Get ready for the Kodi wars?
For all you Kodi users, get ready for a big legal storm that’s going to heat up. About a year ago the UK government started their fight…
For all you Kodi users, get ready for a big legal storm that’s going to heat up. About a year ago the UK government started their fight against Kodi because of the media boxes you can buy online with Kodi and preinstalled with some pirate video streaming add-one(s). To be clear, that’s not what Kodi is; they don’t have pirate video streaming built-in, it’s an add-on you download from someone else. Now they seem to be attacking them here in the US. The people that are writing these articles either seem to have an agenda or just plain incompetent if they can’t separate Kodi from the add-ons as if Microsoft is responsible for the software people write for Windows.
What is Kodi
Kodi is a media set top box software that’s free for anyone to download and run as they wish. You can replace some aspects of your video streaming needs with Kodi; however, it requires local media out-of-box for the most part. Their are some Kodi add-one that will stream YouTube, podcasts, etc; but if you want to watch the latest movies, legally, you’ll need the media yourself. Kodi also supports music too, but I’m willing to bet there’s not that many people listening to music on their TV when you can use less power/resources and use a speaker.
Who makes these add-ons?
Kodi is free, and open for anyone to write add-ons. Wish you had the ability to watch a NASA live stream, write an add-on and make it yours. Wish you could watch Twitch chat on your TV, that sounds dumb, but you can. This software allows anyone to write add-ons that extend the functionality of the software. Don’t like that? Well, I’ll let you in on a secret… so does Windows, MacOS, Linux, iOS, Android, blah blah blah. This isn’t some new ideal that pirates came up with, it’s what we already do. You’re doing it now by reading this post. Why doesn’t Kodi police it? Well, little Jimmy, let me let you in on another secret… because it’s open (head slap) that defeats the purpose. You want Windows says you can’t install that game/software because Microsoft didn’t check it?
What’s going on?
You may have read an article or two recently about Kodi allowing you to watch pirated content. You might have also read that recently the Kodi team released a warning to those that sell their products with their software that isn’t vanilla. They’re trying to get ahead of this mess and protect their name. There are lots of products you can buy online that blatantly advertise as Kodi boxes and are loaded with the ability to easily stream pirated content. That’s not the only thing that makes the Kodi project a target. There’s a lot of home theater geeks out there that would rather buy physical copies and burn that to their Kodi library rather than buying the digital and being locked into a service.
I personally don’t use Kodi, I use Plex. I find Kodi very powerful, but limited to my own network, and I want the ability to watch my content everywhere. I can preload my content before getting on a plane, or stream it when I have an internet connection while on vacation. I much prefer Plex, but I have to defend Kodi on this crap.
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