First of all, there is no such thing as a Kodi box, regardless of whether it comes 'fully-loaded' for enabling piracy or not. What that term generally refers to is a cheap, underpowered, & outdated (and with little to no upgrades) Android boxes that are running some custom version of KitKat 4.4

Regardless of price, accessories or what software it comes loaded with, they are all a dime a dozen, and shitty excuses for media players in general. Their only saving grace was that they had a hardware h264 decoder, and could thus play HD content regardless of the slow CPU and limited ram. I hate dealing with these boxes and even the decent ones eventually give trouble when they get updated and can't handle the extra load, or start to run low on storage space on the tiny SSD and can grind performance to a halt.

Kodi is just software and they've always targeted the platform that had the cheapest barrier to entry. In the beginning, that was actually the original Xbox and when Android SOC boards became so small and cheap, it was a logical step to add support for Android.

I've been using the software for my own personal library for over a decade, (in fact it is one of the only media players that can actually play back your own ripped DVD or Blu-ray image with the menu intact, albeit you ironically need to strip out the drm in order to make that legal backup copy to do so).

I guess my point here is that Kodi is good, Piracy is bad. People who try to polish a turd and capitalize on a few buzzwords to sell it as the latest greatest thing suck, and they ruin it for everyone. Not to mention that often times, especially with older people, they are taken in by the sales pitch don't even realize that utilizing it this way is illegal as in their eyes they paid for the box and it doesn't feel like stealing to them.

I for one, think that this judgment is a good thing. The more they crack down on this behavior, and the more people talk about it like this discussion here, the more the awareness of the distinction is made clear. That can only help Kodi secure more content providers agreements and become more 'legit' in the public's opinion.

I like to think of myself as a forward thinker, I'm always looking as to what the next big thing will be, and I'm always ready to accept change and make things better, (even if you have to break them first in the process). I guess my earlier point about 'strong arming' the big content holders was more about frustration at their refusal to look forward and see how they can adapt their business model to embrace the coming change. It's always better to cut off a problem before it gets too large and work with something rather than against it.

As for them having to accept a loss, sure they may suffer some losses if they fight the winds and stick to their old ways, but when they listen and adapt there is always more money to be made for everyone. Last year the music industry reported the highest revenue earnings in ten years due to streaming music subscriptions, something that didn't exist 10 years ago. Even Spotify and Sirius didn't show up until 2008. So I'm not exactly shedding any tears over their 'lost profits' for not adapting soon enough. In most cases where people pirate material it is because it's not available yet in their region and in this day and age there's really no reason for that anymore.

And not every illegal download is a potential sale lost either, a lot of times it actually creates sales. Various studies have shown that the people who download the most are also the ones who buy the most. These are the folks who need to have new content as soon as it's available, and then spread the word generating buzz and getting their friends interested about it as they are usually also the film buff or guy who people go to for their recommendation on what's good and new.

Again, I'm not condoning Piracy in any way or making any excuses for it, just saying that it is never as cut and dry as the media makes it out to be.