Slashdot Mirror
Fandom vs. Fandom.com
Marx's Ghost writes: "This is an interesting article about fan sites being threatened by Fandom.com, whose claim of being "by the fan's, for the fan's" doesn't hold up in view of their bullying tactics. Should provoke some people who are concerned with poor definitions of cyber-squatting. What should really constitute cyber-squatting?" Claiming a trademark on a descriptive term like "fandom" and then bullying other fan sites ... what a great business plan.
...but have you checked out gateway.com lately? I wonder what used to be there...
I disagree.... all this would mean is that someone like microsoft would now get microsoft.* instead of just microsoft.[com|net|org]. Ditto with other companies. I don't disagree with adding more TLDs, but I disagree that this will lead to the end of the BS.
.gtm? .com? .product?
Besides, if you have a company, or product that is say, the "netshredder". Nowadays, people look for you automatically at netshredder.com. Where do they go now? netshredder.ustm?
I personally think that we need a *better* way of handling domains that is "product" friendly... A search engine built into a browser so that you type in "netshredder" it presents you with a list of the netshredder.* sites and a brief description of them? Something like that. Don't tell me that search engines do that these days... some are better than others, but they are far, *FAR* from perfect, nor usable "search for "breast cancer" and the like...).
No way!
At least, not if I buy www.letter.com you won't!
In other news, Microsoft Word Charges By The Letter...
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
It really makes one wonder why bother using one of the new TLD's if they are just going to be frought with cease and desist orders from domain holder(s) in the .com, .net, .org space.
Reminds me of a "special" I once say on NSI's site encouraging people to regester their name in all three!
This is one of the reasons that in the UK you can have a .ltd.uk domain. Only a registered Limited company can have the domain. And since all Limited company names are unique there can be no question about which company you are refering to.
You even have to present your Limited Company certificate before they can release it
Of course no one ever uses them as everyone would much rather have a .com or even a .co.uk
The two secrets to success: 1- Don't tell anyone everything.
-13
A "cease and desist letter" is pretty much just a lawyer's way of getting your attention, and has no legal weight. A "cease and desist order" is another thing altogether, and Fandom.com seems to be very short on the "order" side of the battle.
You find them in the actual books, which while not explicit, are quite 'friendly', with plenty going on. If you can, pick up Winters Heart, which really does have, well... that would be a soiler, now woudn't it?
Because the fan-produced sites make the official sites look the steaming piles of shite they generally are. I have yet to see an "official" site that allows visitors quick and easy access to the information they are looking for, in whatever form, when compared to most fan-made sites. Fan sites usually offer more than official sites and make it easier to get to. And since the majority of users are still on dial-up connections or the equivalent speed, it also doesn't hurt that most "official" sites are composed of bastardized HTML and a bunch of mime-types that takes forever to load and might even crash your browser, whereas fan sites are either put together by people who know HTML -- or at least by people who want to make a web site, not reproduce the passize-zombie format of traditional entertainment.
Fuck Slashdot
Actually, it's not much like the etoys/etoy case. In that case, etoys was claiming that etoy was willfully misleading visitors who accidentally went to the etoy site, by putting pictures of toys on their front page and that whole fake stock offering thing. In this, etoys was responding to actual complaints from parents whose children had gone to the etoy site and found pictures they felt were unsitable for children.
The fandom.com stuff is just about domain names. The etoys stuff was about trademarks.
Presuming I get to this before anyone else does ...too late! :-) Here's a bit from the whois query...
Registrant:American Chair & Seating (CHAIR-DOM)
132 R. Washington Street,
Quincy, MA 02169
US
Domain Name: CHAIR.COM
A vote for the lesser of two evils is still a vote for Evil.
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
Don't forget Microsoft's trademark on "bookshelf".
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Physical mutation, that is, because the ideology seems to remain the same. You may be initially led to think otherwise, thought. Check out what Fandom.com wants you to think:
The initial premise of Fandom.com was straightforward: to protect individual fan site owners from studio censorship
When Sony made Fandom.com its official site for Godzilla (back in 1997!) you could start thinking otherwise.
I've bought a thing or two from AnotherUniverse.com, now owned by Fandom.com. I get the catalog mailed to me, and some months ago I received along this letter telling me about the deal. I didn't take it as a big deal until I actually saw the site. Fandom.com is the perfect source for propaganda.
From the corporative POV Fandom.com is excellent. Yet we still have to read things like this:
"We are far from a big corporation," insists Meyers.
I now return to where I started. Fandom.com mutated from a small site that really harbored other smaller pages to this huge corporate-backed conglomerate.
