kodi Kodi Declares ‘War’ on Trademark Trolls

[Reefa]

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The Kodi team, operating under the XBMC Foundation, is taking a stand against 'trademark trolls' who abuse the Kodi name for personal profit. They accuse the Canadian trademark owner of actively blackmailing hardware vendors and removing content from Amazon. If needed, the foundation says that it may have to take legal action to keep its software freely accessible.

 

More and more people are starting to use Kodi-powered set-top boxes to stream video content to their TVs.

 

While Kodi itself is a neutral platform, unauthorized add-ons give it a bad name. This is one of the reasons why the Kodi team is actively going after vendors who sell “fully loaded” pirate boxes and YouTubers who misuse their name to promote copyright infringement.

 

However, these “pirates” are not the only intellectual property problem the team is facing; trademark trolls are a serious threat as well.

 

When XBMC changed its name to Kodi, they noticed that several parties swiftly registered the Kodi trademark around the world, presumably to make money off it. This came as a total surprise to the foundation, which never faced any trademark issues before, and it continues to cause problems today.

 

The Kodi team has since convinced some of these “trolls” to hand over the trademarks, but not all are willing to give in. This is causing problems, particularly in Canada, where the local trademark owner is actively blackmailing hardware vendors and removing content from Amazon, the Kodi team says.

 

The Canadian trademark is owned by Geoff Gavora, who is no stranger to the XBMC Foundation. Before the trouble started, Gavora had already sent several emails to the Kodi team, expressing how important the software was to his sales. After the trademark registration, however, the friendly tone changed.

 

“We had hoped, given the positive nature of his past emails, that perhaps he was doing this for the benefit of the Foundation. We learned, unfortunately, that this was not the case,” XBMC Foundation President Nathan Betzen notes.

 

“Instead, companies like Mygica and our sponsor Minix have been delisted by Gavora on Amazon, so that only Gavora’s hardware can be sold, unless those companies pay him a fee to stay on the store,” he adds.

 

Gavora is actively using his trademark to stop the sales of other Kodi based devices in Canada, the XBMC Foundation warns. This means that people who buy a Kodi product in the local Amazon store may end up filling the pocket of the local trademark owner.

 

“Now, if you do a search for Kodi on Amazon.ca, there’s a very real chance that every box you see is giving Gavora money to advertise that they can run what should be the entirely free and open Kodi. Gavora and his company are behaving in true trademark troll fashion,” Betzen writes.

 

There are several reasons why the Kodi team is making this problem public now. For one, they want the public to be aware of the situation. At some point, trademark trolls may even try to stop Kodi from distributing the software through their own site, they warn.

 

However, the foundation is not going to let this happen without a fight. They are ready to deal with the problem head on. Trademark trolls should not be allowed to exploit the Kodi name for financial profit.

 

“We want to let the trolls know that we have caught on to this game and will not accept it. We are actively taking the necessary steps to ensure that the Kodi trademark trolls are dealt with appropriately. There is no value proposition in trolling the Kodi name,’ Betzen writes.

 

If this means that the foundation has to go to court, they are prepared to do so, hoping that the community will have their back.

 

“While our goal has always been to avoid going to the court to ensure Kodi remains free in countries where trolls are attempting to get rich off of the Kodi name, we will not back down from protecting the free, open source nature of our software.

 

“If that time comes for legal action, we hope to have the community’s support,” Betzen concludes.

 

Torrentfreak

 

[lurch234]

What a effing a**hole. He's not only getting other products delisted but he's actually intimidating other vendors with legal action unless they provide his lawyer with the number of sold boxes as well as their price to effectively,

and I quote ,

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quickly execute a reasonable settlement agreement with my client regarding all past sales as well as a license agreement for sales going forward.

 

[steven36]

LOL  you cant stop iptv  because its not the ADDON makers that does it nor is it Kodi's fault  i can watch IPTV in  Palemoon , Firefox  or Chrome should they outlaw browsers too?  Fully loaded  Firefox .. It's like shutting down P2P sites when most of the releases come from the scene. 

[pc71520]

7 hours ago, lurch234 said:

What an effing a**hole.

Yes, indeed.

[I4rg£8all8ag]

What a cheeky b:stard, ?

[Cerberus]

I will be sitting back watching the war...taking bets.  lmao! 

[steven36]

7 hours ago, Cerberus said:

I will be sitting back watching the war...taking bets.  lmao! 

If there is any war piracy  is wining  they shut Napster  down people used Napster clones  then they shut most of clones down by then P2P evolved ..using black boxes on satellite and cable is older than the WWW even  If they stopped these addons you can still watch iptv in you're browser just throw the telly out the bloody window and get you a 4k monitor .

