[Martijn]

Can we make it a cat then? You know cats dominate the world right?

[Eleazar Coding]

I've just gone ahead and changed the YouTube videos accordingly and will continue to make any necessary changes in order to please the XBMC Foundation.

Now, before I continue, I'd like if you guys could look back and realize that I am cooperating fully, and you can stop talking to me like I'm the enemy or doing somethign wrong.

--------------------------

As far as the "Powered by Kodi" line goes, it incorporates the "registered" trademark icon as necessary, and now I have indeed found the specific line on your Wiki that grants the ability to use that line:

http://kodi.wiki/view/XBMC:Trademark_Policy_FAQ

Under Section 5: "Naming your Application or Product; Applying for a Domain"

"Feel free to include language on your site explaining that your application 'Works with Kodi”.'

"Use “for Kodi” (or other marks) following the name of your application, provided that the name of your application is unique."

--------------------------

As far as using those standard operating system icons, it was allowed according to your trademark policy as well:

http://kodi.wiki/index.php?title=Officia...ldid=77885

* link to XBMC Foundation's website(s) by using the banners and buttons we provide to allow your visitors to download Kodi;

--------------------------

Again, I am doing everything possible to satisfy your concerns, but the way I am being spoken to is not exactly encouraging whatsoever.

[natethomas]

Again, I am doing everything possible to satisfy your concerns, but the way I am being spoken to is not exactly encouraging whatsoever.

The massive confusion caused by your website was at least one of the factors in our ultimately deciding to switch to a name that could get a registered trademark. Maybe not the biggest factor, but definitely a factor. I hope you'll excuse us for being a bit tetchy when a few months after the fact it started to look like your site had begun falling into the old ways.

As far as the "Powered by Kodi" line goes, it incorporates the "registered" trademark icon as necessary, and now I have indeed found the specific line on your Wiki that grants the ability to use that line:

http://kodi.wiki/view/XBMC:Trademark_Policy_FAQ

Under Section 5: "Naming your Application or Product; Applying for a Domain"

"Feel free to include language on your site explaining that your application 'Works with Kodi”.'

"Use “for Kodi” (or other marks) following the name of your application, provided that the name of your application is unique."

I'm not sure how "for Kodi" or "works with Kodi" translates into "Powered by Kodi." Those seem like pretty different concepts. And besides, the problem you seem to run into is that this somewhat violates the first two of the "You may not"s under section 5. You may not "Use our marks or derivatives thereof in the name of your application." Including the word Kodi in your logo would, it seems to me, suggest that you are using the word Kodi as part of your name. You may not "Use “for Kodi” (or other marks) following the name of your application if the name of your application is not unique." No offense, but TV Addons isn't really unique, and the fact that you are electing not to use TV Addons as the actual title of your site seems to suggest that you also think it's too generic to use as an actual title. As mentioned elsewhere, I'm willing to work with you on whether TV Addons is unique and an actual brand, but the fact that you keep insisting on not titling your website the name of you organization seems really weird and fishy to me.

[Eleazar Coding]

Don't take this as argumentative, I'm not arguing with you, and will change whatever is necessary; what I am doing however is defending my actions because this thread comes out as slanderous and negative towards because of all the replies that really don't contain any substance other than negativity.

--------------------------

We didn't "fall into any old ways" - our site was approved by several members of your team prior to launch, I've gone through your trademark guidelines over and over, and they are all met.

For purposed of coming up on Google we titled the site: "Unofficial Addons for XBMC & Kodi" - I really think that is more than clear that we are unofficial.

I'm not sure how the name "TV ADDONS" isn't unique, I don't see any other site or the net using that name, and I don't see how it can be confused with the name Kodi at all.

I'm not doing anything fishy whatsoever, it is standard for web sites to use taglines describing their web site services in the HTML title tag of their web site, the site name itself is clearly marked "TV ADDONS" in the logo at the top of every page.

-----------------------

As far as the "Powered by Kodi" goes, again that line says "Use “for Kodi' (or other marks) following the name of your application" - and "include language on your site explaining that your application 'Works with Kodi" - you'll see the words "or other marks" - and "include language explaining" - the phrase "Powered by Kodi" doesn't really deviate from that.

Any of the addons at our site are "Powered by Kodi" so it doesn't mislead in anyway.

Again, that logo was shown to several members of your team and has been up for months, everyone said it was cool.

--------------------------

Lastly, if I were you I wouldn't be too worried about the confusion of Chinese manufacturers. They are distributing hundreds of thousands of their devices with your software preinstalled, some are installing addons. The reason the people you spoke to didn't know the difference is because they didn't care to know the difference. There is no such thing as "Corporate Responsibility" in China as you are probably aware due to your previous issues with manufacturers (who I won't mention to avoid further issues here). The people you spoke to were likely sales people or management, who simply told their engineers to put XBMC on all of their devices, and left it to the engineers to decide what to do. They are all distributing modified versions of your software without renaming it, which in itself is an issue that you should be concerned about.