The ideology has always been that of "incorporate, assimilate" and this outcome was predictable. [Failure was a secondary outcome, but clearly Mr. Meyers knows what he's doing]
Mrs. Burrell shouldn't have much to worry about, I believe. Of course there are the legal headaches of going through this and the discomfort of going agaist Fandom.com, but there is plenty of evidence that she's right.
Domain squatting is a problem, of course, but fortunately it's fast to clear out in an individual basis. Also fortunately, as the eToys issue has already shown us, cases like Burrell/Fandom.com's are doomed to get old and dismissed with adequate amount of proof.
Flavio
well fan sites are nonprofit anyways so why should trademarks have any holding against them in the first place?
meridian at tha.net
In the context of websites, "Yahoo" is a trademark. Remember that trademarks are specific to a given business type. In that context, "Yahoo" didn't mean anything and thus was a valid trademark. This is why Apple Computer prevailed against Apple Records (who threatened to sue at one point). "Fandom" isn't recognized as a trademark, merely a description.
Idiocracy.
Robert Jordan's thing for bondage, and "plumply pretty young women" is fairly easy to spot, but I've never noticed anything scatalogical. ;)
For that matter, they never go to the toilet either! Ever! I haven't seen it once in nine books. There are a few references to menstruation, though. And I have too much spare time.
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
Some points...
.catm .uktm and .ustm
1) What is a global trademark? One registered in several countries? One registered in all countries?
2) Aren't trademarks registered in particular categories? So a trademarked "Cornflakes" in breakfast cereals is different from a trademarked "Cornflakes" in foot care.
3) Shouldn't country trademark domains be under the country domain? e.g. tm.ca tm.uk and tm.us rather than
4) Shouldn't the use of the country domains be left up to the registrars for those countries rather than having them subjugated by the US governement appointed ICANN?
Zwack
-- Under/Overrated is meta-moderation, and therefore is Redundant.
They've no need to wake up, in fact, it's all been working marvelously; you see, they're only protecting they're corporate sponsor's needs.
-elf
Except, of course, that Tuvalu sold the .tv domain, and it is available to anyone with the requisite $$$'s. They're advertising .tv as
the "new .com" and that you should register
your domain there now!!!
James
Then you defeat the whole damned purpose of having multiple TLDs.
" By the fan's, for the fan's "
I wonder where the fans of punctuation will host their website then..
The article makes the point that fandom.com relies on traffic from people like trekkies to be popular. Most of them, from what I've seen, will simply abandon a site if they don't like the ideas behind it. Within a year or so, companies will realize that it simply isn't possible to make a living off of doing things like this, the money will be gone, and the whole issue will be moot. People seem far to eager to look to a law or court to settle things like this, and then turn around and complain that laws and the court are too omnipresent. The internet can not be controlled, and eventually these people will simply whither and die
Okay, I said one of the reasons fandom was founded was for the good of the small time fan site. Another reason obviously was to make a profit. The Salon article pointed out that, despite the CEO's portrayal of fandom.com as a grassroots, "little guy" orginazation, it has both corporate roots and corporate funding.
My point was simply that that idea, small fansites sharing resources to become more powerful as a group, is still a good one, and might be very successful if executed properly. I'm curious if it could be pulled off, and if so, how.
Although, the Animal Farm comment might have something. Perhaps any kind of power corrupts, and any organization of fan sites would be subject to the same power trips and politicking of the corporate world. (man, my use of the word corporate is becoming positively Katz-esque. I should get out the damn thesaurus).
Don't forget that Friday is Hawaiian shirt day.
This may seem anal-retentive, but it's important to have a good understanding of the law before you applying it to yourself or others.
Excuse me. Fair use does apply to trademarks, but it has a different meaning than in copyright law. It certainly doesn't apply to this case.
3.Does anyone really beleive a 50+ year old 'generic' term is really suitable for trademarking???
Unfortunately, if you'll remember the VW or Neon campaign from a few years ago: "Hi." I guarantee you any TM lawer could make a make a case for TM issues with that, had anyone attempted to copy them. And "Hi" is probably one of the most generic colloquialisms ever.
...counterpoint to that is that I can't remember which of the two manufacturers it was...
oh well...
You say you want a revolution?
The name 'Amazon' is not arbitrary. The company deliberately stole the name of an existing bookseller to mislead customers. They successfully misled me, I might add. The cooperative formerly known as Amazon is now not allowed to use its former name. (They sued, but Amazon.com argued that the co-op was not in the business of bookseller, but the business of 'bookseller and lesbian'. All the members were cross-examined about their sex lives in open court until they ran out of money.)
