Torrentfreak: “Developer Registers “Popcorn Time” Trademark to Prevent Abuse” plus 1 more

Developer Registers “Popcorn Time” Trademark to Prevent Abuse

Posted: 19 Sep 2014 03:49 AM PDT

The Popcorn Time phenomenon is one of the biggest piracy stories of the year thus far.

The software amassed millions of users by offering BitTorrent-powered streaming in an easy-to-use Netflix-style interface.

The original app was shut down by the developers after a few weeks, but the project was quickly picked up by others. This resulted in several popular forks that have each developed their own features, with most releasing their source code in public.

In recent months there has been some competition between the various forks. Several spin-offs have claimed the name “Popcorn Time” but thus far that hasn’t resulted in any serious issues.

Recently, however, one developer made a move to formalize his claim on the Popcorn Time brand. An application for the trademark was filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and this week the case was assigned to an examiner.

The proposed trademark describes Popcorn Time as follows: “Downloadable computer software used for streaming multimedia content images, videos and audio from peer to peer.”

The trademark application lists the Canadian developer David Lemarier who filed his application through Legalforce. While some are worried about the development, it appears that Lemarier doesn’t have any nefarious plans.

A source at the main fork Popcorntime.io familiar with the reasoning behind the trademark application told TF that it was filed as a defensive move.

“We strongly believe in the open contributions to the Popcorn Time project and the filing of the trademark wasn’t designed to hinder or prohibit the further development of the official Popcorn Time or any other related forks,” the source says.

“It’s wise to attempt to protect the trademark from ‘giants’ who might come along, sweep up the name, and then bully contributors into non-existence.”

The nature of the ‘giants’ the Popcorntime.io team are concerned about is left open.

Time4Popcorn, one of the popular forks, is not happy with the trademark application. They describes it as “rude” and stress that the Popcorn Time name doesn’t belong to anyone.

“This is news to us and we're still figuring out how to respond to this, but this is rude and it is something we take very seriously,” the Time4Popcorn team notes.

“We assure you that we will never ever do something like this, and we will not let this happen that someone else will claim that it is their trademark. Never. An open source project is for everyone. It does not belong to us or to anyone else!”

Then again, even if someone with bad intentions did obtain the trademark, not much will change. Given the nature of the Popcorn Time application it is unlikely that any of the popular forks will shut down over a trademark dispute.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Report Brands Dotcom’s Mega a Piracy Haven

Posted: 18 Sep 2014 02:24 PM PDT

The most popular file-hosting sites, also known as cyberlockers, have millions of visitors per day.

In recent years many of these sites have gotten a bad reputation as they are frequently used to share copyrighted files.

Today the Digital Citizens Alliance released a new report (pdf) that looks into the profitability of these sites and services. Titled "Behind The Cyberlocker Door: A Report How Shadowy Cyberlockers Use Credit Card Companies to Make Millions," it offers insight into the money streams that end up at these alleged pirate sites.

The study, carried out by NetNames and backed by the entertainment industry, uses information from the busted Megaupload service to estimate the earnings of various other sites. Based on these and other assumptions it concludes that the top cyberlockers generate an average $3.2 million per site per year.

“Overall, total annual revenue across the thirty cyberlockers equated to $96.2 million or $3.2 million per site. One site gathered $17.6m per year in revenue,” the report notes, adding that it’s a conservative estimate.

Estimated revenue and profit per direct download cyberlocker

The report brands these sites as piracy havens based on a sample of the files they host. All the sites that are listed are used predominantly for copyright infringement, they claim.

“The overwhelming use of cyberlockers is for content theft. Analysis of a sampling of the files on the thirty cyberlocker sites found that the vast majority of files were clearly infringing,” the report reads.

“At least 78.6 percent of files on direct download cyberlockers and 83.7 percent of files on streaming cyberlockers infringed copyright,” it adds.

Alleged “infringing” use per cyberlocker

Here’s where the researchers make a crucial mistake. The sample, where the percentage of allegedly infringing files is based on, is drawn from links that are posted publicly online. These are certainly not representative for the entire site, at least not in all cases.

For Mega the researchers looked at 500 files that were shared online. However, the overwhelming majority of Mega’s files, which number more than 500,000,000, are never shared in public.

Unlike some other sites in the report, Mega is a rather traditional cloud hosting provider that’s frequently used for personal backup, through its desktop client or mobile apps for example. The files that are shared in public are the exception here, probably less than one percent of the total.

There is no denying that there are shady and rogue sites that do profit heavily from piracy, but lumping all these sites together and branding them with a pirate label is flat-out wrong.

Aside from “exposing” the estimated profitability of the cyberlockers the report also has a secondary goal. It puts out a strong call to the credit card companies Visa and MasterCard, and hosting providers such as Cloudflare, urging them to cut their ties with these supposed pirate havens.

“They should take a hard look at the checkered history of their cyberlocker partners. Simply put, the businesses that simply exploit and expropriate the creative efforts of others do not occupy a legitimate place in the Internet ecosystem,” the report notes.

“Content theft is a cancer on the Internet. It introduces viruses and malware to computers, robs creators who rely on the Internet to sell their products, damages brands by associating them with illegal and inappropriate content and provides seed money for criminals to engage in other illegal activities,” it adds.

Hopefully future reports will have more nuance. At minimum they should make sure to have all the facts right, as that’s generally more convincing.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.