Millions of Kodi users around the world are worried about where the streaming platform is heading. Many of them have spent hundreds of dollars on their setups. Now ReviewsDir, a review website, is trying to raise public awareness of the options they still have.
The concern is easy to understand. Over the two months before December 20, 2017, hundreds of add-ons and dozens of Kodi repositories disappeared from the community. ReviewsDir covered the shutdowns in an article about Covenant and other add-ons closed by legal threats. It also laid out a way for users to avoid such risks.
How Kodi grew
People like new ways to make life more entertaining, and Kodi became one of them. It lets users stream movies, TV shows, music and games from one place. No cable subscription or satellite provider is needed.
Because it is free and open source, Kodi became famous very quickly. It began as Xbox Media Center (XBMC), a home entertainment project, and has since built a community of its own. Since its 2003 debut, over 500 developers and over 200 translators have rebuilt it again and again. At first it supported 12 languages, while by the end of 2014 that number had grown to 75.
Why add-ons are disappearing
According to Adam Orr, head of marketing at ReviewsDir, Kodi itself is not illegal. Still, its open nature puts it at risk, he said. Too many add-ons and pirated streams hide what the software really offers. In his view, community members and developers should take the lead and keep the add-on scene clean, because Kodi is here to stay.
The pressure has been building for months. On November 15, 2017, Colossus, the most widely used Kodi repository, was taken down after developers received repeated threats. As a result, Covenant and other add-ons hosted there, such as DeathStreams and Bennu, are gone too. A few months earlier, Exodus, the best-known Kodi add-on, had also shut down over piracy concerns.
ReviewsDir compares the situation to the fate of peer-to-peer file sharing. P2P is an advanced way to move large files between networks. Yet because people misused it, it is now illegal in many parts of the world.
What users can do
ReviewsDir has an answer, though. It is aimed at film fans and sports viewers who want to stay clear of pirated content. The site condemns illegal use of these tools and encourages people to use them for legitimate purposes. It has also published a guide on why a VPN matters for Kodi users. Its advice is to pick a reliable one.
In the end, users need to protect themselves by paying for licensed content and avoiding pirated streams. At the same time, ReviewsDir says, lawmakers and police should take the growing threat seriously. They should act to protect the entertainment rights of millions of Kodi users.
