
Five arrests in 'fully loaded' Kodi streaming box raids - seycombi
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-38906561
======
iDemonix
It won't make a dent on piracy, in fact the use of Kodi will likely now
increase as any press is good press.

Just like electricity, people will always take the path of least resistance.
If I open Netflix to watch an episode of something, and they only have half of
the series/season, I'm just going to use Kodi to watch it for free. Why would
I order a DVD and wait for days? Or buy it and wait hours to download it? Or
setup another subscription service for a monthly cost? Why do any of this when
I can be watching it within seconds, cost doesn't even factor in, it's just so
easy and convenient.

If Kodi/Exodus was a fully legal, licensed platform whereby I could pay
monthly/per-show (at an agreeable price), I'd pay - because it's so easy to
use and it has almost everything.

Until that day though, I've cancelled all streaming services (as they removed
my favourite shows or only offer series/seasons I don't want) apart from Prime
as I like the delivery times and cloud storage. I don't even have a TV aerial
anymore as that broke, I just have 3 TVs, 3 Firesticks and a Chromecast, job
done.

~~~
Ascetik
>Why do any of this when I can be watching it within seconds, cost doesn't
even factor in, it's just so easy and convenient.

Because it is stealing. Some people still believe in paying for value.

Prime has a boat-load of movies and tv shows available for free or pay to
watch on demand. I think their prices are a little high for 24hr rental
(3.99$), but still it is legal. It is better to not go to jail than to feed
one's entertainment lust.

~~~
e12e
> Because it is stealing.

In theft you take something from someone else, and they are then deprived of
what you took. I take your loaf of bread, you have one less loaf of bread.

If I _copy_ your movie, you still have your movie.

Now, if I (somehow) get hold of a _copy_ of a digital file you want to sell
me, you'll be less likely to be able to get me to buy it (although, studies
have shown that those that copy content a lot, also tend to pay for content a
lot).

So we need another word than "theft" \- and that word certainly isn't "piracy"
\- people that violate copyright, rarely murder people or disrupt trade routes
and critical infrastructure.

I'm not saying we don't need some system of compensation if we want to
continue to produce art - but just as a boycott is a very passive act of
resistance, so is not paying for crippled (DRM) content. Unfortunately it
doesn't seem that there's a need to prove that someone watching a copy for
free would be more likely to pay for that copy than go outside and play a game
of catch if the content wasn't available for copying.

~~~
jjaredsimpson
If I copy all your emails and financial records have I harmed you?

Are you only harmed if I remove your access to those records?

~~~
mcdoug
That's yet a different issue. Watching an old episode of Seinfeld does not
violate anyone's privacy.

Theft: you have a painting. I took it.

Copyright infringement: You painted a painting. I took a picture of it and
sold/gave away prints to all my friends.

Violation of privacy: I got into your phone and looked at all your dick pics.

Warrantless search: The police got into your phone and looked at all your dick
pics, possibly finding evidence of a crime.

They are different issues which can look similar at times, but are actually
completely separate. Pretending like they are is just adding muck to this
discussion.

~~~
ramshorns
There's one more separate issue.

Piracy: You have a ship. I climbed aboard, murdered some of your crew, and
took control of your ship or stole some of your belongings.

~~~
grzm
English words admit to multiple, distinct definitions.

------
muse900
Personally I think the entertainment industry is approaching the pirating
issue the wrong way.

They should all be looking into expanding their web tech. Serve ad's to people
that want to watch your content for free, have a pay service for those that
don't want ad's.

On the other hand I had sky... I paid £70 a month which is A LOT compared to
netflix etc, and everytime I wanted to watch something I had to be served with
3 x 1:30' ad' sessions for a 20' episode of friends... I mean why do I even
pay if you going to serve me intrusive ad's. No thank you, I prefer having
netflix and amazon prime that has a lot to watch and if I want something
specifically that isn't available to those 2 am gonna torrent it like a boss.

~~~
adrianN
I don't understand what's so hard about putting their whole film catalog
online. Let me pay a buck to download any movie your studio produced in some
simple format without any crapware or subscriptions or region-locking and I
will do so every time instead of pirating.

The marginal cost of offering a movie for downloading must be pretty close to
0. Why can't studios simply tap the opportunity of cheap hassle-free
downloads?

~~~
chatmasta
Studios sign different distribution deals in different regions. These include
box office release and "DVD" (web) release schedules. These regional licensing
contracts are often in the range of 5-7 years.

As a result, studios cannot simply offer a film or TV series online at the
same time for everybody. As the regional contracts expire and the studios
restructure them, I expect to see more direct distribution via online
channels.

~~~
Klathmon
As much as I'd like to believe that it's going to get better, in my experience
it's getting worse.

Instead of consolidating and simplifying their terms, they are digging deeper
and getting more complex. It's not uncommon to see a setup like:

* Show airs during primetime

* Available the next day on on-demand (not that same night)

* Expires from on-demand after 30 days

* Last 5 episodes but not the most recent episode available for purchase per-episode on something like google-play or amazon.

* Large gap between the last 5 episodes and the previous season where it's literally impossible to buy or watch an episode legally.

* second-to-most-current season available on Hulu-Plus

* All seasons previous to that available on netflix or amazon prime (not both)

And that's just in one country, not even taking into account the various
restrictions and petty limitations like no HD and no ability to rewind or even
pause in some cases. Not to mention the hardware you'd need to watch all of
that on a regular TV. You are looking at least at a Fire-stick, Roku or
chromecast, a STB from the cable company, and in some cases a PC that can HDMI
over to the TV.

------
TorKlingberg
I must say the BBC article does a good job of explaining what a "fully loaded
Kodi box" is, keeping it accessible without confusing things.

------
bluedino
What's different between selling one of these and selling, say a PC with
Bittorrent and bookmarks to the movie section of the PirateBay pre-loaded (or
whatever website people are using these days)?

~~~
onion2k
Intent. These people were selling a box with the specific intent to watch
pirated movies. If you were to sell a PC that "just happened" to have links on
it then I imagine no one would really bother with you. If you were advertising
the PC as a "watch movies for free" PC then the Federation Against Copyright
Theft would try to stop you.

~~~
ominous
But you do know that you can watch movies for free if you have internet and a
general purpose computer, right? Why is it wrong to say that?

"Warning, this knife can sever arteries.". Is this better?

"Warning, this machine can access copyrighted content. Buy it at your own
risk."

Is this better?

~~~
rlpb
You seem to be trying to argue against the law. As onion2k says, courts
consider intent. They will decide if you intended for your customers to break
the law, and were complicit in the breaking of the law, or not.

They will only consider real cases, not hypothetical.

> "Warning, this knife can sever arteries.". Is this better?

The courts take things in context. If it was sold by a gangster with that
wording used for the purpose of informing customers that it can be used to
kill people, then that's one thing. If it's used as a warning label so that
adults know to keep the knife away from their children for safety, that's
another. Courts are not blind; they are _supposed_ to look at context and
intent.

You seem to consider the law as some kind of mathematical function where the
same input always results in the same output. This is indeed the aim, but
context matters. The law doesn't ignore context, so you cannot expect to do so
either.

You might find it helpful to read "What Colour are your bits?":
[http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23](http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23)

That article talks about copyright, but the point about the law seeing
context, and the same nonsense conclusions when attempting to use logic but
ignore context, remains the same.

~~~
pc86
Yet another non-attorney on HN attempting to parse law as if it's code. It's
common to point of it barely being worth discussing anything legal.

Attorneys and courts have a wide berth with which to determine what a person's
intent was. Instances where you can thumb your nose at basic jurisprudence and
get off on a technicality of the text of the law is exceedingly rare.