I'm not sure if you took the time to think about the fact that none of our addons even work in China, so it's not like those people are using them anyway, they are just profiteers trying to find the quickest way to sell devices, without any corporate responsibility involved.

Those Chinese people you've spoken to have likely never once visited your web site or ours, and have certainly never taken the time to install XBMC on their own.

[Martijn]

Hold on a second. No team member ever officially approved your website and neither should they! So stop saying it's approved because it's not! Give names who said this. "some members" is to vague and unacceptable. I see lots of people impersonating "official members" by saying "xbmc/kodi dev".
The website should have the title and not "unofficial Addons....." or whatever.
The logo is unacceptable. Period.


Neither does your group take the time to actively counter all the default spreading of the stuff you host. You plainly accept that's it's happening and in my eyes you still actively work towards spreading them by default

[Eleazar Coding]

I'm not going to mention the team members that were shown our web site prior to launch because I don't need to make more enemies here, but we did not launch our site without showing it to several members of your team (anyone who would talk to us) to ask them if they thought we had made the necessary distinguishing changes in order to avoid future confusion.

There is nothing on our site that is confusing right now, if people are confused it's because of their own stupidity; not because we are doing anything to deceive anyone.

[Martijn]

I'm not going to mention the team members that were shown our web site prior to launch because I don't need to make more enemies here, but we did not launch our site without showing it to several members of your team (anyone who would talk to us) to ask them if they thought we had made the necessary distinguishing changes in order to avoid future confusion.

There is nothing on our site that is confusing right now, if people are confused it's because of their own stupidity; not because we are doing anything to deceive anyone.

And now you are hereby officially told it's not alright by two board members.

Again you are not working towards making it clear towards people either. You guys caused all this by yourself (I don't care who was involved in the beginning). Even if you aren't promoting it as such now, history still shows that you did cause all the confusion so it's up to you guys to put things straight!

[Martijn]

Ever contacted those sellers that what they are doing is highly unwanted? I bet you haven't and are perfectly happy with the situation. And this situation could potentially destroy kodi/xbmc in total if it continues. Guess you don't care about that right?


Edit:
Btw this accounts for every website out there abusing the situation

[natethomas]

I'm not going to mention the team members that were shown our web site prior to launch because I don't need to make more enemies here, but we did not launch our site without showing it to several members of your team (anyone who would talk to us) to ask them if they thought we had made the necessary distinguishing changes in order to avoid future confusion.

There is nothing on our site that is confusing right now, if people are confused it's because of their own stupidity; not because we are doing anything to deceive anyone.

Two things: First, I can virtually guarantee that whichever team members you talked to weren't lawyers and probably felt pretty uncomfortable answering your questions. I can do so because literally none of us is a lawyer. I'm probably the only one who even knew that there was a factors test for determining likelihood of confusion, and I only really bothered reading up on it in the past week. Before that, I probably last read about it in roughly 2008. So it simply doesn't matter that you got approval from random team member X, because random team member X doesn't know what the rules are with regards to trademark. The only person you should have been asking was your own trademark lawyer, since he would have been the only authority you could truly depend on.

Second, you keep making an important mistake. The question is not "Is the site intentionally confusing?" The question is "Is the site objectively confusing to a reasonable person?" You and I are far too close to the situation to make that judgment, so we are forced to rely on things like the 8 factors test and the actual response of real users. And under both circumstances, it appears that a pretty good case can be made that it is confusing. We LITERALLY do not care if you didn't intend to be confusing. We care whether you are. And until we can go at least one facebook post without somebody asking us about your addons, or we can get into agreement that the site finally doesn't violate too many of the 8 factors, there's going to continue being a problem.

Finally, on an unrelated note, I don't recommend tossing out the word "slanderous" unless you mean it. If you want to sue us for being negative about how we perceive your site confusing our users and violating our trademark, do so. But recognize that the first defense to a slander/defamation case is truth, and so long as you are on the wrong side of the law on the 8 factors test, you're going to have a hard time playing the slander card.

[natethomas]

I'm not sure how the name "TV ADDONS" isn't unique, I don't see any other site or the net using that name, and I don't see how it can be confused with the name Kodi at all.

I personally don't see any sites at all on the net using that name as their title. You guys certainly aren't.

Also, what are you talking about with "I don't see how it can be confused with the name Kodi at all"? The rule is that our name can't follow a generic name. That's not so people don't confuse "Kodi" with the generic name. If somebody called their app Grapes for Kodi, we wouldn't be worried about people confusing Kodi with fruit. The concern is that the name is so generic that people think it's simply a descriptor. Since you provide tv addons for Kodi, and we provide tv addons for Kodi, people could assume the site is Kodi, and it's just a subdomain for apps that we offer. This could, of course, be solved by your working to make TV Addons more of a proper noun by, for example, actually titling your website TV Addons. But, to repeat for roughly the 20th time, you keep refusing to do that.

