Amazon settles trademark lawsuit over Fire TV with adult entertainment company after nearly 10 years
When Amazon rolled out Fire TV in April 2014, the adult entertainment industry chuckled.
The name of the streaming set-top box was eerily similar to FyreTV, a video on-demand service specializing in adult content. The owner of the porn streamer sued Amazon later that month and now, just shy of 10 years later, the two parties have reached a settlement.
Bloomberg Law reports Amazon and Wreal, owners of FyreTV, are in the process of finalizing a “confidential” settlement and expect to file dismissal paperwork for the suit before the end of September.
Amazon thought it had put the matter behind it in 2019, when a U.S District Court judge ruled in its favor, saying no reasonable jury could find that Amazon was likely to cause confusion between the two brands. Last June, though, an appeals court overturned that ruling, saying the federal judge shouldn’t have made that ruling before a jury could hear the case.
Amazon declined to comment on the settlement when contacted by Fortune.
At the time of Fire TV’s release, customers who went to firetv.com likely received a shock. The porn site had that domain three years earlier, apparently expecting people to misspell its name. Subscribers were able to stream explicit XXX content directly to their TVs via Roku and other third party set-top boxes at the time.
Amazon’s similar naming might, in fact, have been the best thing to ever happen to FyreTV. Before the mix-up, it was one of the forerunners in bringing streaming adult entertainment to the living room, but wasn’t exactly a runaway success. The PR wave that followed made a much broader audience aware of its offerings.
Fire TV, meanwhile, has become a staple in Amazon’s hardware division, with a branded line of streaming sticks and televisions. Life to date, the company has shipped more than 200 million Fire TV devices.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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