Developer Registers “Popcorn Time” Trademark to Prevent Abuse

[shamu726]

The Popcorn Time app brought BitTorrent streaming to the mainstream earlier this year. The idea was to have a free and open source project that anyone can build upon. Despite this open nature a developer has now filed a trademark application for the "Popcorn Time" name to protect it from abuse.

The Popcorn Time phenomenon is one of the biggest piracy stories of the year thus far.

The software amassed millions of users by offering BitTorrent-powered streaming in an easy-to-use Netflix-style interface.

The original app was shut down by the developers after a few weeks, but the project was quickly picked up by others. This resulted in several popular forks that have each developed their own features, with most releasing their source code in public.

In recent months there has been some competition between the various forks. Several spin-offs have claimed the name “Popcorn Time” but thus far that hasn’t resulted in any serious issues.

Recently, however, one developer made a move to formalize his claim on the Popcorn Time brand. An application for the trademark was filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and this week the case was assigned to an examiner.

The proposed trademark describes Popcorn Time as follows: “Downloadable computer software used for streaming multimedia content images, videos and audio from peer to peer.”

The trademark application lists the Canadian developer David Lemarier who filed his application through Legalforce. While some are worried about the development, it appears that Lemarier doesn’t have any nefarious plans.

A source at the main fork Popcorntime.io familiar with the reasoning behind the trademark application told TF that it was filed as a defensive move.

“We strongly believe in the open contributions to the Popcorn Time project and the filing of the trademark wasn’t designed to hinder or prohibit the further development of the official Popcorn Time or any other related forks,” the source says.

“It’s wise to attempt to protect the trademark from ‘giants’ who might come along, sweep up the name, and then bully contributors into non-existence.”

The nature of the ‘giants’ the Popcorntime.io team are concerned about is left open.

Time4Popcorn, one of the popular forks, is not happy with the trademark application. They describes it as “rude” and stress that the Popcorn Time name doesn’t belong to anyone.

“This is news to us and we’re still figuring out how to respond to this, but this is rude and it is something we take very seriously,” the Time4Popcorn team notes.

“We assure you that we will never ever do something like this, and we will not let this happen that someone else will claim that it is their trademark. Never. An open source project is for everyone. It does not belong to us or to anyone else!”

Then again, even if someone with bad intentions did obtain the trademark, not much will change. Given the nature of the Popcorn Time application it is unlikely that any of the popular forks will shut down over a trademark dispute.

Source: TorrentFreak

[Roy W]

What would the reasoning be behind registering if not for nefarious reasons?

Time will tell!

[Misaki2010]

PopcornTime.io's app is WAY better than the one from Time4Popcorn. Specially if you compile the latest builds using their repository (like I do every week).

[totoymola]

PopcornTime.io's app is WAY better than the one from Time4Popcorn. Specially if you compile the latest builds using their repository (like I do every week).

What makes you say that the PopcornTime.io is better than the Time4Popcorn? How is it better and what are its advantages?

[RobrPatty]

PopcornTime.io's app is WAY better than the one from Time4Popcorn. Specially if you compile the latest builds using their repository (like I do every week).

What makes you say that the PopcornTime.io is better than the Time4Popcorn? How is it better and what are its advantages?

PopcornTime io's are compiled by people from all over the world not from Time4Popcorn. And I have to agree with Misaki2010 there builds are better...but they do not have the VPN function.

[totoymola]

PopcornTime io's are compiled by people from all over the world not from Time4Popcorn. And I have to agree with Misaki2010 there builds are better...but they do not have the VPN function.

So the only advantage of PopcornTime.io over Time4Popcorn is that its builds are compiled by the community? There has to be more than that.

I am using both. They work pretty much the same. Their GUIs have slight differences. The settings/configurations options are similar. Time4Popcorn has VPN option, PopcornTime.io allows direct VLC player streaming and it has a 720p/1080p selection switch. But I really cant decide which one I like more, that is why I keep both. If I want to use VPN, I use Time4Popcorn. If I want to watch on VLC, I use PopcornTime.io. I could be wrong, but I think Time4Popcorn has a larger selection of movies. When it comes to stability, I find both of them to be pretty stable and I think they use about the same amount of system resources.