~~~
ominous
Rules are made because people want to break them. If everyone agreed, there
would be no need for rules. Don't treat those who disagree as if they were
wrong. They are just the reason those rules exist, one as legitimate as the
other.

------
mulletbum
If you can't setup your own Kodi box, I don't know how in the world you would
be sold one and actually use it. It isn't simple to setup and it is more
complicated to maintain (for someone who couldn't just set one up themselves).

~~~
dec0dedab0de
the interface is very easy to use, from what I understand these "fully loaded"
ones alreaddy have the apps installed and configured, so it would probably be
easier than a roku for most people. Then they just dont do any maintenance

~~~
rconti
The interface is one of the worst I've ever seen. I _still_ don't understand
how and when and why "Videos" or "Movies" get indexed. You have to have the
patience of a monk to attempt to add a media source with a remote control.
"Let's see, does it want smb:// ? Should I include my username as part of the
string?"

My Kodi install on my smart TV has one purpose: To play things out of a
directory on my NAS. Yet I have it added roughly 7 different ways, and have no
idea how or why things get cataloged. All I know is I'm too afraid to remove
any of the sources because I'm not sure which one's being used.

And I'm not sure I know how to remove a source, either.

I struggled with Kodi on my jailbroken AppleTV2 and it never worked right. At
least it does the basic job of playing media from my NAS, so I'm happy. No
waiting for Plex to decide to index my content, no fuss, no muss. Open Kodi,
play files from NAS.

------
manishsharan
Can someone comment on what is the business model of those who set up
streaming servers for Kodi etc. ? Bandwidth is expensive , why would you pay
for it just to give it away for free ?

~~~
ssharp
Aren't they torrents?

~~~
manishsharan
The news article mentions Premier league and other TV networks . I am guessing
that these kodi boxes are being used to consume live TV content or TV shows. A
day's worth of shows in high resoution could consume upwards of 4GB. Why would
anyone seed that ?

~~~
aembleton
I guess you only need one person to do it, and then all of the consumer Kodi
boxes will also be seeding.

~~~
rhino369
Does live(ish) bittorrent streaming work?

~~~
stplsd
Yes, it does. Most popular bit-torrent p2p streaming solution now is
Acestream. You can check it yourself.

[http://arenavision.in/](http://arenavision.in/) [http://torrent-
tv.ru/channels.php](http://torrent-tv.ru/channels.php)

However, I doubt that 'fully loaded' Kodi boxes uses it, most likely it use
simple m3u streams harvested from internets.

~~~
rhino369
I didn't know acestream was p2p. I think I may have used it one or twice. Very
cool.

------
hellbanner
"Fact said it believed the suspects had made in the region of £250,000 selling
the devices online.

Kodi is free software built by volunteers to bring videos, music, games and
photographs together in one easy-to-use application.

Some shops sell legal set-top boxes and TV sticks, often called Kodi boxes,
preloaded with the software.

The developers behind Kodi say their software does not contain any content of
its own and is designed to play legally owned media or content "freely
available" on the internet."

So is this like Popcorn time, then? Did the sellers break laws? Did the
developers break laws?

~~~
eco
Kodi's developers didn't, no. The way the streaming boxes work is they add a
bunch of piracy streaming plugins to a Kodi installation. It's not easy for
casual users to do this though. If you download Kodi today you can't just
access that stuff. You need to enable access to unknown source plugins then
find the plugins (and hope they aren't doing anything nefarious), download
them and install them in Kodi. It's essentially the same as Android.

Kodi does have a lot of plugins to access a wide variety of free content
(nearly 400 video content plugins alone). You can see what is available here:
[http://addons.kodi.tv/](http://addons.kodi.tv/)

------
zelon88
Copyright holders considering DRM to promote the purchase of their work rather
than the piracy of their work should really be aware that there are a lot of
people who will not consume your product if it's not free. The notion that
you're protecting your work is not realistic. For many the options are to
consume the product any way they can, or not consume the product. The thinking
that DRM will ultimately make someone purchase something they never intended
to purchase in the first place is unlikely. By having the pricing reflect this
"lost" revenue (which was never lost, it was always assumed) you're only
punishing the people who weren't going to pirate your product anyway. You're
not punishing pirates. If you make a movie rental $1 instead of $4 you're much
more likely to sell the product to interested people as well as the people who
would have pirated the product if it were more expensive. Stop investing in
DRM. You're wasting your time and the investment to defeat DRM will always be
worthwhile to your competition.

------
daemin
I know it's slightly off topic, but I can't help thinking that the Federation
Against Copyright Theft should be going up against those big businesses that
actually steal the copyrights themselves.

So like when one studio steals the copyrights from another, or from the
content creator directly.