[Eleazar Coding]

Man, again with the negativity. What is the problem here? I keep following every one of your requests yet I am still being attacked.

Maybe some people do find it confusing, I'm sure that's true; but you can't say that our web site confuses anywhere near the majority of people.

There will always be people commenting on your social media with questions and such, there is nothing we can do to change that.

I'm bending over backwards to satisfy your entire team, but stop talking about "legality" and "reasoning" and just give me a list of specific changes you want made, and they will be made as long as they are moderately reasonable.

Personally, I think that your team could be doing more to separate itself from sketchiness, perhaps put a disclaimer saying that you "do not condone piracy" on your download page, as well as a note in your social media profiles that says the same. You might also want to put a "sticky" announcement at the top of every forum section that explains why XBMC shouldn't be associated with piracy, and maybe a blog post that explains the same.

[natethomas]

Now, before I continue, I'd like if you guys could look back and realize that I am cooperating fully, and you can stop talking to me like I'm the enemy or doing somethign wrong.

Doing 5% of what we ask is not the same thing as cooperating fully. If you need time to make changes, or would like to talk more specifically about what we have a problem with, feel free, but the impression I keep getting from you is that you want to do as little as possible to reduce confusion, and you want to call that little bit "cooperating fully."

[Eleazar Coding]

I just went and changed the site "title tag" to "TV ADDONS | Unofficial Addons for XBMC & Kodi" I really hope that that is satisfactory. It is standard for a web site to include a tagline that describes their web site's service, as do you guys: "Kodi | Open Source Home Theatre Software"

I want to do everything necessary to please you, but the way I'm being spoken to just isn't nice. I was only trying to help and now I get crucified to the point where both your team and my team are mad at me. This is an open source community and I think that I've done quite a bit to contribute positively to the community as well.

------------------------

As far as the download page icons go, we used the same generic icons you used, there is no other way of adequately displaying the necessary information. If you look at those links, they link to guides which then ALWAYS link to your web site for the actual XBMC download, and not to the direct download link, but to your download page itself.

For the Addons Library, we will be changing those icons to something else as soon as possible.

------------------------

I still think it should be acknowledged that we have done a lot to help protect the XBMC Foundation from being associated with piracy since our new site launch, and should be given the benefit of the doubt, rather than acting like we are deliberately wronging you.

If you want anything changed, I'll do it, but stop acting like we've broken your terms because we haven't broken them.

[natethomas]

Man, again with the negativity. What is the problem here? I keep following every one of your requests yet I am still being attacked.

Maybe some people do find it confusing, I'm sure that's true; but you can't say that our web site confuses anywhere near the majority of people.

There will always be people commenting on your social media with questions and such, there is nothing we can do to change that.

I'm bending over backwards to satisfy your entire team, but stop talking about "legality" and "reasoning" and just give me a list of specific changes you want made, and they will be made as long as they are moderately reasonable.

Personally, I think that your team could be doing more to separate itself from sketchiness, perhaps put a disclaimer saying that you "do not condone piracy" on your download page, as well as a note in your social media profiles that says the same. You might also want to put a "sticky" announcement at the top of every forum section that explains why XBMC shouldn't be associated with piracy, and maybe a blog post that explains the same.

Are you joking? You keep following every one of our requests? What's the title of your site now? Does your download section look exactly like ours? Do you put the words Kodi or XBMC right next to your TVMC downloads? Are you including the word Kodi or XBMC in your logo?

Personally, I don't care what you think our team could do with regards to piracy. If you only offered legitimate addons, this discussion would still be happening, because you are confusing our users.

Let me be completely frank. I am not swayed by your complaining about how hard it is to walk the narrow line between pretending to be us and staying on the legal side of not pretending to be us. You can use phrases like "bending over backwards" and "cooperating fully" as much as you like, but we've already got a pretty long list of areas where I think we all agree (on this side) a great deal of confusion is being sown. As I said, if you need time to fix those things, say so. But please don't come back and say they've already been fixed if they clearly haven't.

edit: Just noting that I posted this prior to seeing the post right above it. I appreciate the title change, as it was easily the most important thing I was looking for. And like I said, if you need time, I'm happy to accommodate you. Some of our requests could definitely be pretty time consuming.

[Eleazar Coding]

The site title now shows: "TV ADDONS | Unofficial Addons for XBMC & Kodi"

The download section does not look like yours, it simply uses the same generic operating system icons, other than that nothing about it is the same, it's also surrounded by the rest of our web site, that looks nothing like yours and clearly demonstrates our branding, not yours.

As far as the TVMC being listed under XBMC goes, I've just made changes to that to distinguish the difference more clearly, separating it to be displayed under a different heading.

For the logo change, I'm looking into changing it, but can't make any promises on that yet, because I'm not the designer and again I think it is reasonable to say "Powered by Kodi" for the reasons I mentioned in a previous reply.