XBMC is changing its name to Kodi, and XBMC Hub is now TV Addons.
“Several years of steady growth and millions of users later, we’ve finally revamped our entire web site and support material in order to accommodate you better in the future. There’s a new way to install add ons, and more,” wrote a spokesperson for TV Addons in an email to Broadband TV News.
XBMC changed its name to Kodi because their growth potential was limited by the name due to the fact that they couldn’t trademark it because it stood for Xbox Media Center, and the name had been heavily misused across the internet and was closely associated with piracy. In order to eliminate future confusion, they set a rule that unofficial fan sites (like TV Addons) couldn’t include the word Kodi in their site name.
TV Addons has redone the site from scratch, “each and every guide was rewritten with the newbie in mind, we redesigned the whole approach to the use of add ons for Kodi, making the setup so much simpler for everyone. It is highly suggested that you consider taking this opportunity to reinstall XBMC onto your devices from scratch.”
Unlike Popcorn Time, TV Addons claims it is legal because its use doesn’t involve ‘seeding’ or sharing of content with other users the way Popcorn Time or torrents do.
“XBMC is an open source media player that was designed to support the creation of add ons used to interface with web content by third parties. These addons are used to convert web accessible content into a video on demand style system, making it easy to navigate for home entertainment purposes. So basically, you can browse sites like YouTube from an ad-free television style menu, instead of a web browser,” wrote TV Addons’ Eleazar Cohen.
“Basically certain third-party developers got together and created a series of add ons which provide functionality enabling the user to access video streaming web sites such as PrimeWire, Project Free TV, IceFilms, Movie4k, YIFY, and ustvnow. Since then, dozens of other developers have created plugins that interface with many other categories of streaming content, giving you access to pretty much any movie or television show ever made in any language. This community is offshore owned and operated.”
XBMC runs on with Mac, Windows, Android, Amazon Fire TV, OUYA, iPad, iPhone, Apple TV, and Linux. The XBMC Foundation (who develop the base platform) can’t be held responsible for the add ons which are created under open source licensing by developers who have no official association with the XBMC Foundation itself.