Amazon.com went on to dupe me a second time, by passing itself off as WHSmith (the largest book seller in the UK, commonly known as WHS). Several months ago I wanted to take advantage of WHS's online shopping facility but on typing www.whsonline.co.uk (instead of www.whsmithonline.co.uk) I was directed to amazon.co.uk, and thought WHS had sold its web sales operation to the US corporation. whsonline.co.uk now seems to be under dispute (if you go there, try the link to the 'dispute pages' which contain some relevant opinions).
Don't forget, this is the company which recently retrospectively gutted its privacy policy. And had already flagrantly violated the policy by posting lists of books bought by individuals in the hope of drumming up advertising revenue. Not to mention that it openly admits that its 'one-click' patent has no merit, and uses it solely for anticompetitive purposes. The only good thing I can say about Amazon.com is that last time I looked it was making huge losses.
Mmmm. That felt cathartic.
Ask me if I've been required to disclose any crypto keys.
One of the reasons fandom.com was founded was as a way for fansites to band together, to share resources to fight off corporate bullies.
I think you're missing something pretty important here: Fandom.com was founded in order to profit from helping fansites band together, under the assumption that they needed to do so in order to remain active.
Fandom.com is a business, not a charity. They are in it to make a profit for their investors, not to make sure that Fandom survives (the latter is a path to the former, that's all).Ideology breeds Hypocrisy. Just how much is up to you.
I don't see what this is all about. Usually the fan sites are sometimes better then the real site. While the offical site will most likely have the latest news that will be about all it has. Most offical sites tend to neglect having a message board, etc. It is nice to be able to go to a fan site and hook up and share ideas with others fans just like you. Fan sites don't hurt offical sites at all. Why would they want to get rid of them?
>neotope
This shows how pointless all the extra TLDs are. Because every fuckheaded, lawyer-infested company with a domain is going to sue to take over that name in each of the toplevel domains.
The current Slashdot moderation system is made by gay communists!
That's the point I was trying to make. Sadly, I mistyped "have no ground to stand on" as "have ground to stand on." Kind of reverses what I meant to say just a bit.
WOT Erotica? Look no farther than the books themselves! I've been slogging my way through the newest volume, trying to ignore the fact that Jordan's prose is barely readable (I'm hooked on the plot... been reading the damn things since 10th grade, I can't stop now).
Anyhow, it's been really bugging me just how heavy Jordan's been laying on the bondage fantasy. You can't swing a ta'varen without hitting a naked girl on a leash. It's a little jarring.
Dan
The Fandom.com web site (http://www.fandom.com)
Fandom.com's dead trademark on Fandom Note:Dead May 01, 2000
Fandom.TV's Trademark Status Note:Application Oct 31, 2000
Fandom.com's suprisingly new trademark on Fandom Note:Application Nov 14, 2000
Most interestingly though from Merriam-Webster the word
FANDOMMain Entry: fandom Pronunciation: 'fan-d&m Function: noun Date: 1903 : all the fans (as of a sport)
The word is in the dictionary and it appeared around 1903, why is this word even allowed to be trademarked???!!!
Yeah, I remember fandom.com... they are the people that bought out spcentral.com and then removed all of the South Park episodes from the web, which removed _all_ of my interest in both websites. Really pissed me off, and it does not surprise me one bit that they are starting with these corporate-nasty techniques now.
My own first hand experience is an all ages music night I've been running in various major US cities. Some site has taken our name (trademark) appended with .com and is using it to sell porn - this is a problem when you have a well established night with a largely teenage audience. Yet, to prevent these guys from using a name that sends teens to their porn site - it's a big nightmare, and beyond our budgets. And it's really unclear whether we'd win. The only plus on our side is the fact that we cater to teens and they sell porn.
In the mid 90's Microsoft went after every software product that had 'Visual' in its name. If I remember, most gave in, but eventually MS lost since the word 'Visual' wasn't invented with VB.
Sounds like a news site such as cnn suing slashdot for linking to their articles and not their ad filled main page.
I am !amused.
But, they lose credibility when they start claiming that fandom.tv is domain squatting. I cannot fathom, by any definition of the term, where they get this idea. A domain squatter is a domain reseller, whereas fandom.tv is just a site that happens to be competing with it's .com equivilant.
Robo-lawyer, ATTACK!
-The Tempest
Besides, how catchy is something like "amazon.ustm"? I didn't think so.
.com and .net got popularized by the mainstream media. If instead of .com the original TLD was .inc or .corp that would be the catchy phrase.
