Kodi 18 "Leia" Enters Alpha With Thousands Of Changes

[duby229]

Mate, nothing wrong with watching movies. Just pointing out that content such as the movies you'd normally go to the cinema to pay for are only legal to stream through licensed content providers whom also license you the right to view the content via agreement. You asked about how to define the legality of it, I thought I made that very clear. Nothing has changed on that part, the physical distribution isn't as maintstream as it was sure, but now there are large digital services that provide access legally... and ones that don't.

Yes, there are places online and ways to get the content that would normally require being paid for in some way free instead.... that doesn't mean it is legal. I don't know what makes you think otherwise that it would be legal? Do you think it's legal to steal from a shop because you can take the goods from them and run off without paying? Are they going to enforce you to pay for the goods? Is their security measures good enough to prevent you from stealing or catch you? You have a right to eat food, stealing it from providers without paying, doesn't mean your right to eat legalizes the act.

A service not like Netflix is pretty cheap and provides quite a bit of content each month where a network of family/friends can use the account(your subscription allows for multiple users). It supports the content creators. Perhaps the monetization model still isn't quite there yet with the current options, I dunno? You've got some services offering up content to stream immediately upon release and tv shows that provide the entire season, no ads or waiting. You've got movies you can rent or buy license to for a much cheaper price than a ticket at the cinema etc. As nice as free content is and streaming it, is that going to support those who create it in the first place if everyone were to take that stance? It's viable for you because others will financially support content creators, but it's not always enough. Some great shows that have to stop production because they're not bringing in enough for another season, same can apply to films.

I suppose you do the same for games? Personally I don't pay for launch prices, I'm fine waiting til an xmas/steam sale a couple years later where the price is much less, unless I'm a huge fan of the game. I do understand where you're coming from but it's a bit arrogant to insist everyone should get the content for free without understanding the impact of that. This is going off topic a bit as the point is Kodi's responsibility is not providing you with the content, you got your answer as to why and how the legality of content is defined as to why.

You're making a comparison that doesn't work. And you're getting into topics too deep for this conversation. Let's face the facts here, there are many flaws in free market economics, and specifically in America there is a giant greedy bureaucracy that comes with it. I mean the real truth is constitutionally a large portion of the US government is illegal. It's breaks its own laws. It's self unenforcement. In this country if a law isn't enforced then it's not illegal. That's how it is. We do implement majority rule here. One thing we try desperately not to do is enforce a minority rule onto the majority. We'll fight that BS violently every single time. And that's why unenforceable laws don't work here. We'll desperately do the same to protect our entertainment despite America's greedy bureaucracy.

[dcrdev]

So then it has no purpose. That's just fine. But it is what it is....

Unenforceable laws are exactly the same as no law at all. In fact it's worse because an unenforceable law can't regulate activity.

EDIT: And yes, if everyone stated burning their homes, there would be nothing any law enforcement agency could do about it. But how it is that you equate entertainment with burning your own home is pretty telling about you. Why do you think it is that most people stream multimedia, but almost nobody burns down their home? It's because streaming multimedia is the thing that makes logical sense and burning down your own home doesn't. Now why is it that you equated those two thing together?

No I'm not saying it's of the same severity - just emphasising my point, I personally don't care what you do and I'm not trying to convince you not to do it. What I do disagree with is your position on it not being against the law, which is very clearly is.

Also no because Kodi doesn't meet your warped requirements, does not mean it has no purpose. The purpose of Kodi is to allow you to organise and playback content you have already obtained, it does that purpose met.

All that being said, I'm tired of this uninformed tripe - so I'll simply say this, if you're so sure it's you that defines the law, that free software developers owe you entertainment on demand - why don't you sail out to international waters, with a satellite equipped laptop running popcorn time and STAY THERE.

[duby229]

This discussion is giving me bad memories. Please don't tell me your the reddit user curiousone6151: https://www.reddit.com/user/curiousone6151

Nooo, can't be. You're not that dense surely. You still seem to share a bit in common :\

If you don't think the law is enforceable, why not let your authorities know about all the pirated content you're streaming and encouraging others to do, get really vocal about it in your local community, make it well known that your a firm believer that it's ok to do so and show others how to do so(maybe host an after school or lunch class at the local highschool or some regular meetup group?). See how well that goes, see how much that law doesn't regulate it.

It's not that it's unenforceable or not that they can't regulate it, it's just due to technology it would be a huge waste of resources to enforce on a wide scale. While also a total dick move if they went ahead with it requiring people that aren't doing anything illegal to be subject to the invasive approach required, just like DRM doesn't affect those illegally watching the content, it affects those legally watching it :\ To properly enforce it would be ridiculous though, it's only going to happen when you make yourself an easy target. You're not that stupid though right, so you won't actually take up that challenge, if you do, for extra brownie points, sell or charge a fee instead, make a little business of it, or get a nice big projector screen and many chairs and do some charity screenings of popular movies.

That's not me.

