The Curious Case of Kodi Addon Suppliers: American and Indian Legal Perspective
2018 (75) PTC
16 Pages Posted: 30 Jan 2019
Date Written: July 08, 2018
Abstract
In June 2017, American satellite and broadcast provider ‘Dish Network’ dragged one ‘ZemTV’ (an add-on developer for kodi software) and ‘TVaddons.ag’ (the largest add-on online library for Kodi-software users) to the Texas Federal Court for copyright infringement. According to the complaint, ‘ZemTV’ is accused for directly infringing the copyrights of various TV channels by providing an add-on (whereby the channels are retransmitted over internet), which allows the end-users to stream the copyright-content on their TV illegally i.e. without paying any subscription fee to the broadcasters,while the ‘TVAddons website’ is accused to be indirectly (contributory/vicariously) liable for marketing and inducing the distribution of the ‘ZemTV add-on’ to the end-users. The case is still at its nascent stage and effective replies are yet to be filed by both the accused coupled with the thingness that a lot of questions of facts are still to be established by both the parties but this Paper would try to augur the possible outcome of the case.
Keywords: Online Copyright Infringement, Digital Media Content, Vicarious Liability, Online-Piracy, Illegal Streaming (Reception)
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