 

  If they closed down all these iptv sites it still would not matter you can stream it or download it a hour latter through p2p and filehost  , and even if they stop this I can go rent dvds instead of buying them and make my DVDs like i did in the dailup days.  I dont really like iptv it reminds me of cable or satellite were everything comes on when the networks want you too watch it ..i rather watch something  on my time and also many channels have commercials  scene and p2p releases dont have none of these annoyances like i said before I have satellite and can sign in  and watch stuff legal  on the internet but i dont never use it.   .  

[steven36]

 

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Kodi hits out at TVAddons, says it should be shut down

 

Kodi has called for TVAddons to be ‘shut down because it brings misery to everyone’ in an appeal that they posted on Twitter.

 

However, in a recent court case in Canada, the developers were allowed to put their library back online – a blow for Kodi as the library can be used for both legal and illegal content.
 

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Let's hope tvaddons gets shut down regardless cause they bring nothing but misery to everyone.

— Kodi (@KodiTV) October 2, 2017

 

 

 

Kodi tweeted: ‘Let’s hope tvaddons gets shut down regardless cause they bring nothing but misery to everyone.’

 

However TV Addons responded quickly claiming that the person running Kodi’s social media accounts is : ‘is definitely not in touch with your userbase’.

The conversation went on with Kodi responding with: ‘At least the entire team shares this same opinion’.

TVAddons then tweeted: ‘Definitely don’t believe that one!’

 

In a statement released to Beta News, a spokesperson for TVAddons said:

 

“TVAddons is not a piracy site, it’s a platform for developers of open source add-ons for the Kodi media center. As a community platform filled with user-generated content, we have always acted in accordance with the law and swiftly complied whenever we received a DMCA takedown notice. “

 

Previously Kodi Project Manager Nathan Betzen told TorrentFreak that he was concerned that Kodi adds-on could be used to spy on devices say “The person [in control of]the repo could do whatever they wanted. If some malware author wanted, he could easily install a watcher that reports back the user’s IP address and everything they were doing in Kodi.”

 

Kodi legally allows some content to be streamed to TVs and mobile devices. However, some add-ons allow illegal content to be viewed such as Premier League football.

This resulted in an open discussion about whether games should be streamed legally to reduce internet piracy.

 

Source:

http://tech.thaivisa.com/kodi-hits-tvaddons-says-shut/24739/

 

[steven36]

 

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MPAA warns of emerging Kodi threat

 

Charles Rivkin, CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), has warned US trade representatives of what he describes as an emerging global threat of streaming piracy which is enabled by piracy devices preloaded with software to illicitly stream movies and television programming, posing a “significant and evolving challenge”.

In formal comments submitted to the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) on the world’s most notorious markets for content theft, Rivkin said: “An emerging global threat is streaming piracy which is enabled by piracy devices preloaded with software to illicitly stream movies and television programming and a burgeoning ecosystem of infringing add-ons. The most popular software is an open source media player software, Kodi. Although Kodi is not itself unlawful, and does not host or link to unlicensed content, it can be easily configured to direct consumers toward unlicensed films and television shows,” he advised.

“Websites enable one-click installation of modified software onto set-top boxes or other Internet-connected devices. This modified software taps into an ecosystem of infringing content add-ons and portals to illicitly stream movies and television programming live or ‘on demand’, he noted.

“There are more than 750 websites offering infringing devices or software. Moreover, vendors online and in malls, markets and trade shows market ‘fully loaded’ devices that are preconfigured to access unlicensed content, further reducing the complexity of accessing pirated works. The rapid growth of this problem is startling – six per cent of North American households have a device with Kodi software configured to access pirated content and of the 38 million active Kodi users globally, 26 million use piracy add-on repository tvaddons.ag. Tvaddons.ag is currently offline,” he added.

In the filing, Rivkin noted that the American film and television industry contributes significantly to the US economy, supporting two million American jobs and registering a positive services trade surplus of $13.3 billion (€11.3bn). “This economic activity is increasingly linked to the legal digital marketplace for creative content, which now consists of more than 460 unique platforms and services across the globe,” he advised. “However, online content theft undermines the economic success of film and television, threatens the livelihoods of millions of creators, and harms consumers by spreading viruses and malware,” he warned, suggesting that, in particular, streaming device piracy poses a significant and evolving challenge.

 

 

Source:

http://advanced-television.com/2017/10/04/mpaa-warns-of-emerging-kodi-threat/