~~~
dublinben
They're not really fighting against that kind of "copyright theft." They're
just an industry front group, so they'd never attack their own backers.

~~~
daemin
I know that, it is just the words that make up their acronym mean something
different to me. So I find it highly amusing to have them be against copy
right theft but be backed by the very people that are most likely to actually
steal copyrights. Kind of like coal and oil company lobbyist using Green in
the title.

------
SN76477
As it has been said before. Piracy is a service problem. Yes, you can rent
stuff via amazon but the prices are too high.

I will watch several hours of television and entertainment a night, if I did
this via amazon I would end up paying well over $200 a month.

If they can scale that back to something reasonable like $75 a month, I am
sure that I would be more willing to pay.

------
jack-in-the-box
IMO it is similar to pre-install a browser with bookmarks to pages listing,
but not necessarily providing, such copyright infringing material. I'm not
sure if this is really illegal - I guess it depends on the country you live
in.

~~~
satysin
It is a little more complicated than that though. A computer or web browser is
general purpose. These boxes are sold specifically for copyright violation or
whatever you want to call it (pirating, theft, etc).

Maybe if Mozilla/Google offered a version of Firefox/Chrome that came pre-
configured with links to a bunch of torrent sites and bundled in extensions to
download torrents, unpack archives and play media it would be similar.

~~~
mod
That's possibly how it will be presented, but I'd argue you're wrong.

The boxes are specifically _marketed_ for copyright violation, sure. But Kodi
is a general-purpose media player. It can manage your DVD tray and all that.
Your home videos. Etc.

It's similar to bit-torrent in that it has plenty of legal uses (torrents are
great for downloading linux distros).

In the example you're responding to, the computer could easily be marketed in
the same way as these boxes, and then there would be little distinction beyond
ease-of-use.

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> "The boxes are specifically marketed for copyright violation, sure. But
Kodi is a general-purpose media player."

They're not just marketed for it. They come setup so that you go to the TV
shows section and see a list of every TV show and every episode that you can
play with one click. So comparing to a computer marketed the same way doesn't
make much sense. A more accurate comparison would be selling a laptop that is
locked down to the Kodi software setup to stream any TV show or movie the user
wants illegally. I'm 99% sure all of the features the fully-loaded boxes come
with access to in the UI are illegal.

~~~
mod
Right. I guess if I were going to tread in those waters, I would literally
sell a "fully-loaded kodi box", like I would load every plugin available.

Presumably a great many of them are not related to illegal activities.

Anyway, I've never thought that making it easy to commit a crime was a crime
in and of itself. Selling lockpicks is maybe a similar example.

~~~
k-mcgrady
I'm not familiar with all the details but the Pirate Bay trial seems
analogous.

~~~
mod
I'm not so sure. It feels similar, but here's the difference, as I see it:

TPB provided direct tracker downloads and/or links to trackers that were
illegal files.

These guys are installing some software that is the equivalent of TPB. The
software provides "links" (more or less) to illegal video streams, but
providing those streams, or the data to find them, is not something these guys
have done.

I think this would be more like some other examples in this thread, where
maybe you provided a browser or extension that kept up-to-date torrent site
bookmarks.

