These stories are incredibly incendiary, fueled by Murdoch's News UK Group. Whilst I think you would be an idiot to run unknown software on your home network (even if it means you get free TV) there have been no prosecutions against individual users yet.<p>Sky's sport and movie subscriber base are obviously taking a hit from people moving to pirated content. That is why you are seeing hyperbolic stories about 10 years in prison for watching football on a Kodi box.<p>I would not be surprised to find that the same media groups [successfully] lobbied for the 2017 Digital Economy Act amendments.
>> Pubs are a favoured target of FACT. Subscriptions allowing them to screen live sports are expensive, making Kodi boxes attractive.<p>Is this the situation in the US too? I wonder why pubs have shitty cableTV with downgraded picture when they could just get an antenna and have awesome HD. Is it not OK to publicly show that which is broadcast? That seems absurd.
I watch pirated TV using Kodi on my Amazon Fire TV in the USA.<p>There are some free Kodi add-ons for on-demand TV (i.e., free Netflix clones), but I use Kodi as a replacement for live sports. For $13/month, I get hundreds of live channels.<p>AMA.
I've been using Kodi/XBMC for years, and can't believe anyone actually uses the streaming services... when I'd tried it the quality all really sucked.<p>Recently got an NVidia Shield TV, which I've been using kodi for my local/network media, and it's been okay (may retire/reuse my htpc). What I've enjoyed about the shield is that it supports netflix, amazon video, directtv now, sling and pretty much every legal streaming service out there. Of course, once you add a few of them up, you aren't saving much over cable.<p>What does irk me though is all the "channels" with "free" apps that you have to verify your cable sub for... I mean, aren't they still going to show the ads anyway? wtf does it really matter... Not to mention the craptastic experience that was the latest superbowl. If the companies make online streaming actually better, and/or not charge an arm and a leg, it will get more legit users.<p>The international licensing issues are way worse though... there are teams of employees and developers and netflix just to handle/track international licensing issues, windows, dates, etc.
I moved to the UK a few years ago, I'm still really surprised with the state of TV here. Between this and things like "TV licence" - It's just an embarrassment really.
The state of legal TV and film content in the UK is abysmal.<p>I think it's really important that we consider that just because there's no legal way for me to watch say "The Americans" season 5 legally in the UK[0], I'm not entitled to pirate it. That is the content distributors mistake.<p>Saying that me downloading it doesn't hurt them doesn't track either because I'll be seeding a file to others who might have legal alternatives.<p>I've had to adjust how important watching stuff can be to me. Is it really that important that I get to watch some TV? Worth breaking the law for?<p>[0]<a href="https://www.justwatch.com/uk/tv-series/the-americans" rel="nofollow">https://www.justwatch.com/uk/tv-series/the-americans</a>
The future of these pirate TV devices is so uncertain that I don't understand why people are willing to pay so much for them.<p>I recently saw something called an ISTV that was selling for around $400. I can't imagine investing that kind of money in a product that can be shutdown in under a year.
I knew these pirate IPTV streams were in trouble when I noticed people springing up everywhere wanting to buy Amazon TV sticks to have it "hacked" to include Kodi streaming plugins. There's actually a market for pre-loaded Amazon TV sticks with Kodi.