UK Government Issue Legal Guidelines for Kodi Boxes

UK Government issues formal legal guidelines for Kodi Box owners and retailers

Selling a product with Kodi pre-installed is not illegal. We (mostly) already knew this. Despite this, new governmental guidelines can now confirm this. We can all sleep a little easier now. Well, those of us with Kodi installed can. Well, those of us that use it legally at any rate.

In a bid to tackle piracy via the media player, the UK government has launched official guidelines as to the usage, ownership and retail of products with the media player pre-installed. While we are aware that it in itself is a perfectly legitimate product, the vultures are circling overhead. Therefore, the regulations may actually help in keeping Kodi alive, but only as long as its being used for legal purposes and it should be noted that the guidelines do not appear to specifically be targeting users with them being more angled towards the legality of the sale of pre-loaded boxes.

Frankly, those who do use it for illegal purposes know full well they’re doing something wrong. If not, ignorance of the law, as they say, is no excuse.

What are the regulations?

The government webpage for the guidelines can be read in full here, but in brief, it’s making itself perfectly clear. While a retailer can supply a pre-loaded box, with Kodi installed, the moment they add repositories which could potentially access illegal/copyrighted material is the moment they break the law. Therefore, while they can supply them, the receiver must do this and break the law themselves.

The regulations do go as far as to say that pre-installed boxes should not be purchased and in fairness to the government, it’s a very well worded piece of advice. They do, however, use a tack of family suitability rather than outright piracy accusations.

The regulations come in recent light of a significant health and safety warning over the build quality of pre-loaded boxes being very poor and a potential electrical/fire hazard.

What do you think? A necessary clarification of the law? Will it actually help Kodi more than hinder? – Let us know in the comments!