Well, at least in Europe, and when it's a fully loaded device to stream pirated content.

[Link: dailymail.co.uk]

Now how long before US legislation follows?

It's not Kodi that is or should be illegal. Kodi is just a platform that allows for other apps to be loaded onto the platform. It is the apps such as Exodus that allow for the streaming of new movies that should be illegal.

well it was ruled napster was illegal at one time, no? Same thing? It was just a sharing platform.

Napster at the time, was used solely for sharing and distributing pirated material. There was no legal content available at all, and it was way before legitimate streaming services.

Kodi, (formerly XBMC) on the other hand, has a ton of legal add-ons (YouTube, Crackle, Dailymotion, Crunchyroll...) that enable it to be used for perfectly​ legitimate streaming. It's only when these sellers advertise and sell 'fully-loaded' Kodi setups that already include these 3rd party add-ons pre-configured to be easy to use that Kodi gets a bad name.

It also doesn't really help their cause that most news sites these days tend to be completely wrong and misleading when trying to explain or comprehend anything technical, and always try to over simplify things to a fault. They always miss the distinction between the Kodi software itself, and what these independent, unlicensed shady sellers are doing to turn them into 'fully-loaded piracy boxes' in order to sell them for a undeserved profit, and in the process tarnishing the name of one of the best developers of open source software.

The Kodi team has really been trying to raise awareness about this recently, and has always said that they absolutely do not condone the use of these 3rd party add-ons. I remember reading recently that they are currently working on new deals with content holders to even implement a light type of DRM in order to entice more legitimate content providors to create add-ons for Kodi and thus try to negate a lot of the motivation people have for using these 3rd party add-ons in the first place.

A lot of times, (especially outside of North America), people pirate content because there is no legal alternative available. This is how Napster started, there was no real digital distribution or streaming services available yet (iTunes wasn't selling music until 2003, 2 years after Napster was shut down) and home internet connections we starting to get faster and cheaper. People wanted their content without having to go out or wait for it to become available in their region and the rest is history.

It takes a while for old giants like the RIAA & MPAA to admit that they need to adapt and leave the tried and true models that have worked for them for decades, but ultimately the people dictate the way that they want to consume their content and eventually the old giants are begrudgingly forced to give in to popular demand.

It's happening again right now with all the geo-blocking and location tracking, VPN's & DNS forwarders. The people are trying to tell them that the current system isn't working, they're going to get to their content when and where they want it, however they need to. For now, that may mean using a VPN, proxy or even a 3rd party Kodi add-on, as some people don't have any legal options available to them. But the tides are shifting yet again, and sooner or later the content license holders will have to do away with these per-region and timed release shenanigans and continue to adapt with the times.

Now don't get me wrong here, I'm in no way condoning piracy or the use of these add-ons, I'm just giving my 2 cents on how perceive this perpetual cycle of 'supply & demand'.

kodi is not illegal, like my web browser that can stream illegal content is not illegal.

The unauthorised, 3rd party add on's which have no affiliation with Kodi are illegal, and it is illegal to sell any boxes whatever they might be that can run said streams.

Spouting a title that Kodi is illegal is just showing how uneducated things have become.

Just woke up and saw this article:
[Link: torrentfreak.com]

Wow, the kodi fanbois are defensive. And none seemed to actually read what I said in the post or read the article at the link.

Kodi devices when fully loaded to stream pirated content have been ruled illegal.

That's a heck of a clickbait thread title. lol

Considering the source, what did you expect?

Ya, don't scare me like that, change the thread title.

ROFLMAO!

Made you look didn't it?

Unfortunately, that response just makes the thread title look less reputable. A response that a ten-year old might offer never advances an argument.

But, really, that's another way of saying, people will steal whatever they want, and your option is to either reduce your business by going along with it, or go out of business. That's not how a free market is supposed to work.

The same applied to Napster. There's no right in the Constitution to be able to get digital content any time and anywhere and any way you want, for whatever price you feel like paying. Napster was created to make a butt load of money for the people who started it, off the backs of the people who created the content, and it got big because people used it because they could get the content for free, instead of actually paying for it. They took away the rights of the creators to control their product by force, not by valid market economics.

The thing is, none of you guys would accept this type of pressure on your business as fair market economics, as none of the rest of the world would on theirs. But everyone just assumes that any failure of the digital content industry to back down from any sort of control over their own product is just a sign that they are dinosaurs and need to be set straight.

By this sort of logic, customers of yours who talk you into giving them plans for systems they say they will buy, who then just take the plans somewhere else and get a better deal, or who just contest the price once the job is done and don't pay up in full because they know you don't have the money to take them all to court, would be just demonstrating to you that you are behind the times, and that people will get their automation systems how they want it, for the price they want it.

What's good for the goose is good for the gander, as they say. Well, no one actually says that anymore probably, but the lesson is valid.

So let me ask you a direct question. If the illegal add-ons were not available for this magic box, would people still buy it? I suspect the answer is no. Although the gadget is natively benign, it's main reason for being a hot item is illegitimate, based on the people who buy it, and their plans for how they intend to use it.