Plugins removal?

[coder-alpha]

@cayars

If we see you missing from the forums for a few days we’ll assume you waved one two many times. I’m one of those unlucky people who would get pulled over for 66 in a 65.

Lol, take the cop to court. We have a process for the unlucky people too. Probably, the judge will give the cop a earful too.

@cayars

Emby doesn’t allow it for a good reason.

Again, I take notice when wrong information is quoted so strongly. June 22, 2018 should be current enough.

Source: https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/60124-why-cant-i-see-all-the-plugins-in-catalog/

The point of the freeway example was there are certain grey areas where stuff is permissible. Plex’s core function is to work on DRM free media files, can you tell me where these files come from ? People rip their Bluray, DVD. Download DRM media files from iTunes and strip them DRM free. They download from all kinds of sources. Can you tell one source which does not violate the TOS of the studio ?

Am I supposed to stop using Adblock because the website TOS forbids me to use it ?

[cayars]

I suggest looking at the thread and what it’s linked to which are podcasts. Emby has podcast support built in btw. These are Media Browser plugins I believe.

Surely you’re not going to think podcasts are the same thing as video plugins that scrape their data off sites illegally?

I agree there is a grey area. The difference is YOU are providing the source material and not Emby or Plex. The software itself nor it’s development program are supplying “authorized” theft. <-- that’s essentially the problem trying to be avoided. Emby made this shift a while ago, Plex is doing it now.

Your adblock example isn’t relevant. That would be more like saying you aren’t allowed to remove commercials from the TV shows you record. In both cases the “elements” are there and delivered but you personally choose to “filter them out”. You certainly aren’t pirating or helping to pirate content which is the topic at hand.

[JamminR]

@cayars

You certainly aren’t pirating or helping to pirate content which is the topic at hand

Oh?
Not once have I ever thought we were discussing piracy - some pro plugin removal peeps, including yourself, seem keep bringing that up as an argument -

@coder-alpha seems to agree with what I’ve been saying all along.
His quote -

@coder-alpha

Plex’s core function is to work on DRM free media files, can you tell me where these files come from ? People rip their Bluray, DVD. Download DRM media files from iTunes and strip them DRM free. They download from all kinds of sources. Can you tell one source which does not violate the TOS of the studio ?

My previous mentions -

@JamminR

Let’s face it, ripping video from disc is illegal in many countries.
Plex allows many to break the law by viewing movies they’ve broken DRM on to make backups to store in other formats.

If the illegal plugin argument is going to be used, then Plex should only exist as a personal home movie and photo viewer without the metadata grabbing agents for subtitles, trailers, and info for commercial movies.

and my longest

@JamminR

just found three Plex KB articles (am not going to link to them) that recommends using specific applications that are illegal in much of the “western” world, or recommend conversion from one format to another (another no-no in some countries, including even DVRed content)

I’ve not researched, but I’d bet the ‘core’ Itunes channel feature is probably a no-no in Apples eyes.

One of my points is, if anyone think Plex removing plug-ins saves it from any liability, they’re wrong. For that arument, Plex might as well go back to home video and photos local meta agants only.

[JamminR]

I just remembered - Aereo got shut down because they re-transmitted free over the air TV signals in a streaming format without paying the TV powers that be a “rebroadcast” fee.
In the US, Plex Live TV is breaking the law when allowing me to Live transcode to another device, or a shared user.
Will Live/Remote TV go away now?

[D_eight6]

on that note, what about Locast, they just recently added Chicago as a new market and I’m now able to stream most of my local Chicago channels here for FREE from my ROKU and Android device without paying my fairshare

[JamminR]

Interesting - seems they’d fall under same rebroadcast charges/court loss as Aereo, at least if challenged in Court, even though they seem to / attempting to use the ‘translator’ clause.
They still convert the format of the signal from digital radio waves to digital network signal.
Aereo lost because the court considered that retransmission.

Also, Does Locast interject thier own commercials? The video would need to be untouched by Locast from the stations to be considered translator.

Your mention does bring more emphasis to my question - Plex allows me to translate video outside of where I live. Even the Locast web site states the user of said City area must be in the City’s demographic area.
Will Plex remove Live TV for remote access?

[D_eight6]

I think they’re able to get away with this because Locast isn’t having the streams saved. As long as the device you are on has a registered IP address given by your ISP for that local market, then you are able to view the local tv networks using their app. Viewers do not have DVR-like permissions such as rewind, fast-forward, save recording for later - none. Aereo had DVR plans associated with their service. My mother uses this option because tv reception is bad at her house. She uses the Locast app to receive our local CBS channel with no digital signal hangups.

[coder-alpha]

@cayars

I suggest looking at the thread and what it’s linked to which are podcasts. Emby has podcast support built in btw. These are Media Browser plugins I believe.

