Kodi UK CRACKDOWN: Govt Starts Targeting Kodi USERS in the United Kingdom (WARNING)

The Kodi UK crackdown is heating up.  United Kingdom government officials very recently announced that they will be targeting their citizens who use Kodi to stream illegal movies & TV shows.

This news comes after the lawsuit against the maker of the popular Phoenix TV Addon was set in place.  TVAddons.ag went offline recently also.

FACTS:  

• The leading member of the UK’s top anti-piracy organization issued an official public statement, saying that the UK gov’t could soon “start targeting ordinary Kodi users”.
• Kieron Sharp, CEO of the Federation Against Copyright Theft made this statement
  

  F.A.C.T. made a public statement targeting Kodi end-users

• A new ruling was passed in April of 2017 by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), which says that the streaming of copyrighted material to a Kodi device without the copyright owner’s consent is illegal.

Fortunately, VPN technology saves UK Kodi users from worrying about copyright infringement issues.

Read on to see how to eliminate the chance of being targeted by your own government.

• Spoiler:  How to Hide Kodi Firestick IP Address forever in 5 minutes or less (Video tutorial + written guide).  Or scroll down to the bottom of this post to see How to hide your IP address while streaming.

IMPORTANT:  KFireTV does not condone or support the streaming of illegal content.  This information is for the purpose of securing your online data via automated VPN-level encryption.

Kodi UK Crackdown

Get to know the bloody details of how United Kingdom authorities are ready to bring the hammer down on their own citizens for watching movies illegally.

As UK authorities prepare to go after their own citizens, the Kodi scene continues on..

Don’t forget that Kodi itself is not illegal!  The TVAddons that can be added in Kodi can be illegal.  Although – keep in mind that you can use an “illegal” TVAddon to watch legal movies.

The info below gets you up to speed on the Kodi UK crackdown.

What’s happening in the UK Kodi Crackdown?

UK authorities made a statement confirming that they plan to actually prosecute end users of Kodi.

• The maximum jail sentence for streaming illegal content with Kodi was also raised from 2 years to 10 years.  Although the dorks in charge of this movement claim that the maximum sentence is only reserved for the most blatant of offenders (aka large-scale Kodi box sellers).

*** UK Kodi users enjoy 60% off the world’s leading International VPN service ***

Why did UK gov’t raise the maximum Jail Sentence by 8 years?

So, why did UK government lawmakers raise the maximum jail time for copyright violation from 2 years to 10 years?

Supposedly the UK government raised the max jail time for copyright infringement as a message to large-scale Kodi box sales companies.

Firestick VPN Setup Video (Brand New App for Fire Stick!)

Use the step-by-step Firestick VPN tutorial video above to quickly setup the new Firestick VPN app to protect your Kodi data from prying eyes.

Which organizations are targeting Kodi TV Addons?

• Internet Service Providers (aka ISPs)
• Government agencies
• Broadcasters of copyrighted content
• Copyright holders and other owners of intellectual property
• Dish Network:  This company recently filed one or multiple lawsuits against one or more parties related to the makers of a few illegal Kodi plugins.

Who will be targeted for Kodi-related legal issues?

• Important:  When we say “Kodi box” in the context of this article, we mean a “fully-loaded” Kodi box with illegal TVAddons set up.  You need to know there’s a huge difference between selling a device with no apps installed – and selling a device with illegal streaming apps installed.

1. UK Kodi end-users will be targeted
2. Kodi box importers
3. Makers of Kodi boxes (aka “manufacturers”)
4. Distributors of Kodi boxes
5. Sellers of Kodi boxes
6. People who “provide the apps and addons”
7. Developers of Kodi add-ons
8. Santa Claus – just kidding.  The UK govt is not targeting Santa Claus (as far as we know..)
   

   Grandma uses Kodi – will she go to prison, too? Not if you install the Firestick VPN app for her ;)

Why are UK authorities targeting their own citizens?

