[metalkettle]

Funny thing about boxes sellers in the USA. If they are not incorporated they open themselves up for a personal lawsuit. They can potentially lose their house over selling illegal boxes and breaking trademarks.

Going off on a tangent here. The devices themselves ARE NOT illegal. It's probably that misunderstanding which smarts a little with Amazon and their fire product range.

[Martijn]

Funny thing about boxes sellers in the USA. If they are not incorporated they open themselves up for a personal lawsuit. They can potentially lose their house over selling illegal boxes and breaking trademarks.

Going off on a tangent here. The devices themselves ARE NOT illegal.

Selling devices is a business, not being registered as a business is not that legal

[metalkettle]

Funny thing about boxes sellers in the USA. If they are not incorporated they open themselves up for a personal lawsuit. They can potentially lose their house over selling illegal boxes and breaking trademarks.

Going off on a tangent here. The devices themselves ARE NOT illegal.

Selling devices is a business, not being registered as a business is not that legal

Ebay seem fine with it for most.
Obviously there are tax implications but that's a different area of law.

[Lunatixz]

Funny thing about boxes sellers in the USA. If they are not incorporated they open themselves up for a personal lawsuit. They can potentially lose their house over selling illegal boxes and breaking trademarks.

Going off on a tangent here. The devices themselves ARE NOT illegal. It's probably that misunderstanding which smarts a little with Amazon and their fire product range.

Huh? Having a "business" centered around another companies brand opens you up for litigation... I'm starting to feel like you are trolling?

[Lunatixz]

Going off on a tangent here. The devices themselves ARE NOT illegal.

Selling devices is a business, not being registered as a business is not that legal

Ebay seem fine with it for most.
Obviously there are tax implications but that's a different area of law.

I'm tapping out... Miss the days where ppl weren't so openly naive.

[metalkettle]

No. There's no trolling just a genuine interest. It's just an example.
I could sell thousands of iPhone cases on ebay in uk and not be asked any questions by eBay or apple. Your argument doesn't make sense.

Just for the record I do not sell boxes have a website or run a Facebook group.

[shearer69]

what are official addons, and if they allow free streaming of tv shows and films then they no different to other 3rd party apart from those ripping sky/virgin sports etc under European law streaming is not illegal

[Lunatixz]

what are official addons, and if they allow free streaming of tv shows and films then they no different to other 3rd party apart from those ripping sky/virgin sports etc under European law streaming is not illegal

From what I've learned its all a gray area, the issue is damages. Is the plugin providing content that damages the brand.

[metalkettle]

That is true. Surely some of the Addons in the official repo do not have explicit permission from the source.
Disney
Nickelodeon
NBSC Sports Extra (showing premium sports)
South Park
ABC
Hallmark

They could all claim there would be damages when people watch via KODI.

[Razze]

Personally, I think the foundation DOES need to tackle this, There are far to many people making huge sums of money from kodi, I have even seen people charging for "custom builds", ie. modified skin with third party addons installed.

It's only a matter of time before someone points the finger here, And says you knew of the problems, But you are not proactive in making it difficult for these third party addons to use your platform. to stream this content...

Dont get me wrong. I agree fully. It's just what criteria is used to identify which groups to penalise is the issue.
Is it just as simple as "3rd Party Addons for KODI" and "Support for unofficial 3rd Party KODI Addons". Is it just the termology? Is it 3rd party addons as a whole or is it the fact that developers/groups/individuals don't specifically state they are not connected to the foundation?

There is no problem with "3rd Party Addons for KODI" as some of them are perfectly fine and are for not in the official repo for other reasons. But "illegal 3rd Party Addons for KODI" as in ripping of content providers are what this is all about.

metalkettle, there are actually 7 total factors in what is called the "likelihood of confusion" test to determine if something could cause trademark confusion. To see the list, see here:

http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/l...nging.html

And here's an example if looking through an old version of tvaddons.ag and seeing if it causes confusion. http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=...pid2030291

That same test can be done on any youtuber page or website.

So I'm summary. If you don't have a website, youtube channel it twitter account using the word KODI all is fine?

Well you can still have such a side but having Kodi in the handle on twitter for e.g. is a problem, if your posting about Kodi. So a twitter handle like KodiOfficial is a problem for us.

[metalkettle]

A handle like @metal_kettle posting about kodi is OK?

[Abyss999]

Not a troll account btw, never had a reason to post

I just wanted to address a claim in the OP that says "Once a decision is reached, the offending domain name would be transferred directly to the XBMC Foundation."

That's false, you can register and own any domain name that is available for purchase. Now I agree that you can't then use that domain to infringe upon trademark but make no mistake that whomever registers the domain owns it (unless stipulated otherwise in user agreement). The only way to obtain that domain would be a transfer by the owner but it can't be forcibly taken.

A person can go register CocaColalovesdogs.com if it's available, they could only make a claim if you start using the logo and likeness which you are correct on. As far as damages, seeing as Kodi is free you've suffered no compensatory damages. As far as your reputation, how much is that worth exactly? On the punitive side is the only place I can see gain. But yes I agree that the logo and likeness are yours and you have every right to have them removed.

[ClassicNancy]

Classic kodi skins forum you have listed is gone. I took it down. Didn't know denoting the skins I make are for kodi was a problem. Not sure how people will know if I can't even use the word.

[natethomas]

A handle like @metal_kettle posting about kodi is OK?

To my knowledge that would not violate trademark.

[keith]

That is true. Surely some of the Addons in the official repo do not have explicit permission from the source.

The addons in the official repo, as far as we're aware, get their content directly from the source. IE: SyFy streams from their own website and we're not pulling ripped copies off some janky website.

While we haven't got explicit permission, it typically falls under fair use because of the source.

Much of this boils down to 'intent'. Our addon and their website has the exact same intent: to promote media in a safe and legal way, which views are counted by the respective owners of the content and if they are setup correctly, showing the ads associated, just like on the website. We will not allow addons in our repo that intentionally block ads, or put ads over someone else's content they don't own or stream someone elses content from a weird questionable 3rd party site that has no affiliation with the content owners.

I am actually actively on working on reaching out to the companies who have community addons to build relationships and see if they want to help support an official addon.

As an example, VEVO reached out to us to say our addon didn't support ads. We responded it's a community addon and we're using their published API which does not have ads in it, but we'd love to form a stronger relationship in which we are a '1st party addon ecosystem' using the same API's Roku, Fire TV, Android TV, etc use. They never got back to us.

So while we did not get explicit permission, because we're not damaging their brand and receiving content directly from the source (ie, their api/website/etc) they are fine with it.

If you know of another addon in the repo which does not conform to these rules (and its entirely possible a few out of the 1000+ slipped through the crack) please let us know and we'll quick move to remove it and contact the addon dev.

And even if a company declines to want to help, they've never asked to be removed, out of the 20+ I've contacted so far. Many more to go.