Podcast ? How did you get that idea ? The CNET-TV Channel Plugin code is a Video plugin.

@cayars

The difference is YOU are providing the source material and not Emby or Plex. The software itself nor it’s development program are supplying “authorized” theft.

First of all no one is holding Plex or Emby accountable for 3rd party plugins. You can install 3rd party Apps on Android/Kodi and other softwares and you are doing nothing wrong. Using Chrome to download YouTube videos does not hold YouTube/Alphabet Inc. liable of itself.

@cayars

“authorized” theft

Wow… now that’s a real stretch. All the content providers would be suing YouTube/Alphabet Inc. for making the Chrome browser and having all those downloader plugins.

@cayars

Your adblock example isn’t relevant. That would be more like saying you aren’t allowed to remove commercials from the TV shows you record.

It is because you are violating the TOS in that case as well. Glad you brought the removal of TV commercials point since the broadcaster (Fox, CBS, and NBC) initially did not want to allow that too and it was taken to court where they lost and now we can use DVR with a clear conscience, thanks in part to DISH Network who stood behind their subscribers who could have caved under pressure too.
Source: https://karnopp.com/2014/02/does-using-your-dvr-violate-copyright-law-or-is-it-a-fair-use/

@cayars

You certainly aren’t pirating or helping to pirate content which is the topic at hand.

How did piracy become the topic ? I’d like to know who’s pirating CNet videos ?

You know what comes to mind when you look at all this - double standards. Observe…

From the Emby Development Policy - Examples of prohibited content:
“Scraping data from a site such as IMDb.com. This data is considered a valuable asset to IMDb and they charge handsomely for it. It is against the law to obtain and re-distribute it without their consent.”.

Emby is the biggest sponsor of OMDB API. You know what that is ? An unofficial scraper of IMDb.

[cayars]

@JamminR, if you don’t think legitimacy of the streams used in Plugins is a factor in Plugin removal then I’ve got a bridge for sale cheap.
I’m surely not saying it’s the sole reason but a factor.

Plex software doesn’t know how YOU got your media or if YOU broke the law aquiring it. Not their concern at all. They certainly provide legal avenues such as DVR for you to aquire content. People like myself have been PVRing content for 15+ years building up big collections outside of Plex using Beyond TV, Sage TV, Myth, etc

@coder-alpha again those are not current Emby plugins but MediaBrowser plugins. No Emby plugins currently exist for watching video like this. IPTV is maybe the sole exception but that has limitations such as the client can not direct stream from the source, etc

Yes, “stores” hold app developers accountable. Many an app has been removed from Roku, Amazon, Apple and Android stores for this type of thing. Using content you are not authorized to use is theft of services from a legal standpoint, pure and simple.

IMDB and OMDB are not the same thing but similar. One is open source and has APIs for it’s use. The content is open for use. Emby plugins do not scrape data.

---

The Aereo/Locast situation is pretty unique and I’ve been following Locast. They are skirting in the gray area for sure. Aereo charged users and was a commercial entity and that did them in. Still however, Locast is rebroadcasting channels so it will be interesting to see how this plays out long term.

Locast for now doesn’t actually check your IP in Chrome but relies on the browser setting. So you can change your GEO location and signup for a particular market. I’ve got Boston as one market I use to get Patriot football when not on a national network. You can then cast this to Android TV/Chromecast and it works great. If you know what you’re doing you can extract the m3u and use this to. Doesn’t make it legal but works for personal use.

[coder-alpha]

@cayars

again those are not current Emby plugins but MediaBrowser plugins. No Emby plugins currently exist for watching video like this. IPTV is maybe the sole exception but that has limitations such as the client can not direct stream from the source, etc

Again, please don’t quote wrong information. Since your statement has now shifted I’ll quote your original ones here again as well.

@cayars

Emby supports plugins for meta-data, trakt, etc but not for video.

@cayars

Install Emby and look at the catalog and you will see there isn’t any video plugins.

@cayars

Except there is no Emby plugin for any video content.

Emby has atleast one video plugin in its catalog (Twit). Emby supports Video plugins and if I were to create one it would work. You can install 3rd party plugins in Emby just like you do in Plex. Now lets move on to the next point.

@cayars

Many an app has been removed from Roku, Amazon, Apple and Android stores for this type of thing. Using content you are not authorized to use is theft of services from a legal standpoint, pure and simple.

Which type of thing ? Not sure why your needle is stuck there but no one is talking about piracy to be clear. Please stay on topic.

@cayars

IMDB and OMDB are not the same thing but similar. One is open source and has APIs for it’s use. The content is open for use. Emby plugins do not scrape data.

This is ridiculous. I’ll give you the benefit that you don’t have knowledge rather than being ignorant because I was very clear. OMDb scrapes data from IMDb unofficially (here’s my issue ticket, someone else’s). It is not open source (Source reference please ???). It was paid for some time. Emby is a sponsor, I don’t know how they use its data. Do I still need to explain the data-chain ?

@cayars

Doesn’t make it legal but works for personal use.

My only reason to stick here was to clear the facts and not offend anyone. I hope they have been now so I say my adieus and exit from this thread.

[Illithilich]

From what I understand, they don’t like the APIs that are being used as they’re insecure. As such, they want to remove them entirely, not just leave them unsupported.

I would hope that they would provide some other option at this time to continue with third party plugins, but it doesn’t look this way.

[Illithilich]

It might be that only ~2% of the users are using it, but they ARE using it.

Does anybody know if that 2% is just people using the official plugins, or if it also includes any that were manually installed, such as with Web Tools and the UAS11

[cayars]

coder-alpha
Yes Twit is supported as well as PodCasts, IPTV, PlayOn. If there is an API for pulling the data and it’s use is authorized there isn’t a problem as I’ve stated previously.

You’ve been trying to spin this every since I said:
“Emby supports plugins for meta-data, trakt, etc but not for video. Emby isn’t going to let you watch ABC, NBC, FOX, etc via plug as it’s not allowed and against their TOS.”

and you said:
“While I have not got to the point to test Video plugins on Emby I’m pretty confident that Emby has all sorts of Video plugins. As a matter of fact their own developer regularly develop them unlike Plex where mostly Ninja’s have been doing the development and maintenance.”

All anyone has to do is look at the CURRENT EMBY CATALOG and they can see the video plugins are far and few between and there is not “all sorts of Video plugins”. There are ZERO network type plugins. Emby is not going to allow violation of the TOS of those sites, period, end of story. It’s their content, their license and the network’s call as to what is and isn’t approved.

Podcasts, netcasts and the like are different animals and surely you can understand the difference. The closest you might get is through the PlayOn plugin (also legal).

The “simple” point I was trying to make before being hijacked is that Emby is NOT an ALTERNATIVE to Plex for anyone unhappy with Plex’s decision to eventually drop plugins if these network type plugins are what you want. The only other real alternative is Kodi and that isn’t client/server but DOES offer far more of these types of plugins. They have nearly everything one could want in this regard.

You can try and “educate me” on the the differences or lack there of between IMDB and OMDB if you like. You can also try and educate me on why Netflix and Amazon Video are practically the same thing as well because they have common movies and often the same descriptions. Your very own ticket To Be Aired episodes not part of result ? · Issue #90 · omdbapi/OMDb-API · GitHub works counter to your own argument for them scraping data which they don’t. In that ticket you complain IMDB has more data then OMDB. How can this be if they scrape the data? Why when you view the data for Better Call Saul it’s not the same? OMDb is user updated data and they provide a REST API for retrieval as I mentioned previously.

“no one is talking about piracy to be clear”
Please don’t try to say I’m “off topic” when any reason for plugin removal is on topic and about 1/5th to 1/10th of the thread has this as part of the topic. It’s talks about numerous things plugin related and there hasn’t been a common theme other then the announcement that they will eventually be removed. You, me and half a dozen others have also taken part in this discussion through out the thread, piracy related. And I wasn’t the first to bring it up either.

You can stop trying to spin/troll everything I say clearly taking it out of context as well.

I’m done talking about the other server in any regard to video or meta-data or what is or isn’t legal content. You can feel free to go to their community to “educate” them on what they allow or don’t or what TOS they are violating or their use of OMDB.

[mcrommert]

My big issue with this change is really the loss of subzero and trakt (trakt being on shaky ground already with the dev no longer updating)

This is a very hopeful post from the creator of subzero - this is a good plan moving forward

Reddit - The heart of the internet

[iliketoprogram]

yeah, well…

I guess today I’m finding a replacement for plex in my house.

I feel like a tool for buying the lifetime plex pass since I guess i’m done using it now

[iliketoprogram]

I doubt they have numbers on non official plugins

[iliketoprogram]

I wonder if cleaning this up was included in a buyout agreement… Microsoft? Amazon? Probably not Alphabet

[linkjoy123]

Why the hell are they removing plugins. What is the justification for this. Why.

[Illithilich]

Wouldn’t be hard to do.

They’re all installed in generally the same manner. A simple check to see if something exists in the plugins directory that returns a true/false back to their analytics server would give them that info.

The question is whether or not they are getting their stats from their own plugin server, or from what the individual media servers report back. I don’t remember if they have the “send anonymous usage statistics” option in PleX or not.

[mpiva]

Emby supports video streams via ichannel interface, there are plugins in the official repository like tunein and of course unofficial sources. So there is a documented way to do video plugins on Emby. So a jump, likely