
Facebook Bans Kodi Device Sales - jeffreybezos
https://www.cordcuttersnews.com/facebook-bans-the-sale-of-kodi-boxes-jailbroken-streaming-players/
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LeoPanthera
"Kodi" is an open source media player. Nothing more or less.

The problem comes because people sell boxes preloaded with Kodi _and_ plugins
that make one-click piracy possible.

Unfortunately the association that people make is now "Kodi = Piracy", which
is very wrong.

~~~
Spivak
And BitTorrent is a P2P file sharing program but it doesn't suddenly make the
verb 'torrenting' mean anything other than piracy.

Kodi is a fantastic piece of software and it's a shame that their brand is
being tarnished but c'est la vie when that's the biggest practical use case
for your program. There's no sense for anyone other than the XBMC foundation
to fight the river on this one.

What I would do if I was the project lead:

\- Pick a new name or go back to XBMC since it still has plenty of mindshare.

\- Implement a proper store for plug-ins and require signing for them to run a
la Firefox.

\- Let users sideload plug-ins by running in 'unbranded mode' and aggressively
litigate people using your trademark for unlocked devices.

\- Partner with manufacturers for an authorized device part of your store.

\- Work with content providers to add official apps to your store a la
Chromecast.

~~~
whalesalad
Your recommendations more-or-less came to fruition as the company Plex.

~~~
bubblethink
I find the dichotomy quite interesting. Fundamentally, there aren't too many
differences between the two, and yet Plex has no stigma associated with it.
It's a pretty limited space to work in. Long term, I don't see how Plex's
business model works. Since they don't control the media, they don't really
control anything. There's only limited appetite for transcoding software.

~~~
Spivak
In my view that's one of it's strengths, they make a good product that is best
in class for the their niche. I'm happy they're trying to expand with features
rather than some content bid. Plex doesn't have a stigma because you can't use
it to actually pirate content.

I don't think Plex will ever be a huge company but you don't need to be in
order to succeed.

~~~
bubblethink
>best in class for the their niche

I find plex to be quite buggy and opaque. It is tolerable for the few things
that it does, but that's mostly because it's a niche, and there isn't that
much competition in this space. I don't know how emby is doing these days.

>trying to expand with features

Their expansion efforts are also not that scalable, again because they can't
control content. They recently added integration with tuner boxes and dvr, but
that whole segment is on its way out. Not to mention, various other issues
with the inability to handle DRM and other copyright restrictions that come
with cable. They also tried some cloud drive integration, which again didn't
pan out, because they don't control the storage. I think they've tried to
bundle some news and podcasts, which is marginal at best. In this space, I
just don't see how you can make money unless you are selling content, storage
or compute. Plex sells none of these. At the end of the day, it's some glue
software that probably calls ffmpeg to transcode.

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karmakaze
Shouldn't the title be FB bans ... sales _on Facebook_? It's good to remember
that FB <> Internet and FB <> world.

~~~
megaremote
Isn't that implied. If it said Walmart bans sales of Kodi, is anyone going to
think they are banning it worldwide.

~~~
karmakaze
One would hope so, but not as FB would have it. e.g. internet.org. Safer to
keep a tight psychological bound.

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mindslight
Does anybody think these clowns are actually going to be around in a decade? I
can understand the business desire to censor political minorities to please
the majority, but how does doing enforcement for the content cartels generate
_any_ goodwill from their users?

It will be interesting to see what happens when their surveillance archives go
off to the highest bidder (and are subsequently leaked).

~~~
Zanni
"Content cartels?" You mean copyright owners? I'm not sure the majority is on
your side. A lot of folks, including me, generate copyright-protected content
and are happy to see anti-piracy measures enforced. Facebook has other issues,
to be sure, but I don't have a problem with this.

~~~
mindslight
Enjoy your bubble, while it lasts. It's [not] funny how every new "anti-piracy
measure" seems more akin to precrime policing. This unrelenting insistence on
invasive control is the heart of why copyright and the Internet cannot
coexist.

~~~
obmelvin
I certainly think that many Hollywood companies are stuck in the stone age in
many regards, but these devices are literally built for piracy (with the
specific plug-ins, there are very legal uses of Kodi). You may have your own
views on copyright, but I don't really see any rational argument for why
someone should be able to profit off selling these devices.

Yes, the internet makes it easy to circumvent copyright, so then why don't
people download this software themselves?

If you don't believe the `content cartels` deserve your money then why should
someone random person installing free software?

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drexlspivey
TIL that facebook has a marketplace.

~~~
jessaustin
This is brilliant marketing!

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fipple
All the fuss about Kodi makes me think I should get a box. Is it worth it?

~~~
arkitaip
Kodi has one of the most arcane UIs I've used in years. Also, you need to find
and set up plugins to get streaming going and this is a complicated process.
The streams can be good but not worth all the hassle.

~~~
nobleach
A younger more daring me set up SportsDevil back in the day (like a couple of
years ago) so I could watch the Florida Gators play while living across the
country. It was SUCH a pain to get a reliable stream. And even then, it was
potato quality. With GoogleTV providing all the channels I need, and at a 35
dollar a month price, I can't see any reason why I'd go back to this route.

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Animats
No "wiretapping devices"?

I wasn't aware that people sold stuff on Facebook. But Facebook apparently has
a store now. Never noticed.

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nobleach
Very odd. I can't imagine the rationale. "But you could watch pirated movies
with it".... uh yeah, same for VLC, can I sell my Macbook on Facebook?

~~~
LeoPanthera
None of them have plain vanilla Kodi on them. If they did, Amazon wouldn't
have a problem selling them - and probably no-one would buy them either.

They're all preloaded with insta-piracy plugins.

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maym86
Funny how they can easily and quietly manage banning Kodi yet stuggle publicly
with removing blatent hate speech. Not saying they're equivalent, just that
Facebook is perfectly capable of blocking things when they want to despite the
free and open perception they try to create for the platform when they don't
want to.

~~~
nelzya
Their choice is strictly defined by the profit gain and loss calcs.

