Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How the Kodi Box Took Over Piracy

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 119 posts

Re: How the Kodi Box Took Over Piracy

#61

Post by kodablah »

kensey wrote: post #23
microcolonel wrote: post #15

Just think for a second about the hyperbole involved in even calling it piracy. Piracy implies not only theft, which isn't applicable since there is no deprivation, but the pillage of a vessel on the high seas, and the kidnapping (and possibly enslavement, slaughter, rape, or drowning) of its crew. I think that this (and a whole system of) hyperbole has made it impossible to even talk about it. The MPAA and other sim…

> On-demand (Netflix, Hulu, HBO's online thingy, iPlayer, what have you) has been the most effective way to actually recover rights-holder revenues. And yet those same rights-holders seem hell-bent on squandering the opportunity they were given, by splintering their offerings among their own pay services instead of offering them multiple places. I already pay for Netflix. I'm considering paying for Hulu. But there's…

> [...] but also offer it on enough other major services that any mix of two or three has one that has your stuff on it. You'll make more money, they'll make more money, and I'll get to watch everything I want.

I think the prevailing theory is that exclusivity and opaque per-provider contracts actually make more money. I am not sure if it is true or not, but as long as the content creators believe it is and the providers cower to them, there will be no transparency and there will be little cross-provider access.

Re: How the Kodi Box Took Over Piracy

#62

Post by tomjen3 »

racl101 wrote: post #48
dazbradbury wrote: post #3

"In the UK, Kodi boxes have garnered more attention from authorities, thanks to stingy soccer fanatics driving an early swell of adoption" This is very unfair. I don't own a Kodi box, but in the UK it's against the law to show football games on TV on Saturday between 2:45pm and 5:15pm [1]. So it's not "stingy" football fans, it's fans that have no other way to watch a 3pm kick off without actually going to the game i…

That's my quagmire with movies right now. I have an 3rd Gen Apple TV and the thing is as slow as fuck to stream movies. Also, Apple TV doesn't immediately put out movies for rent, as fast as it does for buying. I just want to rent the fucking movies. Not buy them. There's no more brick and mortar video rental stores in my area. They just make it more enticing to pirate the movie since it's probably easier. (Not that…

It isn't even just renting. You can't get movies before they are spoiled unless you pay a fortune to see them in an inconvenient location filled with ads, and criminal markup on popcorn.

And it is definitely easier to see movies that have been pirated.

Re: How the Kodi Box Took Over Piracy

#63

Post by alvern »

pnutjam wrote: post #57
omg_ketchup wrote: post #40

There's a massive gap between the pirate service and the "legitimate" media service. For one, you can just type something in, and get the movie you want. You don't have to navigate between 15 different services, and then find out the film is only available on mail-order DVD, or in other countries. For television, the networks are HORRIBLE about providing their content to cord-cutters. Want to watch the latest episode…

I'm not a big fan of comcast, but their x1 boxes do a pretty good job of aggregating content and giving it to you wherever it comes from. They have a deep on demand selection and include netflix access, if you use netflix.

Oh man, I used a friends X1 box this weekend. The voice search was terrible. It couldn't understand "Chucky" in a midwestern accent.

Re: How the Kodi Box Took Over Piracy

#64

Post by rhino369 »

mmanfrin wrote: post #51
bryanlarsen wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"not a payment issue, it's an access issue." ... "bullshit cash grab" So in other words, it's a payment issue? Let's say you watch $100/month for cable, and watch about 3 hours a day. That's over $3/hour. $10/month for 4 hours a TV is cheaper than cable, it's ad-free (I believe) and it's more convenient. It's expensive compared to Netflix or piracy, but it can certainly be argued it's not a cash grab.

You missed: "You don't have to navigate between 15 different services" I pay for Netflix, Prime, and Hulu -- I won't pay for CBS because there are already enough services.

Then don't expect all content. Netflix, Prime, and Hulu have more content than you can watch.

Just don't think that justifies pirating whatever you want.

Re: How the Kodi Box Took Over Piracy

#65

Post by tomjen3 »

have_faith wrote: post #8
dazbradbury wrote: post #3

"In the UK, Kodi boxes have garnered more attention from authorities, thanks to stingy soccer fanatics driving an early swell of adoption" This is very unfair. I don't own a Kodi box, but in the UK it's against the law to show football games on TV on Saturday between 2:45pm and 5:15pm [1]. So it's not "stingy" football fans, it's fans that have no other way to watch a 3pm kick off without actually going to the game i…

We both know full well that mass football fan adoption of the service isn't just to watch the odd game at that specific time on one day of the week. You're right that it isn't strictly "stingy", but wanting something you've been denied isn't a good reason to take it.

