You know a technology's gone mainstream when the tabloids start yelling about it. This year the Sun, the Mirror, the Express, and the Daily Star have run splashes ranging from "Kodi Crackdown" through "Kodi Killers" to "Kodi TOTAL BAN!". It's not that they've stumbled on an underground hack scene; the stories have been briefed by copyright owners and law enforcement agencies. So what is Kodi, and why is it such a threat to The Man?

Kodi is an open source media player program that started life as XBMC (Xbox Media Center). Today, running on a variety of devices, it provides a friendly interface to play video and audio content, whether from static files, torrents, or a live stream.

In 2014, Nathan Betzen, a leading figure in XBMC's community, announced that the software was changing its name to Kodi, a registered trademark. "Users have been fooled into wasting money buying boxes running hacked and typically broken versions of XBMC," explains Betzen, who's known online as natethomas. Now at least these couldn't be sold under the Kodi name.

But the problem hasn't gone away.

Kodi itself provides an interface but no content. Anyone can create add-ons that point to video and audio sources. The XBMC Foundation provides a list of recommended add-ons that may not be endorsed by content owners, but only link to content that's legitimately available. The iPlayer WWW add-on, for example, reminds BBC iPlayer users they need a TV licence.

Hundreds of other add-ons, however, offer unauthorised access to paid content. For consumers, it's a tempting way to get box-sets and films for free. For the entertainment industry, it's a nightmare.

Betzen tells Ars that he and his colleagues don't condone illegal use, but don't have the time or resources to "play whack-a-mole." They could disable unapproved add-ons, mimicking iOS' "walled garden," but "there's a reason only Apple can get away with it: you have to have a huge, rich, die-hard user base for developers to think it's worthwhile." Even then, because Kodi is open source, wrongdoers could just fork it and remove the protections.

Illicit use of Kodi has reached a point where the UK government's Intellectual Property Office issued a "Call for Views," which closed in April, to find out how law enforcement agencies were dealing with infringing use. They use the term "IPTV," but also refer specifically to Kodi.

No conclusions have yet been published, but three basic enforcement approaches are possible: shutting down suppliers of boxes, cutting off illegal streams, and going after end users.

What Kodi possibly go wrong?

Kodi is simple to download and install, and add-ons can be found using search engines. It works on anything from a PC or Mac down to Android-based set-top boxes and even Raspberry Pis. Even so, setting it up isn't within the comfort zone of every consumer. That means there’s a demand for ready-to-use, pre-configured hardware.

Android set-top boxes are widely available wholesale, and there's nothing unlawful about selling them with bare Android or with Kodi on top. What crosses the line is pre-installing add-ons for specific unlicensed content, creating what are known as "fully loaded" Kodi boxes.

What's the scale of illegal Kodi use? On April 20, YouGov published a survey that suggested nearly five million people in the UK were using "pirated" streaming services of one sort or another, while more than half as many again planned to start using them. More than 800,000 users had cancelled a TV subscription. The implication is that pay TV companies stand to lose a substantial chunk of revenue.

Kodi add-ons link to content that others have decrypted or duplicated. That's hard to stop, but on March 8 the High Court approved an order requiring BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin Media to block specified servers that were streaming Premier League football games, preventing anyone on their broadband services from accessing them. The same method could now be used to block other sources.

At the other end of the chain, content owners are putting pressure on the supply of fully loaded boxes. As Ars reported on April 4, Amazon warned sellers at the end of March that "certain media players" had been "marked as prohibited." The move coincided with industry briefings on action against Kodi use. "[Retailers'] assistance in tackling this problem is a great help and we really appreciate it," the IPO tells Ars.

The announcement delighted "Freddy T-Power," a Kodi user who campaigns against the "scam" of fully loaded box sales. "Yes!!!!! Finally My work of POSTING WARNINGS all over Amazon and Facebook for over a Year Hrs and Hrs Weekend after Weekend HAS PAID OFF!!" he posted on April 6. On May 1, Ars typed "fully loaded kodi" into the search box on Amazon’s UK website. It auto-completed "android box." The search produced 73 results; none seemed to contain any reference to illicit content.

Ebay is a different matter. Quoted by the Sun on April 11, a spokesperson said: "We work with the police and regulators to ensure that all listings comply with the law. There are blocks in place to prevent the listing of illegal items, but we also constantly monitor our marketplace."

On May 1, Ars searched Ebay UK for "fully loaded Kodi box" and got 211 results. "Fully loaded TV box" expanded this to 1,289. Some mentioned "Kodi" or "XBMC," while others used generic terms with Kodi version numbers. Splashed across many listings was the term "jailbroken," which has no technical meaning in this context but suggests access to unauthorised content.

Prices range from under £25 to over £60, and many listings show services and films that aren't available free of charge. Despite providing different contact details, often in China, many sellers feature almost identical garish graphics. Kodi's Betzen says "it was always clear that the marketing images were stolen from each other, because half of them mentioned my own home town of Wichita or Colwich, Kansas, in the weather app." Pirates gonna pirate.

Boxed in and banged up

Last December, two people in the UK who had been selling IPTV boxes "loaded with infringing apps and add-ons allowing access to copyrighted content" to pubs and consumers were jailed for up to four years.

It followed a private prosecution by FACT UK (the Federation Against Copyright Theft) and the Premier League, building on an investigation by the City of London Police's Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU). These suppliers were charged with conspiracy to defraud, a broad and inchoate offence. That's often a sign that the authorities are struggling to find a law that has been broken. More specific charges, though, are beginning to stick.

Section 296ZB (1) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA) provides that "A person commits an offence if he manufactures for sale or hire, or… sells or lets for hire… any device, product or component which is primarily designed, produced, or adapted for the purpose of enabling or facilitating the circumvention of effective technological measures." Often referred to as "technical protection measures," or TPM, these can include anything that stops a telly fan watching content without paying.

Malcolm Mayes of Hartlepool pleaded guilty in March to a charge under the CDPA after selling Kodi boxes adapted to receive content such as Premier League matches for an eyebrow-raising £1,000 apiece. He had advertised the boxes as "100% legal." They weren't. Mayes was ordered to pay a total of £250,000 and received a 10-month suspended sentence.

Brian Thompson of Middlesbrough faces similar charges at Teesside Crown Court this month. Paul Fleming, defending, told an earlier hearing the criminal court might not be "the correct forum" for what was really a civil matter. That argument looks harder to make since a ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on April 26 confirmed that distributing boxes modified to access infringing content amounted to an unauthorised "communication to the public" of copyright works which would "adversely affect the normal exploitation of those works."

Pubs are a favoured target of FACT. Subscriptions allowing them to screen live sports are expensive, making Kodi boxes attractive. John Hewitt, landlord of the Navigation in Middlesbrough, who was prosecuted in October 2016, told the Teesside Gazette: "Anyone can access this. If we don’t have the match on at the pub, someone could be watching it on their phone. If I lose, everyone with a mobile phone will get done."

He did lose. Could he be right?