Reply to post: Re: They don't help their case.

Re: They don't help their case.

“Three or four cases have gone to prosecution,” Matthew confirmed. - Making statements like that makes them look inept. Either a case has gone to prosecution or it hasn't.

Shades of ACS:Law and the fragrant Mr Crossley. His threats against people always had some vagueness about the probability or possibility of prosecution. Ultimately it turned out when he was forced to reveal details that he hadn't taken any cases to court, just threats and bullying.

TBH neither side acquits themselves well in this.

The copyright holders, for the most part, look to squeeze blood out of a stone. They have a fear of losing control so don't like new, disruptive, technology. Instead of doing what they should to make legal use of content easy they try to preserve their old business model. What they don't seem to like is a business model that upsets their belief that they can sell any old crap to anyone and punish artists that they don't like by not marketing their content. They can (and do) also shaft the artists by entering into grossly unfair contract terms with unknowns. Having people choose what content they want to see and not having to go with artificial geographical, time and marketing constraints hurts the suits.

The users who think everything should be free are, at best, naïve. If I create something and you decide to view my work then you should do so with a view to making reasonably payment. If you don't want to do that or if you think you have the right to distribute someone else's work then you will contribute to the death of that branch of the entertainment industry. Such people are in the same group as the restaurant owners who think they can get someone to provide free entertainment for "exposure" i.e. they are leeches.

Kodi provides something useful which is the ability to view material legitimately from several sources. It is not axiomatic that Kodi=="piracy". I'm tired of the limitations imposed by other devices. I have both Humax and Samsung media boxes. Neither gives access to all of the *legitimate* sources available. The Humax can do Freesat + some on-demand and some streaming services. The Samsung can do Bluray and some on-demand and streaming services. But the Humax can't handle anything other than 4:3 or 16:9 properly. The Samsung randomly disconnects without warning especially from Prime and DLNA. Both have appalling user interfaces. Neither can access iTunes. I'd have to buy yet another box for that. I just want one box that can handle video well, that has an appealing rather than appalling user interface and that can be upgraded to access new services. The Kodi seems closer to that ideal than all the other tat.