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+--- Thread: Call to Arms: Combatting Trademark Infringement (/showthread.php?tid=259387)
RE: Call to Arms: Combatting Trademark Infringement - memoriesman49 - 2017-02-20
Not a troll. The original post was about infringement of trademark of kodi and wanting to get the kodi community to attack via facebook,google,web host,etc. My point is very simple if Kodi is concerned about trademark infringement it is their responsibility!!! The "Call to Arms: Combating Trademark Infringement" not mine nor yours to defend, while most of the website listed just talking about Kodi. You may not like it but it is just an enthusiast expressing their views, just as you have done. I am not complaining about anything just pointing to the face that trademark infringement violations is Kodi's responsibility. I am not in favor of mindless attempts to get others to attack people they do not know, to impugn motives, and cause person damage by getting them suspended from social media. This is all wrong.
RE: Call to Arms: Combatting Trademark Infringement - Hitcher - 2017-02-20
When did we ask anyone it attack others?
RE: Call to Arms: Combatting Trademark Infringement - memoriesman49 - 2017-02-20
Orinigal post,"I was thinking, it shouldn't be too difficult to stop the worst of offenders, when they are using the word "Kodi" in their business name, it is direct trademark infringement to the highest degree and without even needing to question content, shouldn't be too difficult to get taken down. Enough with this madness, let's all do our part and get complaining!" Then supply links and places where to attack those who have offended by "... using the word "Kodi" in their business name," sound like a "Call To Arms..." to go after perceived trademark infringement. So, the author of Call To Arms:Combating Trademark Infringement is asking the community to use tactics aka attacking via web host and social media. Seem clear.
RE: Call to Arms: Combatting Trademark Infringement - prawnee - 2017-02-20
Woah. Where did you convert that to attacking people?
RE: Call to Arms: Combatting Trademark Infringement - Prof Yaffle - 2017-02-20
What the OP genuinely meant is known to him, not me. However, I read his post as meaning "go after to reduce the harm they're doing". I would suggest that "attack" is a very strong (and loaded) word in this sense, and certainly not in the sense of "attacking via web hosts and social media". We "smear" no-one, and I'd ask you not to repeat that unless you can back it up.
We have a trademark. We have the right - indeed, the obligation, if we wish to keep it - to defend it. If we find it being misused, as it frequently is, then we can do something about it within the limits set by the law. At no point are we going to "attack" anyone, but we will request takedowns as necessary to protect the name. If that's a takedown against a group of enthusiasts who are wrongly using the Kodi name to swap piracy tips, we choose to distance ourselves from that and do not give them permission to use our name as a direct result.
However - and this is where we get into your "grass roots" point - we're just volunteers. This is no-one's job, it's simply a media project that we choose to invest our time and effort into for fun, as strange as that may seem. So the above becomes particularly relevant when someone is profiting from the Kodi name by running commercial businesses that damage our reputation. But - and here's the rub - we don't have teams of lawyers, and we're lacking the Brand Management department that a corporation would have; as such, more voluntary efforts are always appreciated as there are more eyes out there than there are Team members, and that gives us far better capability to protect ourselves from the constant "Kodi == piracy" mantra that we see in the press.
RE: Call to Arms: Combatting Trademark Infringement - RockerC - 2017-02-21
"KodiCenteR.com" looks to be another trademark infringer
http://www.kodicenter.com
RE: Call to Arms: Combatting Trademark Infringement - Yveske - 2017-02-21
I ran into this one advertising on facebook http://www.kodistreamers.nl/ having Kodi in their name and there facebook logo is just the Kodi logo.
If you contact them to point out the issues they come with there standard explanation that streaming is legal and only downloading is illegal (I know, I know)
The piracy thing is kind of a grey zone for the moment in the Netherlands and the boxes are kind of tolerated for now but maybe because of the name using something can be done about them?
RE: Call to Arms: Combatting Trademark Infringement - memoriesman49 - 2017-02-21
Question, why not make Kodi.tv a company and license Kodi would not that stop trademark infringement and addon violators.
RE: Call to Arms: Combatting Trademark Infringement - Prof Yaffle - 2017-02-21
(2017-02-21, 19:00)memoriesman49 Wrote: Question, why not make Kodi.tv a company and license Kodi would not that stop trademark infringement and addon violators.
Nope. Apart from the fact that it's not a commercial concern and the folks here have no interest in it being such (we'd be Plex if that were the case), you'd still have to expend the same time and effort chasing people. Companies have no automatically-better protection than anyone else: indeed, it's a fundamental part of many legal systems that companies are really simply "artificial people" created for the purpose of trade, so have exactly the same rights and responsibilities as the bloke in the street.
RE: Call to Arms: Combatting Trademark Infringement - nickr - 2017-02-21
And the code would still be open source. So anyone can fork it and add add-ons and call it pirati if they want to, wouldn't matter if we were a company or not.
RE: Call to Arms: Combatting Trademark Infringement - memoriesman49 - 2017-02-22
What would be the results if it was no longer open source but a product that could be purchases with approved addon, similar to roku? Who actually runs Kodi, is their a CEO head dog, who negotiates with sponsors, is there a board, is Kodi trademark legally, and can company x take Kodi, redo some of the code and call it XYZ media server? If you can point me to the legal organization chart, the whos who that would be helpful. Thanks
RE: Call to Arms: Combatting Trademark Infringement - Prof Yaffle - 2017-02-22
It will always be open source. It is what it is, you can't change it - that's the point of the licence under which the code was released. If you took it closed source, any of the contributing authors (750+ of them) - indeed, anyone at all, I believe - could pursue action accordingly.
The rest of your questions, whyever you're so keen, are probably answered in one of these:
https://kodi.tv/about/xbmc-foundation/
http://kodi.wiki/view/Official:Trademark_Policy
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.en.html
RE: Call to Arms: Combatting Trademark Infringement - Tinwarble - 2017-02-22
As Pro Yaffle stated, you can't make Kodi closed source because no one person or one group owns the code. It will always be open-source.
You really seem to have no understanding about what a open-source community driven project is. Even if someone was to take the code and call it something else (which is allowed) they would still have to adhere to GPL.
RE: Call to Arms: Combatting Trademark Infringement - da-anda - 2017-02-22
you can't make Kodi closed source as it's GPL and you would need the approval of EVERY developer ever contributed just a single line to this project to change that license. You can use it commercially and provide commercial support for a custom fork or whatever (which again would have to rebrand as it's not stock Kodi anymore), but Kodi itself will always be open sourced. So if we'd decide to rip out our add-on system or remove ZIP-install and other repos, it would only take a couple days to spawn a Kodi fork with all this stuff back in. While this would help our brand, it won't fix anything, only move the piracy industry to a fork (which they already could do and use this very moment if they would care at all about Kodi this project).
Next thing is, one of our fundamental principels for Kodi is user freedom, so giving the user the freedom to use and customize this app in the way he likes to and not become another closed Apple thingy. The very second we would ever attempt to do this, we likely won't have any devs left, as they would just quit the "job" and work on a fork that has the free open source spirit again that keeps us moving forward.
RE: Call to Arms: Combatting Trademark Infringement - memoriesman49 - 2017-02-22
Got it thanks