Besides, it already happened well over a decade ago! Where have you been? You don't need public displays, besides that -would- be illegal and enforceable. What people are doing is streaming for their own entertainment in their own homes. Most people already learned years ago. What, you don't remember napster? You don't remember flash player? You don't remember bittorrent? Is it that you don't know about all of the technologies that lead up to this? Most people do remember and are still using those services.

EDIT: What, did you think all the content people have on their HDD's was purchased? Uhm hell no! Basically all of what Kodi plays locally was downloaded. And that's whether you like it or not. It's happening whether you approve of it or not. And there is nothing you can do to stop it. What Kodi lacks right now and lacked during the entirety of its existence is a purpose.

[duby229]

I do believe artists deserve to get paid for creating their works, for sure. But I also believe art was meant to be distributed freely. That's why I support open source and why I think a copyleft is so important.

[polarathene]

You don't need public displays, besides that -would- be illegal and enforceable.

Ok great that you agree on that. Now take the next step from that to Kodi effectively being the same if it worked the way you wanted by being an enabler and source/distributor of said content. Do you think it'd be legal and that developers could continue to work on it and supply it to users without being targeted? Does it benefit the project in any real way to get that sorta of attention and reputation? Is that a good play for them? Is there risk in doing such and is that worth taking?

EDIT: What, did you think all the content people have on their HDD's was purchased? Uhm hell no! Basically all of what Kodi plays locally was downloaded.

Plenty of people do pay for content still. I'm a Netflix user these days, there is an addon for that to use Netflix with Kodi. My father has bought a large amount of optical media(and VHS before it), all that can be ripped to digital copies for personal backup/use. So no it doesn't apply to all.

I'm not disputing that you're wrong about how people generally source such content, it's incredibly common. It's just not legal in the first place, and that is not the purpose of Kodi to provide content. As I said, if no one pays for the content at all and all took the piracy approach, do you actually think quality content would continue to be produced? It'd go downhill. It's thanks to the internet that content becomes so much more widely available, not only for piracy but for monetization legally as well. Prior to streaming and digital download there was a much higher barrier of entry.

If you cut out any compensation for the content producers efforts, I don't see how you expect them to continue to create it. You need people to consume the content legally in a paid manner to support your leeching of content unpaid. The content creators surely aren't in it to live off of exposure coin.

[polarathene]

Let's face the facts here

US Law isn't the law everywhere btw, regardless I'm not wrong in how the law is applied to content ownership not being yours, only a license to view. It is illegal to obtain the content without a valid license for it, that is fact, despite how many choose to disregard it.

I do believe artists deserve to get paid for creating their works, for sure. But I also believe art was meant to be distributed freely. That's why I support open source and why I think a copyleft is so important.

That's great, but I'm sure you understand that certain films cost considerable amounts of money as does the talent to put them together. There are still plenty of good content that doesn't require huge budgets, but sometimes it's kind of unavoidable. They can be huge amount of people involved and not as flexible as open-source code contributions are.

Who knows maybe one day, you'll be able to work around that with enough patreon or kickstarter funding, but that's kind of like paying for something in advance without any assurance if it's going to be good or even finished. The benefits of the content being open are less interesting when it comes to film and tv shows as a viewer, I can't say that it'd matter that much to most if the film was open/copyleft or not.

[duby229]

Ok great that you agree on that. Now take the next step from that to Kodi effectively being the same if it worked the way you wanted by being an enabler and source/distributor of said content. Do you think it'd be legal and that developers could continue to work on it and supply it to users without being targeted? Does it benefit the project in any real way to get that sorta of attention and reputation? Is that a good play for them? Is there risk in doing such and is that worth taking?


Plenty of people do pay for content still. I'm a Netflix user these days, there is an addon for that to use Netflix with Kodi. My father has bought a large amount of optical media(and VHS before it), all that can be ripped to digital copies for personal backup/use. So no it doesn't apply to all.

I'm not disputing that you're wrong about how people generally source such content, it's incredibly common. It's just not legal in the first place, and that is not the purpose of Kodi to provide content. As I said, if no one pays for the content at all and all took the piracy approach, do you actually think quality content would continue to be produced? It'd go downhill. It's thanks to the internet that content becomes so much more widely available, not only for piracy but for monetization legally as well. Prior to streaming and digital download there was a much higher barrier of entry.

If you cut out any compensation for the content producers efforts, I don't see how you expect them to continue to create it. You need people to consume the content legally in a paid manner to support your leeching of content unpaid. The content creators surely aren't in it to live off of exposure coin.

I'm not gonna even try to argue that. We all know the economic bureaucracy in place to pay content producers is broken. You can thank the RIAA and MPAA as well as other bureaucratic organizations for that. They've been fighting against consumer technology (and consumer rights) for decades now.

[ParticleBoard]

A function left enabled is a far cry from sending all your hard drive over to google.

First of all I said metadata. Second that is your takeaway from this, "A function left enabled"? Did you even read those links I posted (let alone understand them) or are you just another cliche argumentative troll?