DRM, Kodi and the Death of the Amazon Fire TV Stick
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"While the Kindle Fire line has at all times used personalized distributions of Android, particularly 2.3.3 (API degree 10) (Kindle Fire) and 4.0.Three (API level 15) (Fire HD), Amazon solely started referring to the distribution as Fire OS starting with its third iteration of Kindle Fire tablets, which includes the Fire HD 2nd technology and Fire HDX models. This is where things start to get ugly for Amazon and the Fire Flixy TV Stick product line. By using Android as their core platform, Amazon saved millions in engineering and startup costs. Using an Open Source version of Android gave Amazon a pair year head-start on constructing out the Fire Tv ecosystem. As Google forged new frontiers in the deployment of Android, Amazon willingly benefited as a downstream licensee of the core open source Android platform. Not all that glitters is gold and as of this previous week and as Amazon is studying, Android is a realllllly nice platform for 3rd occasion builders however good and bad.


Because it turns out, as a result of the devices are small, low-cost and straightforward to distribute, hackers have decided to give attention to enabling the Fire Flixy TV Stick stick to be the ultimate platform for consuming unlawful content. With the addition of a very highly effective media participant platform referred to as Kodi (Formerly XBMC), a person can access a whole bunch of hacked illegal apps that allow free unlimited entry to a variety of formerly paid content material websites like NetFlix, Hulu and others. But as of Friday final week, Amazon has stopped promoting the Android Fire Flixy TV Stick stick. Don’t hold your breath though. Apparently the platform has grow to be such a huge channel for widespread piracy that Amazon has made the interior choice to stop promoting the product TWO WEEKS Before CHRISTMAS. This needs to be an enormous blow to the Amazon Fire Tv Team. This product was selling like hotcakes. On July 12th of 2016, labeled " Flixy Stick official Flixy Stick official Flixy Stick official Flixy Stick official Amazon Flixy TV Stick Flixy Stick official Prime Day" amazon offered over 500,000 Fire Tv sticks and pucks. But the fact is Amazon has made a clear determination to stem the move of piracy on their platform.


As a significant content material licensee to the tunes of $100M a 12 months, Amazon knows that in the event that they additional enable the usage of their platform in widespread piracy, they are endangering the lifeblood of their content distribution enterprise where they've made vital investments in Amazon Prime Video, Amazon Music, the whole Fire Tv brand and unnamed future stay Tv choices rumored to be in the works. What’s odd in this situation is that the key driver right here is the price of the Amazon Fire TV Flixy Stick official. All the Fire Tv merchandise use the same Fire OS 5.Zero primarily based on Android 5.Zero (API degree 22). But the Fire Tv was selling for only $39.99 whereas the Fire Flixy TV Stick puck, for instance was selling for north of $ninety and the gaming enable version was going for $130 and change. The small kind issue and value of the Fire TV stick made it a really perfect platform for the unlawful distribution of premium content material.


You can now find the Jailbroken Amazon Fire Tv sticks retailing for almost 2X-3X their unique price on various on-line sites including Facebook Groups. The one thing that is perfectly clear here and ought to be stressed is that by no means did Digital Rights Management applied sciences, used to encrypt and protect premium video content, have something to do with the misuse of the Fire TV stick platform. There is no such thing as a proof in any respect that would assist pointing the finger at DRM applied sciences as being the wrongdoer here. Hackers are merely utilizing the options built into Android to add a 3rd get together application that does the truth is provide a platform for unlawful streaming purposes. That’s this whole state of affairs in a nutshell. Until Amazon figures out a approach to close the door on this option within the Open Source model of Android they're utilizing, the Fire Tv platform can be very vulnerable.


We could soon see this Kodi outbreak extend to other units within the Fire Tv ecosystem. Only time and the market will tell. But one thing is evident, let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. DRM didn’t cause this situation and is not the offender. BuyDRM is proud to announce our inclusion in the 2016 Streaming Media 100: The a hundred Companies That Matter Most in Online Video in 2016. This is our fourth consecutive 12 months of being recognized as a prime innovator in the sphere. BuyDRM was additionally recognized because the runner up for the 2016 Streaming Media Readers' Choice Awards for DRM/Access Control Service Providers, once once more proving our options as being one of the most complete and broadly deployed on this planet. Offering PlayReady, Widevine, and FairPlay, we can enable you to ship protected content material to any gadget in any situation whether or not online or offline or each.