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Comment by bdcravens | Hacker News Reader

pretty sure the reasons they changed the name are still valid and outweigh what they'd gain

https://kodi.tv/article/xbmc-getting-new-name-introducing-ko...

So the main[1] reason they changed the name was because they "have never had any sort of legal control over the use of its name". Clearly, based on the issue at hand, the name change hasn't helped.

[1] I don't buy that they needed to change the name because "XBMC" didn't make sense anymore. "Kodi" is just as nonsensical as "XBMC", if not more so.

> Clearly, based on the issue at hand, the name change hasn't helped

They were only referring to ability to sue over misuse (say I make a KodiBox and sell it). Google omitting from auto-complete isn't relevant.

I think main reason wasn't that however, but was to prevent legal activity from Microsoft. (I suspect there were undisclosed related conversations)

> Google omitting from auto-complete isn't relevant.

I disagree. They wanted legal control of their name, yet now they have it and Google considers it a piracy search term. Microsoft speculation aside, they didn't gain anything because pirate-box makers don't care about legal action to begin with.

I don't know if they could somehow enforce autocompletion legally, but they probably could've prevented the reason Google is dropping them: With legal control of the name they could have sued people selling piracy boxes. A headache, yes, but it seems that that was exactly why they did change the name (Though it also improves recognizability, imo)

Kodi wasn't able to run Kodi18 on the Xbox One unless they rebranded. Furthermore, while they technically have more control over their trademark now, they dabble in the business of piracy so good luck with enforcing that on the limited budget they have. Frankly, I think they were sick of being under the Xbox shadow as it was holding back their branding

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