An anti-piracy alliance that is supported by major U.S. and U.K. movie studios has been able to force add on developers including jsergio 123 and The Alpha to no longer support their Kodi creations and shut them down.
What is Kodi?
Kodi is a free software media player platform that is available for many operating systems and also hardware platforms. Kodi has no content of its own but it allows users to play and view most streaming media, including videos, music, podcasts as well as all digital media files that are on local and network storage media.
The problem with Kodi is that third parties have created plug-ins or add ons that enable users to have access to copyrighted media content, that should only be available through subscription. There are many boxes available for playing material through Kodi. Some of the more popular are shown on the appended video.
The big media giants clamp down on Kodi's pirate add ons
The Alpha shut down support for its add ons after receiving a letter from the Motion Picture Association (MPA) that represents Columbia Pictures, Disney Enterprises, and Paramount Pictures among many other big players along with the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment(ACE) that includes Sky U.K. plus the Football Association Premier League.
The Alpha shut down the development and hosting of add ons such as urlresolver, metahandler, Bennu, DeathStreams and Sportie.
The letter identified the developer as responsible for third-party software that is able to provide "unlawful access to protected copyright material" The letter noted that The Alpha had been involved in the collection and upkeep of various streaming Kodi add ons. The development has frightened other developers enough that some other popular streaming devices are no longer available.
This is not the first attempt to stop piracy through Kodi add ons. In June, Dish Network sued TVAddons repository and was able to force ZemTV and Phoenix off line.
Although this is described in a recent article as bad news for Kodi, Kodi itself has from time to time tried to distance itself from the illegal add ons.
Often those interested in pirating find ways around attempts by authorities to shut them down as is shown by the continuation of sites such as Pirate Bay the torrent downloader.
My own experience with Kodi
Kodi is free. There is a download site here with downloads for all the systems it supports.
I have a Roku streaming media player connected to my TV. I use it to replace cable TV. I have not used Kodi as a streaming device to my TV since Roku achieves much the same purpose. Many no doubt purchase boxes that stream Kodi add ons replacing their cable channels.
While Kodi cannot be installed on Roku, material from Kodi can be mirrored on it.
I installed Kodi on two of my computers that run Windows ten but have used it for little except to add a global radio add on.
The are a huge number of video add ons and other types as well. However, there is also the free radio garden live which will also give you access to numerous stations around the world without the need of Kodi.
I also use Kodi to play video and music files I have stored on my hard drives and also on external hard drives.
Kodi also has a version that runs on Linux. No doubt many people will still find Kodi useful even without the illegal add ons.
I intend to download Kodi to a laptop I have connected to my TV through an HDMI cable. I can then stream content from the Kodi add ons to my TV.
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