The CEO of an anti-piracy group known as FACT (Federation Against Copyright Theft) claims that people who stream movies illegally with Kodi are “committing criminal offenses”.  Therefore, they apparently find it logical to come after UK citizens who use Kodi for streaming illegal content.

What if I stream movies legally (ex: public domain movies) – Can they mistake legal content for illegal content?

Absolutely!  The automated methods used by ISPs to filter through the log files of their users are often wrong.

How would this work?

Here’s an example of how your legal movie streams may be mistaken for illegal content:

• Your Internet Service Provider scans through all the digital downloads made by your IP address.
• They filter out all the stuff that’s clearly not illegal streams or illegal downloads (such as downloading a picture from Facebook, for example)
• Then they match up file names of the movies you stream or download with file names of known copyright movies, music, and TV shows
• If your streams or downloads match any movie titles, album titles, or TV show names, they “put you on a list” and send you a nasty letter
• *** UK Government may now “add” this step:  To send the copyright violator a court summons or monetary fine.

Let’s make this into a real-world example with an actual movie:  White Zombie..

• You launch Kodi and start streaming the movie “White Zombie”, which is a public domain movie that’s free to watch.
• A few hours later, your ISP filters through your transferred data and sees that your IP address transferred hundreds of megabytes of data that has the file name “White Zombie”.
• Now, your Internet Service Provider tries to match the name of the file with the names of any movies, albums, or TV shows in the database of copyrights.
• Then their automated system sees that there’s an album by a popular copyright-holding music group called “White Zombie”.
• At this point, the filename of the movie you streamed “positively matches” the filename of a copyrighted work.  You have been marked.
• Finally, your Internet Service Provider sends you a Notice of Copyright Infringement.  This notice is a legal threat that contains a statement saying “legal action may be brought against you”.

So, based on this method of identifying copyright infringement violators, you could very well be targeted even though you haven’t streamed anything illegal.  Crappy, right?

This is why we have VPN service: to hide your IP address and conceal our streaming data.

How to Hide Your IP Address with a VPN

It’s super-easy to hide your Kodi device’s IP address.  Depending on what type of device you’re using, you simply just use whatever app is perfect for that device.  Here is the exact list of the most popular Kodi-capable devices and how to install VPN on each one:

1. Kodi Firestick VPN app – There’s a brand new VPN app for Firestick!  Make sure you grab 60% off the subscription cost to bring it down to $4.87/mo USD (that’s £3.74 GBP).  I also have a video tutorial that shows how to set up VPN on Firestick!
2. Android TV Box VPN – Just use the Android VPN app.  I have at least 1 video tutorial that shows you how to install the Android VPN app.  Also check out my Kodi VPN setup video.
3. Windows VPN (link) – Windows computers have a pretty simple VPN setup process.  You just install the app on your Windows PC and enter your VPN info into the app – then press Connect.
4. Mac VPN setup (link) – Settings up a VPN on a Mac computer or laptop is similar to the PC VPN setup.  Use the setup guide (here) on the VPN provider’s website to set it up quickly.

• See a list of all VPN setup tutorials in this VPN Tutorials YouTube playlist.

ProTip:  If you live in the UK and you want to set up VPN service on your router, then get this VPN router from Amazon UK for £18 GBP and use my mini-router VPN tutorial video to set up your new VPN service on it.  Or, get an ASUS RTN12 router from Amazon UK (£42 GBP) and add your VPN to it with my ASUS VPN tutorial video.

Setting up VPN service on your router (using the links above) creates a new, 2nd WiFi network that’s always connected to your VPN (and even includes a VPN killswitch feature).  This is the most ideal setup, but requires a bit more setup time than simply installing the VPN app individually on all your devices.

Kodi UK Crackdown Wrap Up

It may come as a shock for some Kodi users to know that their government will now be targeting UK citizens.

But experienced Kodi users already know that the United Kingdom’s authorities want to block more than just Kodi streams.

See how the UK government made it legal for ISPs to sell UK residents’ browsing history.