Twitpic shutting down over Twitter trademark dispute

Photo-sharing serviceTwitpicsaid it is shutting down by the end of September after Twitter asked it to abandon its trademark application.

"Twitpicwill be shutting down September 25," the website's founder, Noah Everett, wrote in a blog post Thursday.

"Afew weeks ago, Twitter contacted our legal demanding that we abandon our trademark application or risk losing access to theirAPI," or application programming interface the software that allowsTwitpicand other services to operate through Twitter.

While in the latter stages of processing a trademark application for the use of the nameTwitpic, Twitter "reached outto our counsel and impliedwe couldbe denied access to theirAPIif we did not give up our mark," Everett wrote.

"Unfortunately we do not have the resources to fend off a large company like Twitter to maintain our mark, which we believe wholeheartedly is rightfully ours. Therefore, we have decided to shut downTwitpic."

Twitter recently revamped its own photo tool, but for a long time before thatTwitpicwas the most-used tool on the social media network to quickly post and share picture content.

But in a statement, a spokesman for Twitter appearedto dispute Everett's version of events, saying the company has no problem withTwitpic'sname.

"We're sad to seeTwitpicis shutting down," the spokesman said. "We encourage developers to build on top of the Twitter service, asTwitpichas done for years, and we made it clear that they could operate using theTwitpicname. Of course, we also have to protect our brand, and that includes trademarks tied to the brand."

Twitpicsays it will allow users to extract all their pictures from the service up until September 25.