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Hollywood Strikes Back Against Illegal Streaming Kodi Add-ons (engadget.com)

Posted by msmash on from the whiplash dept.

An anonymous reader shares a report: An anti-piracy alliance supported by many major US and UK movie studios, broadcasters and content providers has dealt a blow to the third-party Kodi add-on scene after it successfully forced a number of popular piracy-linked streaming tools offline. In what appears to be a coordinated crackdown, developers including jsergio123 and The_Alpha, who are responsible for the development and hosting of add-ons like urlresolver, metahandler, Bennu, DeathStreams and Sportie, confirmed that they will no longer maintain their Kodi creations and have immediately shut them down.

4 of 77 comments (clear)

  1. Good by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 5, Insightful

    For once they're going after the exact source of the problems instead of casting a net so wide that would have put the whole Kodi team itself in trouble.

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  2. Why not COMPETE with the illegal add-ons? by Khopesh · · Score: 5, Insightful

    People just want easy access to content.

    If there's an easy way to get it that MPAA, Amazon Prime, Netflix, and others can actually support (and ideally offer a more reliable service with better UX and more content), then the "need" for these illegal add-ons will diminish radically. Then it's okay to pick off the bigger facilitators if they're still too big for comfort.

    MLB.tv does this. I can watch it on my Kodi TV setup by logging into the account that I pay for. It's not supported by MLB, but it still works (most of the time) and MLB has no incentive to shut it down.

    At some point, these content providers will realize that their content is actually worth something on its own. They'll be fine releasing free and open source software that can securely log in and stream their content to paying customers without an iota of non-free software on the client system.

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    1. Re:Why not COMPETE with the illegal add-ons? by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Why not COMPETE with the illegal add-ons?

      People just want easy access to content.

      The short answer: "because FUCK YOU, that's why!"

      The long answer: they are maximizing their profits and know that they could get more customers by being reasonable but if they are unreasonable they can ultimately extract more money. Therefore, all challenges to that system must be destroyed to ensure the future of maximized profits.

      TL;DR: It's simple greed.

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  3. Re:Occupy Flash!! by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 2, Insightful

    They are cancelling cable tv in droves. Look up the phrase "cutting the cord" (not to be confused with letting go of your mom's apron strings and moving out.)

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