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Hi Admins
with the new stance on piracy etc, and not talking about certain plugins you certainly are overlooking other areas of improvement where as 3rd party tools or Supplementary Tools for XBMC where as promoting illegal downloads ie (piracy) how come this hasn't been cracked down on as harshly as a few plugins has.
If we look at some of the tools (not trying to be an ass here towards the developers of these apps) it seems that if you made an plugin that streams or enables piracy content its removed on the spot but if you make a supplementary tool its perfectly fine to have a thread and support it here on this forum.
my simple questions is why ? is this something you overlooked or just ignoring it
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It depends on the situation. If you can realistically use a tool for legitimate (non-rule-violating) uses, then it's typically fine as long as it's not screaming "ZOMG, YOU CAN PIRATE MOVIES". For example, various torrent clients. Sure, you can make the argument that most people will use it for pirating movies, but it's really just a protocol that is neutral. It's as if most people have looked at porn in a web browser, that doesn't mean that banning web browsers would be in line with an anti-porn rule.
Most of the add-on discussion that gets thrown in the trash are situations where the add-on is explicitly being used for bootleg video streaming. No gray area. At one point in the past an add-on like Navi-X had a realistic gray area, and we allowed discussion about that add-on, but then the vast majority of the content the add-on accessed shifted to the point of little-to-no-doubt.
There are supplemental tool discussions that I personally am not crazy about. To me things like SickBeard and Couch Potato don't just cover the "protocol" like bit torrents do, but they also facilitate in the search and discovery of bootleg video content. It's still enough of a gray area for the entire group of Team XBMC that we don't outright ban those tools from being discussed, however. It's been hotly debated many times, and while I would probably error on the side of caution, I can respect the view that these tools are still in a gray area.
Remember, the point of the piracy policy is to protect XBMC in at least two ways: One is from legal action, or legal related action (imagine a web host dropping us because they think we provide those videos, for example. It doesn't have to be a lawsuit to be an issue).
Two is our image, and keeping XBMC neutral in these controversies. The various bootleg video add-ons have become so popular that people constantly confuse XBMC's purpose. Some users are unaware that XBMC is designed to work with a local video library of files, and they think XBMC is simply a "client" to websites like 1channel and mashup. That's a problem for us.
There's other reasons as well, but for me those are the two biggest reasons. As long as they are covered then other gray area discussions are typically not an issue. We have to judge these situations case by case, and you will see variation in the judgement by different people in Team XBMC (as we are different people who consider different things), but it's all with the same intention to protect the XBMC project. Remember, the XBMC project and Team XBMC don't really care if you pirate video or not, nor are we out to stop (or promote) video piracy. We just can't have certain discussions happen on this website.
We continue to refine how we handle these situations, and maybe they will change in the future if the situation requires it, but hopefully this explains things a little bit.
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Well it just feels hypocritical too me (and i dont use 1channel etc) just seems like madness cracking down harshly on one thing and let the same thing happen in another area of the forum.. no pun intended
feels like if the rules are there then it should be same for all not just for some.
(not anti downloading or streaming for anyone reading)
seen users just meantion 1channel and mods freakout while scene releases tips on how to download and configure to get good releases etc is being discussed in the open without repercussions.
again if you have a policy enforce it or scrap it thats my 2 cents
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I do think a lot of the reactions are a bit too harsh, but that's mostly due to frustration. Even I lose my cool probably a bit too often when it comes to these things. In a perfect world we should calmly explain the situation to those who ask for help with those add-ons, rather than (what must feel like) pulling the rugs out from people's feet.
Add to this the related, but separate situation where we've had identify issues with other sites trying to make a name for themselves, or make a quick buck selling cheap android boxes, and the frustration grows even more. We have people who, probably with good intentions, are making "wizards" that auto install these add-ons and also modify configuration files, which ends up breaking XBMC in some cases, and causing additional support burden on XBMC.org. If it was just the Piracy Policy alone, then I think things would be more calm when the topic came up.
I think "frustration" sums it up very well. We're frustrated with more than just the rules being violated. We can all learn to be a little more composed and address the issue more calmly, but we're only human.
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The dark side of success, when other pray on your product glad i don't have to deal with that anymore.. still Ned my point is the same about the Piracy Policy might wanna look it over and look at the tools being supported and see whats really relevant to XBMC future and whats not cause today its 1channel tomorrow its something else.
Its better to refine the forum to XBMC needs thus distancing yourself from potential problems instead of harboring em
if thats the line you guys want head towards.
(again not an anti piracy person for anyone reading it might seem messed up)
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Just to be sure we're on the same page, are we talking about more than just the Sick Beard and Couch Potato threads here? I took a look at the first few pages in the Supplemental Tools area and didn't really find anything that was even "gray area" except for those two. I could have easily missed something, though.
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natethomas
Enjoying Retirement by Staying Busy
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The stance on something like Sickbeard has always been the same. It does not perform the act of piracy. It may help other apps to do so, but it itself does not. If you actually read the piracy policy, you will see we very specifically created this exception for apps that don't technically perform piracy.
I and many others feel that's an important distinction. If the hypocritically allowed tools are something else that actually perform an exclusively pirate act, then that'd be something to talk about.
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Still it is a tool aimed at piracy since it actively searches and download torrents to the client, again a statement is a statement, can just have it applied to some..
I know it's a tricky discussion I used to have em myself back in the day when I was apart of developing a p2p App.
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jjd-uk
Team-Kodi Member
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As far as I see it the only aim for the Piracy Policy is to protect XBMC from legal issues so our only concern is whether a discussion could potentially cause a legal issue that may result in the website/forum being taken down. As long as we don't see any legal consequences then a discussion is allowed as we make no morale judgement on where people get there content, and certainly not on an anti-piracy crusade.
These things are often reviewed internally and thus far the consensus seems to be that allowing discussions of tools which don't directly download content is not something we need to be worried about. If say the MPAA started legal proceedings against a Couchpotato or other similar tool then that view would probably change very quickly.
