streams of live NBA games.
The news followed after the SoccerStreams subreddit page was also clamped down for piracy-freakiness.
Other subreddits – CFBStreams and NFLStreams also removed all the links to piracy content; it seems like Reddit is avoiding all sorts of bans, or maybe the shutting down of Kodi addons have opened their eyes.
Reddit has also started sending copyright infringement notices to a large number of subreddits including r/Piracy.
One of the notices said: “Redditors aren’t allowed to submit material that infringes on someone else’s copyrights”.
It added, “Admins must remove any existing infringing content from (their) community, so Reddit doesn’t get new notices about past content.”
Let’s get back to Kodi.
The Kodi news reported when a number of Kodi addon repos disappeared suddenly.
The well-known names – Maverick TV, 13 Clowns, Overeasy were among those that were closed after the shutdown of Supremacy.
See how one of our favorite addon – 13 Clowns -tweeted;
“Thank you, everyone, for everything. Goodbye,”
And another simply stated,
“I’ve been Maverick. Thank you all. And Good-Bye.”
Other than this, the Kodi team keep warning its users about the dangers of installing all the red-lined addons.
The team behind Kodi, which is actually legal to download and use – everywhere in the world – also alerted users of issues with malware in one of their posts.
Explaining why we should be wary, Kodi said: “If a newer version (with a higher version number) of a given add-on is pushed to an installed repo, then the add-on can be updated regardless of which repo the addon originally came from.
“Hence, if a malicious programmer pushes a new version to an installed repo, then anyone who had the original version will get the poisoned version installed onto their device instead.”
Anyways, all the Kodi users are requested to follow some dos and don’ts; they will not let them flow in the current waves of Kodi breakdown.
Do’s and Don’ts for Kodi users
- Avoid buying a so-called “fully loaded” box − they’re out rightly illegal.
- Feel free to check out the platform – it’s great and not illegal in any way.
- Do check out addons – most are legal – and do cross-check them on Kodi’s official repository – they highlight some of the best.
- Don’t bother XBMC Foundation if a dodgy addon will stop working. The provider has no stake in it and won’t provide you any tech support.
The post Red Flag for Kodi Fans as New Threat Will Ban Streaming on it appeared first on Kodi Community.