There is also another fork named Zona. It has even more selection, even pr0n. But I don't feel safe using it, its GUI is a lot less stable, and it uses a lot more system resources.

[Misaki2010]

PopcornTime io's are compiled by people from all over the world not from Time4Popcorn. And I have to agree with Misaki2010 there builds are better...but they do not have the VPN function.

So the only advantage of PopcornTime.io over Time4Popcorn is that its builds are compiled by the community? There has to be more than that.

I am using both. They work pretty much the same. Their GUIs have slight differences. The settings/configurations options are similar. Time4Popcorn has VPN option, PopcornTime.io allows direct VLC player streaming and it has a 720p/1080p selection switch. But I really cant decide which one I like more, that is why I keep both. If I want to use VPN, I use Time4Popcorn. If I want to watch on VLC, I use PopcornTime.io. I could be wrong, but I think Time4Popcorn has a larger selection of movies. When it comes to stability, I find both of them to be pretty stable and I think they use about the same amount of system resources.

There is also another fork named Zona. It has even more selection, even pr0n. But I don't feel safe using it, its GUI is a lot less stable, and it uses a lot more system resources.

PopcornTime.io has more themes (I prefer light themes). It has an option for Anime (I don't use it), It has integration with Trakt.tv which is 100% important to me. The downside is that it doesn't have more sources to get the torrents from. As for VPN, I don't use it...

Time4Popcorn has a larger selection of movies, but most of them won't even load (specially those who aren't out as 720/1080 but as HDrip, the app has the cover and the torrent but the movie doesn't start playing).

Zona is pretty great, but the downside is that some TVseries are Russian dubbled only... I got nothing against Russian, it actually sounds pretty cool (I loved the movie "Metro") but the problem is that I don't understand it and dubbing a movie or a tv episode on another language is just BAD... one of the points of watching a movie or a tv series is to hear the actual voices of the actors. I always skip movies that are dubbed (animations too). Zona is also full of bugs, there's a lot of torrents who have seeders and leechers but won't start downloading... I agree with your about this one being buggy and using a lot more resources :( They should remove the music, games and radio sections... they're useless...

[totoymola]

PopcornTime io's are compiled by people from all over the world not from Time4Popcorn. And I have to agree with Misaki2010 there builds are better...but they do not have the VPN function.

So the only advantage of PopcornTime.io over Time4Popcorn is that its builds are compiled by the community? There has to be more than that.

I am using both. They work pretty much the same. Their GUIs have slight differences. The settings/configurations options are similar. Time4Popcorn has VPN option, PopcornTime.io allows direct VLC player streaming and it has a 720p/1080p selection switch. But I really cant decide which one I like more, that is why I keep both. If I want to use VPN, I use Time4Popcorn. If I want to watch on VLC, I use PopcornTime.io. I could be wrong, but I think Time4Popcorn has a larger selection of movies. When it comes to stability, I find both of them to be pretty stable and I think they use about the same amount of system resources.

There is also another fork named Zona. It has even more selection, even pr0n. But I don't feel safe using it, its GUI is a lot less stable, and it uses a lot more system resources.

PopcornTime.io has more themes (I prefer light themes). It has an option for Anime (I don't use it), It has integration with Trakt.tv which is 100% important to me. The downside is that it doesn't have more sources to get the torrents from. As for VPN, I don't use it...

Time4Popcorn has a larger selection of movies, but most of them won't even load (specially those who aren't out as 720/1080 but as HDrip, the app has the cover and the torrent but the movie doesn't start playing).

Zona is pretty great, but the downside is that some TVseries are Russian dubbled only... I got nothing against Russian, it actually sounds pretty cool (I loved the movie "Metro") but the problem is that I don't understand it and dubbing a movie or a tv episode on another language is just BAD... one of the points of watching a movie or a tv series is to hear the actual voices of the actors. I always skip movies that are dubbed (animations too). Zona is also full of bugs, there's a lot of torrents who have seeders and leechers but won't start downloading... I agree with your about this one being buggy and using a lot more resources :( They should remove the music, games and radio sections... they're useless...

Fantastic comparison! This is what I want to see! :thumbsup: