Trademark Use Guidelines

Trademarks perform the useful function of identifying, for consumers, the source of particular products or services. When someone uses another's trademark in a way that may be misleading about the origin of a product or its features, the trademark becomes less valuable to consumers in identifying and differentiating between various product or service offerings.

Our trademark policy is clear: If you are just referring to us, the protocol, the client or our software, or are otherwise making a non-commercial fair use of the BITTORRENT name or mark, you need not ask for permission to do so. But use of our logo, or of BITTORRENT or TORRENT in a domain name, or incorporating our technology into a commercial product or service, requires our permission and a trademark license.

The following identify several situations that do not require our permission, and others that do. If you are unsure which category what you plan to do falls in, please contact us at trademarks@bittorrent.com before you use any of our marks. Also, if you do need our permission to make a particular use, please contact us, in advance, at trademarks@bittorrent.com. We will try to respond to your inquiry as soon as we possibly can.

You Don't Need Our Permission When You Are:

  • Talking about BITTORRENT. The BITTORRENT client, is available free of charge. It has always been distributed freely, because its purpose from the beginning was to facilitate sharing and communication among members of the internet community. We still strongly believe in these ideas, and the concept of "free communication" - that is to say, free speech. As such, it is important that people be able to talk about BITTORRENT, as a protocol, as a client, as software and as a company. If you're just talking about us or our products (as in "BitTorrent rocks" or "I want to learn how to use BitTorrent more successfully"), in a non-commercial context, you don't need to ask our permission. All we ask is that you're honest. Don't call things BITTORRENT when you know they're not, or say things about our products that you know aren't true.

  • Referring to an Actual BITTORRENT Product or Service. The whole purpose of our trademarks is to let you know when you're dealing with something from BitTorrent. A platform, client, idea, service, website, or anything else that actually comes from BitTorrent, Inc., should always be given its correct name. In fact, we have a right to have our name and marks on the things we've produced. No one may falsely claim that a BITTORRENT product was actually made by someone else. Give credit where credit is due. Also, please identify our marks as trademarks of BitTorrent, Inc., and please avoid using our marks as verbs or nouns (of course, you can use BitTorrent to refer to the company!).

  • Making Other Noncommercial Use. You don't need a license to use the BITTORRENT mark if you're just using it to refer to the fact that you have included the BITTORRENT protocol in an application you're making available for free. While you still have a responsibility to make it clear that you've used the BITTORRENT protocol and didn't invent the whole thing yourself, you do not need a license unless you also fall into one of the categories listed below (such as if you want to distribute your application from a website with a "BitTorrent" URL).

You Need Permission When You Want To:

  • Use our Logo. The BITTORRENT logo is a unique mark closely associated with BitTorrent, Inc. Before making any use of the logo in any form, you need a license from BitTorrent.

  • Names and Titles. The titles of goods and services are also closely associated with the name of the company who made them. Any product or service that uses BITTORRENT in its name or title is likely to confuse consumers into believing that BitTorrent, Inc is in some way responsible for, or associated with that offering. If people are unhappy with the product or service, they may be unhappy with our company, and/or may expect us to perform support or other services for them based on their use of the product. Therefore, any product or service with a name or title that includes BITTORRENT, a shortened or scrambled form of BITTORRENT, or something that's designed to look or sound a lot like BITTORRENT requires prior approval from us. Using BITTORRENT on your product or as the name of your service essentially is using our reputation, so you need our permission before you do this.

  • Use Our Mark in a Domain Name. In the same way that a product with BITTORRENT in the name is likely to make people think BitTorrent is associated with or controls the product, a domain name that contains or is similar to BITTORRENT is likely to make people think that BitTorrent controls or is somehow associated with the domain. If you want to run a website under a BITTORRENT-based domain name, you will first need to get our permission to do so.

  • Incorporate our Technology into a Commercial Product. If you plan to sell a product using our technology or protocol, provide a service based on BitTorrent's products, or otherwise use BITTORRENT to make money, you need to get BitTorrent's permission to use our trademarks, so that there is no consumer confusion about our involvement in your venture. It is contrary to our purpose and goals to be associated in the minds of consumers with commercial products to which we have no connection. As such, any effort to commercialize any of the BITTORRENT technology requires a trademark license from us.

  • Misleading or Confusing People. If you are using any of our trademarks in a way that will cause people to get the wrong idea about BitTorrent's involvement in something, you should stop! If you have some reason why you think your proposed use isn't misleading or confusing, let's talk.

© 2001-2009. BitTorrent, Inc. All rights reserved. BitTorrent, the BitTorrent Logo, and Torrent are trademarks of BitTorrent, Inc.