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Any TVAddons people around? Time to get real
#1
The cute attempt to pretend you are not attempting to trick our users is officially over now. It is extraordinarily clear in the below examples that you are using our trademarked name in a manner clearly intended to confuse our users, and I am no longer interested in figuring out ways to help you skate along the thin red line between trademark violation and not.

First off, example #1

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This is from your homepage. You are clearly making people believe if they fill in their contact info, they'll be getting updates from Kodi. They will not. You are violating our trademark.

You are also making people believe if they read these blog posts, they are reading blogposts written by us. They are not. You are violating our trademark.

Example #2

This is the blogpost you recently wrote about Isengard. In it you act as if you created and released Isengard, and then ask people to donate to you, share social links for you, and help out for you, without making at all clear that you have absolutely no connection with developing Kodi and that further the developers of Kodi generally believe you have been instrumental in damaging the Kodi/XBMC brand for years. After finishing your wildly offensive series of trademark violations, you then proceed to use our name Kodi to push people to install your altered version of the software and your addons, which is also a violation of our trademark.

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We are tired of you using our name to further your own ends, besmirch us, and make money, and as such, I would like to see every instance of the word Kodi removed from your site immediately or as soon as can be achieved. While I am only one board member, I plan on recommending to the rest of the board that whatever license exists for people in general to use the Kodi trademark not be extended to your website anymore, and I intend upon speaking with our attorney about legal options should you fail to agree to remove our name from your site.

I would additionally like to note that any PMs you send to me will be published to this thread. If you would like to speak privately, you make speak privately with our attorney.
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#2
+1000. I will (as another board member) fully support you in case this trademark violation continues.
Always read the online manual (wiki), FAQ (wiki) and search the forum before posting.
Do not PM or e-mail Team-Kodi members directly asking for support. Read/follow the forum rules (wiki).
Please read the pages on troubleshooting (wiki) and bug reporting (wiki) before reporting issues.
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#3
+1 and full support from me.
My reaction was exactly the same when I read their newsletter this morning.
I previously discussed the disclaimer they put up with them, and back then it was clear in whcih way they could and not could use our name.

First and foremost was that there should be no usage of our trademark in a confusing way, in accordance with out policy.
That has completely thrown out of the window, this is not accidental anymore but intended misuse.
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#4
Wow that's pretty brutal. Shame on them.
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#5
Clearly intentional confusion. I also received an email with the newsletter or wtv that is I subscribed long time ago. "Kodi updates" on the title made me go straight to kodi's website looking for a new blog post I might have missed. Well, there was no blog post and the email was this nonsense. If this happened to me and Im around for a few years now...I don't want to imagine how many people go there thinking they are at the original site.
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#6
Not a board member - but as a team member i suggest to get to the point with the attorney without giving them the option to get it right. They had plenty of those options imo.
AppleTV4/iPhone/iPod/iPad: HowTo find debug logs and everything else which the devs like so much: click here
HowTo setup NFS for Kodi: NFS (wiki)
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#7
I'm also extremely pissed by this and think enough damage had been done by them - no need to play nice anymore. They are not only confusing users by suggesting they are the real deal, they also advertise piracy to be the most natural thing to do on earth, with which IMO they where also responsible for the Amazon takedown by a significant amount.
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#8
The issues in example #1 of now been addressed, the word "Addon" has been added after Kodi, making it clear that it's addon updates, not Kodi updates.

As for the article, I've edited the first line to mention the XBMC Foundation, further clarifying that it's your release, not ours.

The issues you're mentioning above are SEO (search engine optimization) related, as we have been forced to get outside help with our SEO efforts since EVERY OTHER KODI RELATED WEB SITE is doing so. Basically if we don't set our text like that, we won't show up on Google, meaning users will be thrown towards much less honorable web sites like they have been in the past. We've asked you to force these web sites to fix themselves, but nothing has been done.

