In the summer of 2019, a 40-year-old man was arrested in Winsford, Chesire (UK). The identity of the man did not transcend, but the reason did: create and maintain a Kodi addon that allowed watch pirate IPTV. This addon, called Supremacy, it was very popular until a couple of years ago.
The operation was carried out after complaints from the Premier League, BT Sport and Virgin Media. The arrested, called Stephen Millington, is now 42 years old, and he acknowledged before the judge the accusations of fraud and copyright infringement that his software allowed to carry out. Specifically, it allowed access to paid content from BT Sport, Sky, Netflix and other subscription platforms.
I kept a repository and a Kodi mod
The developer kept the modified software through stephen-builds.uk, which was only one modified Kodi version which allowed pirated content to be accessed directly without any complications, which made it gain popularity quite quickly. In addition, it offered the addons Supremacy and Supremacy Sports on their website, and offered support on Facebook, giving instructions on how to use them. There was also tutorials on YouTube.
For this reason, it is accused that its modifications allowed access to content valued at 4.5 million euros each year, exceeding the 11.7 million euros during his operation. Among the crimes he is accused of are create and supply software to allow the illegal access to paid content, distribute royalty-free movies through a dedicated server he controlled, share login credentials for paid streaming services, and illegally access content for his own use. For all these crimes, the judge has sentenced him to 2 and a half years in prison.
The issue of hacking addons reached such a level of severity that the Kodi Foundation had to make a list of official repositories to preventassociated software with piracy, since the program is nothing more than a mere player like VLC and others.
FACT continues to pursue IPTV piracy
Behind all the research is the FACT (Federation Against Copyright Theft). This association affirms that it will continue to monitor all kinds of online channels that advertise, sell and distribute software, addons, devices and links to view pirated content, in order to get them to leave their activity as quickly as possible.
The truth is that research like this has made the hacking on Kodi has decreased. You can no longer buy preloaded devices in stores like eBay, Amazon or AliExpress as you could a few years ago. The main persecution now is those who offer links and actively pirate the original signals of paid content.