UK Pirate Kodi Box Seller Pleaded not Guilty

A shopkeeper Brian Thompson accused of the supply of "fully-loaded" Kodi boxes pleaded not guilty in the United Kingdom – the man admitted selling modified set-top boxes but denied they were primarily designed to pirate copyrighted content.

 

Cheap Android devices like Amazon’s Fire Stick and many set-top variants today allow anyone to install legitimate software like Kodi and watch recorded video content. The biggest problem is that such devices can also be modified to illegally view movies, TV shows, live TV and PPV events. This phenomenon has reached epidemic proportions and is called a “major concern” in the United Kingdom. Since the copyright holders can’t do much to crack down on people modifying the boxes on their own, they choose another way – crack down on the suppliers selling pre-modified devices.

Police previously raided one of them over selling “fully loaded” Android boxes from his small premises. The man is being prosecuted by his local council and claims he’s done nothing wrong. As such, the case will now go to a full trial.

So, what is illegal about Kodi boxes? The installations with third-party addons allow to “farm” video content already available on “pirate” websites. It turns out that any anti-circumvention or anti-copying measures enforced by broadcasters have already been bypassed by the time the addon streams the content to the user.

Now the court will have to decide what part the seller played in bypassing those measures when selling modified Kodi devices. However, the landmark court ruling will have little effect on the Internet users who modify their own Kodi installations at home.

Thanks to TorrentFreak for providing the source of the article.