No one is trying to use your name or take recognition, we're simply trying to provide a good service for the users. We have not been instrumental in "ruining" the Kodi brand for years, many of these users are using Kodi simply for the add-on aspect, blame them not us.

I'm not going to reply to this thread any further, I just wanted to lt you know that changes have been made and that we meant no disrespect to anyone. I appreciate all the work you guys do, there's only love from me.

There is no trademark violation on our part, we're a Kodi fan site, that's totally legit, if users can't tell the difference (despite our numerous attempts to explain the difference) that's not our fault, the users who can't tell the difference just don't care: all they want is free TV.

With that being said, I'm sorry.

I've also gone ahead and reshared this post over social media to hopefully help clarify things once again: http://www.tvaddons.ag/kodi-unofficial-addons/
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#9
If that was the first time ... I would believe you ... but it is not ...
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#10
Yeah, it's way too late for fixing small things. We want you to remove the word "Kodi" from your site entirely. The only concession I'd be willing to grant is if your users use the word in their forum posts. But every title, headline, blogpost, etc. needs to have that word removed immediately.

If you do no reply to this thread any more and you do not remove the word Kodi in the near future, be prepared for a letter from our attorney.
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#11
What you're saying makes sense, I see your point, but it's not our fault that users are confused. If users are confused, it's because they couldn't care less about either of us, all they want is free TV. Don't make us out to be the bad guys, we didn't do anything malicious.

Would you prefer that we just shut down our site? I'm sure the users would love that!

Using the word Kodi doesn't constitute trademark infringement (neither does anything else on our site), I've already consulted with plenty of lawyers. Even your own trademark documentation stipulates that the word Kodi can be used, as long as it's not in the web site or application name. Furthermore, we've done everything in the past (and I have documentation to support it) to please your guidelines.

What's your attorney's name and phone number? I'll be glad to get in touch with them to further clarify the issue. We've even gone as far as having a red bar at the top of our site saying that we are an unofficial site for months on end, that didn't please you guys either.

Again, I'm sorry for all this, I have nothing but love for you guys and wish we could get along, but I do also understand where you're coming from and don't hold it against you.
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#12
how about optimizing your SEO for "free TV" if that's what users want and remove the reference to Kodi entirely? Create your own brand and be ahead of competitors. Use micro sites with foreign keywords to forward to your site if needed, but you should not use Kodi to promote TVMC nor jump on our train wagon. TVMC is the name of your product, not Kodi, as you're not allowed to call it Kodi as per trademark - so don't advertise with it and use TVMC for marketing.
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#13
(2015-07-29, 20:33)Eleazar Coding Wrote: Even your own trademark documentation stipulates that the word Kodi can be used, as long as it's not in the web site or application name.

Yes, but we own and control that trademark and may do with it as we please, including rescinding the general use rights that we've granted from specific people and organizations, which is what we are doing right now. Please remove the word Kodi from your website.
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#14
(answering as a Kodi user, not as a Team Kodi member.)

(2015-07-29, 20:33)Eleazar Coding Wrote: What you're saying makes sense, I see your point, but it's not our fault that users are confused. If users are confused, it's because they couldn't care less about either of us, all they want is free TV. Don't make us out to be the bad guys, we didn't do anything malicious.

I'd say it's entirely your fault that users are confused, the site mentions "Kodi" & "XBMC" 28 times on the front page alone, plus two uses of the logo - the last two violate trademarks.

(2015-07-29, 20:33)Eleazar Coding Wrote: Would you prefer that we just shut down our site? I'm sure the users would love that!

Yes, I would.
Please read the online manual (wiki) & FAQ (wiki) before posting.

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#15
Yes me too. We don't care about your users.
AppleTV4/iPhone/iPod/iPad: HowTo find debug logs and everything else which the devs like so much: click here
HowTo setup NFS for Kodi: NFS (wiki)
HowTo configure avahi (zeroconf): Avahi_Zeroconf (wiki)
READ THE IOS FAQ!: iOS FAQ (wiki)
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