Kodi taken offline as fans may finally pay the price for its popularity

Kodi remains one of the most popular ways to watch TV online, but it seems that its growing army of users have caused a major headache for the media player software.

The sheer popularity of the official Kodi website has caused it to shut down indefinitely. Fans attempting to visit the site have been met with a message that reads, “Sorry, website not found.”

Although many assumed the outage was linked to some of the illegal uses that Kodi has been implicated in over the years, that’s not the case at all.

In fact, it seems that it’s simply grown so large that the firm hosting the popular website wants it to cough up more money to keep it online.

Kodi posted a message on its Twitter account explaining what happened.

In the social media post, Kodi wrote: “Our website is down until further notice. One of our sponsors @acquia has decided were using too much resources so unless we pay for a dedicated server they won’t bring it back online. Hoping @getpantheon or another Drupal host wants to help!”

It’s currently unclear when Kodi will be back online anytime soon, but reveals just how popular the media player has become.

Recent stats from the Motion Picture Association of America show that around 12 million people use Kodi to watch legal content.

However, that number explodes to more than 26 million when you add in those who adapt the player – via unofficial add-ons – to stream illegally.

In recent years, Kodi has tried to distance itself from this activity. It even warns fans about the dangers of streaming shows, movies and sports coverage without permission.

In a recent post, the Kodi team said: “It’s noteworthy to point out that most third-party add-ons aren’t illegal. They are authored by legitimate developers that, like us, give their free time to the benefit of the community.

“Those developers choose not to submit the add-ons to our repository for a variety of reasons, but the add-ons are legal. Just not official.

“But some are illegal. A few are both illegal and just downright nasty, and some rogue developers even think your hardware is their hardware.

“These developers and the surrounding ecosystem only care about popularity or money. We know the story. A work colleague told you about some wonderful software that makes it very easy to watch your favourite sports, movies and TV shows online and for free.

“You go out and buy a Kodi box. You plug it to your TV set and voila – instant free entertainment!

“Now, if it sounds like it can’t be legit because it literally sounds too good to be true, and that they must be dodgy or bonkers doing all this for nothing, I can tell you your spidey senses are absolutely correct.

“It is too good to be true and there is no such thing as a free lunch.”

We’ll monitor the Kodi website and will let you know when – or if – it looks like Kodi has managed to find a new host to bring everything back online.

source: express.co.uk