Popular Kodi repositories NoobsandNerds, Teverz, SpinzTV and others received cease and desist orders today and have taken down their repos in the latest wave of attacks on Kodi developers. Read the full details below.
Unfortunately, more popular Kodi sources were hit with cease and desist letter today from ACE, a company representing multi-billion dollar communications entities around the world. These letters were identical to what was received by the Colossus, Dandy Media, Mucky Ducky, and other repos back in November.
The cease and desist letter alleges that the defendant receiving the letter is encouraging copyright infringement through the addons. The letter does not appear to be a signed legal document. There is no signature from a lawyer and no law firm is listed on the letter. It simply asks each use to “stop” or be faced with further punishment.
Below is a summary of who we know was contacted and the current response by those people.
Teverz Repo
Teverz is a Youtube video maker who has his own wizard for Kodi builds. He is not an addon developer to our knowledge. Teverz received a letter and talked to the person on the phone via the number supplied. So far, Teverz is keeping everything online, calling the letter nothing but a “scare tactic” without any sort of legal weight.
Doggmatic
Doggmatic is a Kodi youtuber, build maker, and member of the Illuminati Repo. Like Teverz and Blamo, it appears that he is not going anywhere and will not be intimidated by the letter.
Noobs and Nerds Repository
One or more members of the Noobs and Nerds repository also received letters today and as of this post, the official NoobsandNerds website leads to a suspended account message. The NaN repo has been pulled offline.
OpenELEQ, one of the developers with Noobs and Nerds, posted the following on Twitter:
You probably all seen it allready: Nan-site is offline as is their twitter. It does not look like it will be comming back either and I have also emptied out my repo’s of all content that could be considered copyright-infringing.
I will be keeping my git-account alive though simply to avoid it being high-jacked, nothing else. Also, if you see claims in the future that I or Nan endorses TVA (similar to what happened to Xunity), do not believe it as that will never ever happen!
SpinzTV Repository
SpinzTV, one of the most popular Kodi builds on the internet and his repository also hosted the Cartoon Crazy and Strictly HD addons. As of today, his repo is offline and he has stated that he is finished with Kodi for now.
Blamo Repo
Blamo, the developer behind Placenta, Neptune Rising, and Death Streams, did NOT receive a letter from ACE. However, he has pulled his repository location and moved it to a new server. He has stated that he is taking a break from Twitter temporarily because he “has some stuff to take care of and some projects to do”.
Side note: also The Pyramid / Team ZT And Grace Green / Looking Glass got cease and desist letters too.