Facebook Bans 'Promotion' Of Kodi Boxes, Even If They're Perfectly Legal
from the somebody-is-clearly-terrified dept
If you haven't noticed, the entertainment industry has a new, terrifying bogeyman. Over the last year or two, pressure from entertainment industry lobbying groups has resulted in an all-out war on streaming video devices (aka computers) that run Kodi, the video streaming software. Kodi has technically been around since 2002, first as Xbox Media Player, after which it became the Xbox Media Center until 2014. The XBMC Foundation then renamed the software Kodi, and it became popular as an easy way to store and stream content, including copyrighted content, from hardware running Kodi to other devices in or out of the home.
For years now, tinkerers everywhere have built custom-made PCs that use the open-source Kodi platform. In more recent years, outfits like Dragonbox or SetTV have taken things further by selling users tailor-made hardware that provides easy access to live copyrighted content by not only including Kodi, but integrating numerous tools and add-ons that make copyright infringement easier. Driven largely by clearly-terrified entertainment-industry execs and lobbyists, numerous studios, Netflix and Amazon have tried to sue these efforts out of existence.
Even the FCC has tried to help the entertainment industry in this fight, demanding that Ebay and Amazon crack down on the sale of such devices. Since the FCC lacks authority over copyright, it has instead tried to justify its involvement here by focusing on these devices' illegal use of the FCC approval logo. It's another big favor to the entertainment industry by the Pai FCC, who you'll recall killed efforts to help make the traditional cable box sector more open and competitive.
But the fight has also been pushed well beyond "fully loaded" Kodi-embedded devices specifically built and sold with an eye on copyright infringement. Google, for example, has banned the word Kodi from its autocomplete filter despite the fact that the Kodi software is perfectly legal. Facebook has also been piling on, initially updating its commerce policy to ban the promotion of "products or items" that facilitate or encourage unauthorized access to digital media.
Last week, Cordcutter news was the first to notice that Facebook had since tailored its commerce policy further to specifically ban Facebook users from promoting "the sale or use of streaming devices with KODI installed.":
Facebook hasn't banned the sale of any devices that are compatible with Kodi-streaming devices (keyboards, remotes). But the specific focus on Kodi remains a problem because, again, Kodi itself isn't illegal. Nor is building a small custom-PC with Kodi (or any of numerous variants like Plex) installed. Banning users for selling custom PCs that just happen to include software the entertainment industry assumes will be used for piracy is an obnoxious over-reach, but it should make it clear just how terrified the entertainment industry is of such devices.
It's an age-old story. This "threat" (which again is perfectly-legal hardware running perfectly-legal software) could be countered by offering consumers better, more modifiable, and open products and services. Instead, as we saw with the cable industry's massive disinformation attack against cable box reform efforts, the goal is always to keep everything unrealistically locked down to the detriment of the right to tinker and consumer choice.
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Filed Under: copyright, kodi, kodi boxes
Companies: facebook
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perfectly legal?
Also, I think it's worth mentioning that it's perfectly legal for Facebook to create bans like this. You wouldn't want to interfere in their legal activities now, would you?
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Re: perfectly legal?
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Re: Re: perfectly legal?
You are happy to embrace corporate Fascism so long as the flavor that suits you.
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Re: Re: Re: perfectly legal?
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Re: perfectly legal?
And it is perfectly legal for us to point out the absurdity of those bans.
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Re: perfectly legal?
The lies, the deceit, and the outright in your face bullshit - this is why people complain about this crap. Apparently you think it is just fine and welcome more of the same.
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Re: perfectly legal?
You mean like walmart?
Sure no problem if that's the road they choose. As long as they follow state and federal laws I see no problem.
"it's perfectly legal for Facebook to create bans like this."
Absolutely. Also stupid. Which was the point.
"You wouldn't want to interfere in their legal activities now, would you?"
If only you were as smart as you think you are.
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Re: perfectly legal?
Yes if they do it legally
No
You’re welcome
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Re: perfectly legal?
They often comment on the legal status when there is a lawsuit or public response trying to push back against actions with a rally about "Free Speech" to respond to that push back, and often comment on moral grounds when moral panics or ethical panics or corporatist pressure is behind the activity being discussed.
