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Most homes with the devices use add-ons that can access unlicensed content, per study
MEDIA PLAYER THAT offers consumers a way to purloin premium content poses a growing piracy threat to both programmers and distributors, according to a new study from bandwidth-management specialist Sandvine.
According to anonymous, networklevel data captured from more than 250,000 homes that get service from multiple tier-1, fixed-line North American internet-service providers, Sandvine said about 8.8% of homes in the region have at least one Kodi device with an active installation, and that the majority of those homes (68.8%) use an unofficial add-on configuration that enables the devices to access unlicensed content.
Sandvine's further math-crunching suggests that about 6% of all homes in North America have a Kodi device in some sort of content piracy mode.
Kodi, also known as XBMC, is opensource media-player software (hat allows users to access and view local media and to stream remote media, including video, music and photos. Though local content streaming was Kodi's primary application, users are increasingly using add-on modules to enable remote streaming, which is typically used to obtain unauthorized content.