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The OBS project has accused Streamlabs of copying their name and trademark

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Re: The OBS project has accused Streamlabs of copying their name and trademark

#32

Can someone explain what OBS is? And yeah, some rando tried to trademark "Linux" some years back, lol. After a fair amount of hassle it ended up getting transferred to Linus Torvalds, which I guess was the best solution.

OBS is software for producing and streaming live video content.

Thanks, and interesting. I had never heard of it before. I'm not really into video, but have used ffmpeg and icecast for that sort of thing, which worked but were very crude compared to what I see on youtube and the like.

Re: The OBS project has accused Streamlabs of copying their name and trademark

#33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OBS is software for producing and streaming live video content.

Thanks, and interesting. I had never heard of it before. I'm not really into video, but have used ffmpeg and icecast for that sort of thing, which worked but were very crude compared to what I see on youtube and the like.

> ffmpeg and icecast Yeah for a server/embedded solution those are probably better to use for simple setup?

But desktop usecase, OBS is pretty much a gold standard.

Re: The OBS project has accused Streamlabs of copying their name and trademark

#36
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Including $50,000 from the owners of Streamlabs, Logitech

For what it's worth, Logitech made that contribution well before they bought Streamlabs

Interesting it was transferred in May 2019 and they bought Streamlabs in September 2019. I had not seen that.

Re: The OBS project has accused Streamlabs of copying their name and trademark

#38
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, Logitech made that contribution well before they bought Streamlabs

Interesting it was transferred in May 2019 and they bought Streamlabs in September 2019. I had not seen that.

Perhaps they were confused about the association between projects as well.

Re: The OBS project has accused Streamlabs of copying their name and trademark

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OBS is software for producing and streaming live video content.

Arguably THE open source software that revolutionized screen recording and live streaming. Not just software.

To be fair, Xsplit (closed source) was the one that was there as streaming got established, though OBS has taken over these days by being better and free (as in beer - though also being open source obviously helped get there).

Re: The OBS project has accused Streamlabs of copying their name and trademark

#40
post #2

This is why it is important to trademark names in your FOSS projects

It’s not that easy, it only takes a few overzealous lawyers to end up with the drama we had with Firefox and Iceweazel. The point of open source is that you can modify it. But can you modify it and still call it the same name? If so, how much can you modify it?

Plenty of open source license recognize this, e.g. from the zlib license:

> 2. Altered source versions must be plainly marked as such, and must not be misrepresented as being the original software.

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