It won't make a dent on piracy, in fact the use of Kodi will likely now increase as any press is good press.<p>Just like electricity, people will always take the path of least resistance. If I open Netflix to watch an episode of something, and they only have half of the series/season, I'm just going to use Kodi to watch it for free. Why would I order a DVD and wait for days? Or buy it and wait hours to download it? Or setup another subscription service for a monthly cost? Why do any of this when I can be watching it within seconds, cost doesn't even factor in, it's just so easy and convenient.<p>If Kodi/Exodus was a fully legal, licensed platform whereby I could pay monthly/per-show (at an agreeable price), I'd pay - because it's so easy to use and it has almost everything.<p>Until that day though, I've cancelled all streaming services (as they removed my favourite shows or only offer series/seasons I don't want) apart from Prime as I like the delivery times and cloud storage. I don't even have a TV aerial anymore as that broke, I just have 3 TVs, 3 Firesticks and a Chromecast, job done.
Personally I think the entertainment industry is approaching the pirating issue the wrong way.<p>They should all be looking into expanding their web tech. Serve ad's to people that want to watch your content for free, have a pay service for those that don't want ad's.<p>On the other hand I had sky... I paid £70 a month which is A LOT compared to netflix etc, and everytime I wanted to watch something I had to be served with 3 x 1:30' ad' sessions for a 20' episode of friends... I mean why do I even pay if you going to serve me intrusive ad's. No thank you, I prefer having netflix and amazon prime that has a lot to watch and if I want something specifically that isn't available to those 2 am gonna torrent it like a boss.
What's different between selling one of these and selling, say a PC with Bittorrent and bookmarks to the movie section of the PirateBay pre-loaded (or whatever website people are using these days)?
If you can't setup your own Kodi box, I don't know how in the world you would be sold one and actually use it. It isn't simple to setup and it is more complicated to maintain (for someone who couldn't just set one up themselves).
Can someone comment on what is the business model of those who set up streaming servers for Kodi etc. ? Bandwidth is expensive , why would you pay for it just to give it away for free ?
"Fact said it believed the suspects had made in the region of £250,000 selling the devices online.<p>Kodi is free software built by volunteers to bring videos, music, games and photographs together in one easy-to-use application.<p>Some shops sell legal set-top boxes and TV sticks, often called Kodi boxes, preloaded with the software.<p>The developers behind Kodi say their software does not contain any content of its own and is designed to play legally owned media or content "freely available" on the internet."<p>So is this like Popcorn time, then? Did the sellers break laws? Did the developers break laws?
Copyright holders considering DRM to promote the purchase of their work rather than the piracy of their work should really be aware that there are a lot of people who will not consume your product if it's not free. The notion that you're protecting your work is not realistic. For many the options are to consume the product any way they can, or not consume the product. The thinking that DRM will ultimately make someone purchase something they never intended to purchase in the first place is unlikely. By having the pricing reflect this "lost" revenue (which was never lost, it was always assumed) you're only punishing the people who weren't going to pirate your product anyway. You're not punishing pirates. If you make a movie rental $1 instead of $4 you're much more likely to sell the product to interested people as well as the people who would have pirated the product if it were more expensive. Stop investing in DRM. You're wasting your time and the investment to defeat DRM will always be worthwhile to your competition.
I know it's slightly off topic, but I can't help thinking that the Federation Against Copyright Theft should be going up against those big businesses that actually steal the copyrights themselves.<p>So like when one studio steals the copyrights from another, or from the content creator directly.
As it has been said before. Piracy is a service problem. Yes, you can rent stuff via amazon but the prices are too high.<p>I will watch several hours of television and entertainment a night, if I did this via amazon I would end up paying well over $200 a month.<p>If they can scale that back to something reasonable like $75 a month, I am sure that I would be more willing to pay.
IMO it is similar to pre-install a browser with bookmarks to pages listing, but not necessarily providing, such copyright infringing material. I'm not sure if this is really illegal - I guess it depends on the country you live in.