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#Post#: 4--------------------------------------------------
Kodi Addon Developers Quit Following Threats From MPA, Netflix,
Amazon
DIR By: xylex
Date: November 16, 2017, 7:59 am
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Two Kodi addon developers, both of whom distributed addons via
the popular Colussus addon repository, have been told to cease
and desist their activities. A letter delivered to one,
apparently by hand in the UK, reveals that the MPA/MPAA led
Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, which counts Netflix
and Amazon among its members, is behind the action.
While Kodi is undoubtedly the most popular media player software
in the world right now, it’s also the most hated by
entertainment industry groups. On its own its an extremely
decent and legal piece of software but with third-party add-ons
it becomes a piracy powerhouse.
Earlier this year, following the legal attack on the TVAddons
repository, several addon developers decided to call it quits.
Facing a multi-million dollar lawsuit was something none of them
fancied so shutting down became the preferred option for some.
But while others kept going, there are now clear signs that the
fallout isn’t over yet.
Last evening news began to emerge of fresh upheaval in the Kodi
addon scene. In a posting on Twitter, Kodi addon developer
jsergio123 delivered the first blow, effectively announcing his
retirement.
“Sorry to say but I am stopping all development of the
urlresolver, metahandler, and my other addons,” he said.
Early reports indicate that the retirement was the result of
Hollywood threats but as the dust settled there, another clearer
case emerged in Europe.
UK-based Kodi addon developer The_Alpha was believed to be
involved in the popular Colossus repository, having previously
been part of an addon called Bennu, which many view as the
successor to the resurrected Phoenix addon.
Yesterday The_Alpha also threw in the towel after receiving a
letter at his home in the UK, hand-delivered by the world’s most
powerful anti-piracy coalition – the Alliance for Creativity and
Entertainment (1,2).
“This letter is addressed to you by companies of the six-major
United States film studios represented by the Motion Picture
Association (MPA), namely Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc.,
Disney Enterprises, Inc., Paramount Pictures Corporation,
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Universal City Studios
LLLP and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., Netflix, Inc. and
Amazon Studios LLC (represented by MPA via the Alliance for
Creativity and Entertainment (ACE)), Sky UK Limited, and The
Football Association Premier League Limited,” the breathless
opening paragraph reads.
“We are writing to you concerning your development, distribution
and/or involvement in the operation of certain third party Kodi
add-ons under the moniker ‘The Alpha’. The infringing addons
provide unlawful access to protected copyright works, including
works owned by, or exclusively licensed to, the Content
Companies.”
The letter, a copy of which was obtained by TVAddons, also notes
The_Alpha’s involvement in the popular Colossus Kodi addon
repository, which shut down last evening, taking dozens of
popular addons with it.
The letter: shut down – or else
The shutdown of the Colossus repo and the two developers’ addons
is undoubtedly a severe blow to the Kodi scene. But, while many
casual users might be familiar with Colossus and Bennu, most
won’t appreciate the importance of URLResolver. Most recently
maintained by jsergio12 and distributed via TVAddons, this is an
extremely important addon. Here’s how it works.
When Kodi plays content using addons, whether that’s a movie or
TV show, links to that content have to be obtained (scraped)
from sites hosting it. This means that all addons would
ordinarily have to have their own code in order to find the URLs
where that content can be obtained. It can be a different
process for every video host, a big job for any developer.
That’s where URLResolver comes in.
This clever tool helps other addons access content by resolving
video hosting site URLs to enable related content to be played
in Kodi. URLResolver is a really important tool but since it
comes packaged with addons that rely on it, most users won’t
even know it’s already on their system.
They’ll definitely miss it when it’s gone, since among other
things it was utilized by the extremely popular Covenant addon.
All may not be lost though, since TVAddons indicate they’ll try
to keep URLResolver alive.
“TV ADDONS has been distributing URLResolver from our community
repository since our return in August. We plan on continuing to
provide updates, although we expect things to be slowed a bit by
jsergio123’s sudden retirement,” the site said.
While also useful, MetaHandler is a different beast. The addon
queries sites such as thetvdb.com, themoviedb.org and imdb.com,
extracts relevant metadata (such artwork and summaries etc) and
installs it in a database for local use in Kodi.
Adding to his retirement announcement, Jsergio123 took to
Twitter to confirm problems over in the UK.
“I am not responsible for Covenant and Bennu but Colossus has
agreed to delete the repo too,” Jsergio123 confirmed.
The Colossus repo has been taken offline, taking the addons
above and many others with it. The fallout from this could be
pretty significant so it will interesting to see how the
community responds.
There’s no publicly confirmed reason for Jsergio123
discontinuing development but given the obvious problems in the
UK and a subsequent tweet, everything points to the whole affair
being linked to the same threats of legal action.
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