The standard reason for not pirating is that it cost the producers money. In the case where they won't sell it at prices (some) people would pay for, who does piracy hurt?

Re: How the Kodi Box Took Over Piracy

#66

Post by dvfjsdhgfv »

I wonder how these plugins actually works. With traditional pirate sites, the business model is usually clear cut: webistes get income from ads, uploaders get money from hosting services and the latter get the money from user buying their premium accounts. With torrents, there is some exchange, too - each downloader is a seeder. But in the case of plugins?

Re: How the Kodi Box Took Over Piracy

#67

Post by nickysielicki »

Anyone else have fond memories of playing around with a modchipped original Xbox? I know I do. I think I still have that thing somewhere in a box, XECUTER3 and all.

I don't think the article makes a big enough point about Kodi being rooted in XBMC, and XBMC being a project that started on the Xbox homebrew scene. Kodi's roots in XBMC are inherently tied to piracy, because every early developer and user had to chip their xbox, and they probably did that so that they could pirated games. That filters who is going to be contributing and using the project, so it's no surprise that movie and music piracy addons popped up with time when you consider that one of the first features of XBMC in the first place was being a launcher for pirated games.

Don't get me wrong, XBMC always has had a legitimate and legal use case, and Kodi certainly has a legitimate and legal use today. But the roots of the project had to do with piracy and it shouldn't surprise anyone that the project attracted piracy addons and continues to.

Re: How the Kodi Box Took Over Piracy

#68

Post by khedoros1 »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #46
omg_ketchup wrote: post #40

There's a massive gap between the pirate service and the "legitimate" media service. For one, you can just type something in, and get the movie you want. You don't have to navigate between 15 different services, and then find out the film is only available on mail-order DVD, or in other countries. For television, the networks are HORRIBLE about providing their content to cord-cutters. Want to watch the latest episode…

"not a payment issue, it's an access issue." ... "bullshit cash grab" So in other words, it's a payment issue? Let's say you watch $100/month for cable, and watch about 3 hours a day. That's over $3/hour. $10/month for 4 hours a TV is cheaper than cable, it's ad-free (I believe) and it's more convenient. It's expensive compared to Netflix or piracy, but it can certainly be argued it's not a cash grab.

I already pay for CBS channels. I'm not paying them more for one show. They don't get to double-dip. I'd be happy to see any and all single-provider streaming services fail, and be forced onto some better-supported streaming service.

Not to mention that I'd have to buy another device to actually play their content on my TV; the blu-ray player supports Amazon, Netflix, and a few other big providers, but apparently not CBS. It's less about the cost of the device, and more about not wanting yet another little box under my TV that I need to worry about software updates and such for.

Re: How the Kodi Box Took Over Piracy

#69

Post by SteveMoody73 »

disconnected wrote: post #54
hotgoldminer wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know several people with access to Kodi that don't regard it as theft/piracy. They become pretty defensive when you accuse them of it. How do you think IP owners can adapt when piracy is made so transparent that it doesn't even feel like piracy anymore?

> How do you think IP owners can adapt when piracy is made so transparent that it doesn't even feel like piracy anymore? Maybe it is time to admit that copyright is obsolete? If crime is rampant, then there are only two possibilities: either society has collapsed and the rule of law no longer applies, or the law itself is broken, and is unjustly penalizing people for doing something that is perfectly normal and accep…

And in the case of DVDs playing ads that can't be skipped and a warning about piracy that would actually make the pirated version so much more pleasant to watch to the viewer.

One of the reasons I've not bought a DVD in years and mainly stream shows now.

Re: How the Kodi Box Took Over Piracy

#70

Post by octalmage »

dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #66

I wonder how these plugins actually works. With traditional pirate sites, the business model is usually clear cut: webistes get income from ads, uploaders get money from hosting services and the latter get the money from user buying their premium accounts. With torrents, there is some exchange, too - each downloader is a seeder. But in the case of plugins?

They're ripping from sites that are ad supported. So the site doesn't get the ad impressions, and the plugin developer could (if they put ads in the plugins). Site operators hate it, and are constantly blocking them.

Basically, they reach out to about 80 sites and scrape for links, then resolve those. It's a pretty insane process, but they've got it working just well enough.

Post reply on HN