ACE launches a crackdown on illegal Kodi plugins

ACE sends out cease-and-desist letters to ‘pirate’ Kodi add-on developers and distributors

The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) has started sending out cease and desist letters as a new offensive against Kodi box manufacturers, developers and several individuals of the Kodi add-on community for facilitating piracy.

For those unaware, ACE is an anti-piracy coalition formed by the likes of Amazon, Disney, Netflix, 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros, HBO, CBS, Sony Pictures, Canal + and several major Hollywood studios to combat the pirate distribution of their content.

According to TorrentFreak, ACE has sent cease and desist letters to developers, distributors and several individuals asking them to stop their illegal activities such as development of extensions or their hosting on the internet or maintaining builds and repositories on YouTube that explains how to access protected content from Kodi.

Several sites have closed their doors, which includes NoobsAndNerds, a repository specialized in extensions for Kodi, is currently down, reports TVAddons who were the first to notice it. The site’s Twitter account has also been disabled.

SpinzTV, who offers unofficial Kodi builds and an associated repository, is also under the scanner.

It is a sad day for the SpinzTV team and we must now say goodbye. Thank you all for your support over the years. Aldo thank you to all the devs that helped make us what we became. @spinz_tv @connjam @PremiumLite

— SpezC (@SpezC1) February 13, 2018

Many netizens have started posting the letter received from ACE on Twitter. However, no one seems to care, for instance, like the developer, Teverz and YouTuber, Doggmatic (see their tweets below).

Woohoo. ACE found me and sent me a letter to stop. Told them to take me to court lmao

— Teverz (@TeverzMe) February 13, 2018

I have a legal representative calling them. the letters they sent aren't legal documents. No lawyer signed them and no law firm mentioned. @TeverzMe

— Doggmatic 71 (@Doggmatic71) February 13, 2018

This is not the first time ACE has initiated such an action. In November last year, ACE had summoned two plugin developers for Kodi to cease their activities. In February this year, ACE obtained a preliminary injunction against TickBox TV, a box distributed in the United States that explains in detail how to install illegal add-ons. TickBox, the company which sells the TickBox TV device, have been ordered to release a software update for TickBox TV to remove copyright-infringing add-ons from its Kodi-powered streaming boxes.

Source: TorrentFreak

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