Landmark Court Case Underway for Sale of Preloaded Kodi Boxes

Preloaded Kodi Box Seller Admits Liability – Sentence to be decided!

In what could prove to be a major landmark ruling, a person who sold pre-loaded Kodi boxes is set to be sentenced in the UK courts after pleading guilty to the offense. This in itself is a unique matter as although he has not strictly speaking pirated anything, he has facilitated it.

This in itself is the major fundamental argument will Kodi, which we will cover shortly.

Will the court treat this in a similar manner to drugs? Where a seller is subject to significantly harsher penalties than a user. It is an interesting way to look at it for sure. One, I’m thinking, the guilty party is hoping the Judge isn’t.

The elephant in the room with Kodi

There is, at eTeknix, a general bunch of expectations when we write articles. If we write something about Nvidia, shots will be fired from an AMD fan. Similarly, if we write a positive story about AMD (like for instance Ryzen for the last 6 months) inevitably someone from Team Green or an Intel fan will have their say. Why do I mention this? Because we have a similar rule over Kodi. Whenever we mention Kodi there are arguments over whether it is legal or not.

While writing this, I am fully aware that Kodi, as a piece of software is not illegal to have. This is despite the fact that UK courts were considering making the program itself illegal.

Why would they choose to make the program illegal? Because of the elephant in the room that always draws criticism. Kodi might be a legitimate video player, but a significant (and probably vast majority) of users only have it for the piracy perks). It was thought for a while that the shutdown of a major repository might have marked the beginning of the end of piracy on Kodi, that however, was not the case.

What will this ruling mean?

The man in question, Brian Thompson from the UK admitted selling modified (preloaded) boxes with the software (and the piracy repositories) built in, reports the BBC. Having initially denied the claim, the prospects for the legal argument over Kodi itself may have been the subject of a final decision. At least, in the UK.

Judge Armstrong told Mr. Thompson: “I don’t know what the sentence will be, all options to the court will be open.”

The outcome, therefore, will truly be fascinating and could have significant repercussions for Kodi users, at the very least, in the UK.

What do you think the sentence will, or should, be? Let us know in the comments!