Quote:
Originally Posted by OLD BOY
I was quite interested in Kodi as it appeared to offer so much additional content. However, it seems to me that unless you get the addons which give you access to pirated material, there's not really much there of any interest.
I am not prepared to go down the content piracy route as it doesn't feel right to me. What we are doing by watching it is denying proper payment to the content provider, which damages the whole industry, added to which I am not convinced by those who say that watching content by this means is perfectly legal. I don't see how it can be, as the viewer is basically watching stuff that is offered in return for payment. And we all know what it amounts to if you take possession of something you haven't paid for, don't we?
The lesson for content providers is to stop doing these exclusive deals and putting in place other restrictions so that we can all gain legitimate access to the programmes we want to watch without paying an arm and a leg for doing so. I am sure that, in the end, a way will be found to prevent piracy more effectively, but I will not be taking advantage of this loophole in the meantime.
Besides, with Netflix, Amazon, Now TV and my cable subscription, I can view most things that I want to see. But not everyone can afford that, and I do wonder if a solution may lie in 'the cloud' whereby everyone can obtain access to content for a reasonable price without having to subscribe to multiple content providers. This could work by payment of a subscription that would allow access to a given number of hours of content over the course of a month, which could be tiered as well to reflect the value of that content.
That would, to my mind, make for a more 'equal society' in terms of access to programming.
|
For full disclosure I am no angel and have fractured the odd copyright law online for a couple of decades at least.
That being said I am somewhere in the middle of your moral stance.
To give an example, whilst I have free access to almost every sporting event I would wish to watch via my kind friend in America who gave me the login to their cable account I still pay for the events I can get on British TV, but that is on a PPV basis with Now TV or by giving a family member £5 a month to have BT Sports added to their BT account for me to use.
People may think I'm foolish to pay out for things I could watch for free but I prefer to pay my way when its an option and only use my alternative methods when the event is denied me on British TV, what I will never do again is pay VM, Sky or anyone else for a load of crap I don't want to get access to the things I do want.
Kodi is actually a really good platform to play your locally stored content, legal services as well as being a great PVR.
Unfortunately apart from BBC Iplayer and UKTV Player the other British broadcasters have pretty much closed off Kodi's access to their service but the same can't be said for the US, with the main exception of HBO (which I don't need as I get Sky Atlantic via Now TV) an awful lot of the US broadcasters services are available via (legit) Kodi addons.
With regards to the main point of this thread and the future of linear TV I am again occupying the middle ground,
pretty much all of my media consumption is via on demand/OTT services, I honestly can't remember the last time I switched on live TV to be entertained with the large exception of watching live sports or the latest news.
Actually I guess this paragraph isn't the middle ground but it shows there are some things that linear channels still need to be there for!