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Re: perfectly legal?
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This is stupid even if Kodi were illegal.
What's next, Google is going to block other words it does not like? How about blocking the word murder, it is a horrific thing so why allow people to search on it? This is ridiculous.
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Future Onion Headline: Google Blocks the Word ‘Moist’ from Autocomplete Results After Mailroom Guy Says He Hates It
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On a side note, The Onion is having difficulties creating satirical pieces due to the totally insane world in which we now reside.
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Remeber
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No, because Team Kodi aren't the people who are selling those computers, they're just the developers who make the free/open-source media software that they run.
(Honest people who sell computers with Kodi preinstalled on them are clear and upfront about this distinction. Dishonest people are not.)
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Cable cutting is only a problem for the cable companies, not their prior customers nor anyone else who does not use their service. Many cut the cable and simply use ota, damned pirates - stealing over the air video.
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Traditional TV
I use Kodi to watch traditional TV!
To the best of my knowledge, Kodi is the only viable application to use as a frontend with MythTV as a backend. MythTV’s own frontend is clunky and out of date. It’s a coding example of how you could build a frontend, not something anyone would want to use.
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Good job, billionaires
Plenty of piracy on eBay that I have seen (Microsoft software license keys "come here and collect the broken motherboard this key is tired to if you want it", etc).
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Re: Good job, billionaires
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Hyperbole doesn't make a bad argument better.
Utter horseshit.
What I would pay for my family now is nowhere close to a weeks pay from back when I was making minimum wage decades ago.
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Re: Hyperbole doesn't make a bad argument better.
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Re: Re: Hyperbole doesn't make a bad argument better.
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Maybe if the cable companies was as good as adelphia cable and
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Re: Maybe if the cable companies was as good as adelphia cable and
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Isn't this total fodder for a whack-a-mole situation
When the [1994 assault weapons ban] came out with a list of components that make an assault weapon, gun developers got right on the task of making alternative devices that did not, according to the legal descriptions qualify as that specific component. Pistol-style foregrips, for example, were replaced with a weird looking handle with a thumb-hole that worked close enough.
This looks like a thing where KODI can be replaced with any other software that does exactly the same thing, even if the code is identical to KODI except for enough aesthetic changes to make it not KODI.
Still, these are people and industries that are happy to pirate for their own uses, even while they try to hunt those that pirate their own IP, so it's hard to take them seriously as having a legitimate gripe.
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Re: Isn't this total fodder for a whack-a-mole situation
Crap. I forgot to add the link regarding the 1994 assault weapons ban.
Always, always, always preview.
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Re: Re: Isn't this total fodder for a whack-a-mole situation
You have 2 consecutive posts. Bad gorilla. Flag and censor immediately, please.
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Failure to parse.
Anonymous Coward I'm really trying to give you the benefit of the doubt by assuming your gorilla story has something to do with Facebook or KODI and / or the topic above.
And failing.
Should I move on and assume you are malicious or ignorant?
Perhaps you should elaborate and clarify your intent.
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Sounds familiar
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Kodi
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Re: Kodi
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Re: Kodi
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That stupid "need" argument.
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Awesome!
XBMC was an ambitious project, but shortly before they started calling it Kodi was when everything turned to shit. They abandoned their hacker roots, got greedy, tried to "go legit", changed the project's name to something you'd call a cat, and then fell right on their asses. Ha and ha.
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Re: Awesome!
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Facebook bans kodi
Negatively influence american politics.
And just how is the Facebook ban on kodi going stop the flow of information of kodi on the internet or on Facebook anyway.
The devices, the app and it's spinoffs.
Long live Open Source. Let's build our own Facebook.
.
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No such thing as a kodi box
kodi is simply a media application you can run on your pc, apple ,or android device.
ignorance of the technology is why there is a problem in the first place
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Re: No such thing as a kodi box
Might not be hard to jailbreak, but that was how it was delivered.
B
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Free
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How about
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Associated with mystery fiction.
Agatha Christie enthusiasts would have a meltdown. And every last one of them knows how to kill people in creative ways.
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