.ustm, how would you pronounce that? Uh-stum? Yuck!
And, how catchy was amazon.com before
I know this wasn't the original gist of your post, but if you just make the new TLD people will get used to it. Of course, having a pronouncable extension helps, I personally don't care for
Hey, nobody ever said English was logical; just memorize it and get on with your life. - Paul Brians
... go stand outside a Taco Bell. You'll be rich by the weekend!
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
Shut up, be happy. The conveniences you demanded are now mandatory. -- Jello Biafra
*sigh* Here we go again.
Yes, ICANN sucks, but no one pays attention to the meaning behind TLDs anyway. Is slashdot.org really a nonprofit? Is penis.net in the network field? TLDs, as it stands right now, are completely useless. They have no meaning, other than to serve as a top node for the DNS system. Even if ICANN was to come out with a new TLD, it should be .parody . That way, the corporations can still
sue everyone with a com/net/whatever for "false representation of their
trademark" ... but it's hard to argue that a visitor was mislead if the
site is hosted at a .parody . "Gees, I thought Pepsi(R)(TM)(SM)(C)(P) was
really injecting thought control drugs in to their drinks, it says so at pepsico.parody"
Of course, TLDs mean nothing unless the are enforced (and who the hell is going tackle that giant task (and where does the $$ come to fund that)), so nix that idea.
It was the Dodge Neon campaign.
"You can't fight in here! This is the war room" --Dr. Stra
Go look it up on dictionary.com and you will find in the dictionary. They are sourcing WordNet 1.6 Copyright 1997 by Princeton University which predates their use by a little while. I'd bet that it goes much farther back then that. They are going to have to try a lot harder than that if they intend on using a "dictionary" word.
This kind of thing really pisses me off. It's bad enough to be a big corperate baddie, but it really sucks when a company sells itself as the alternative to big corperate baddies, but then acts like one and hopes no one notices. Small fan sites are one of the building blocks of the internet. It would be a real shame to loose them to a faceless corperation that claims to represent them.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
What's messed up here is there is no desire by fandom.com to compete with fandom.tv , but instead the empty minded impulse to sue it out of existence.
/. out of existence too?
In the real world if you have two large restaurants across the street from each other, they compete. The goal is to lure the other guy's customers over. The way you do that is by making a superior product. If I trademarked "BBQ" and went running around trying to sue BBQ restaurants, I'd get the crap kicked out of me. So why does this kind of thing fly on the internet?
On the Internet(© AOL) people and companies are claiming to own words, ideas and concepts despite prior art. "One Click Shopping", "Toys.com" - oh, don't show any pictures of Apple's new cube before Steve Jobs gets a chance! Why do we have to put up with crap like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act? Or corporate attorneys busting up conversations about DeCSS?
We may have FREE software, but we may not have a FREE internet to distribute it on for long.
I fear that you better cherish your homepages, because in a few years, they will make you a target.
My only other question: If Andover hadn't purchased Slashdot, would Andover have sued
It's about big fish swallowing up smaller fishes.
The tactic looks familiar: you are successful, we want to own you, we offer to buy you out at a ridiculously small price (or better yet, for free). If you resist, we will sue you. Since you can't afford to protect yourself and fight a good fight, you 'll give up. And all is ours.
Ever read the book "Animal Farm". The animals on a farm revolt against their farmer to become free, and once they win, they find out their animal leaders have become the tyrant that the farmer was.
This is kinda what's happening with fandom. Its become what it hates. Such things happen in this free environment...
--
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
...and Turkmenistani trademarks would go where?
nal 11
When he says "by the fan's, for the fan's", it's quite obvious what he means. "By the [owner]'s [money], for the [owner]'s [profit]".
I am a bad speler. Please ignore speling meestakes in me poast.
Is this just a USA thing, or is this sort of "rabid packs of wild lawyers" problem worldwide?
Pretty sure its just a US thing. You guys are nuts. I've never heard of a country run entirely by lawsuit before (what do you call this anyways? lawyerocracy? judicocracy? tyranny?)
hell, you even choose your governing bodies by lawsuit :)
/bluesninja
If every company out there is going to lay claim to something-dot-whatever, why are we creating new TLDs? Why not just let a user type in microsoft.crud .sucks .monopoly .whatever and have it pull up the MS homepage?
This issue is getting really stupid. Not that it started off on an intelligent point.
Just make it simple on everybody and switch domain names with TLDs. Reprogram all the routers and switch around DNS. Probably more worthwhile that continuing to argue over this idiotic issue.
What nearly all of you are failing to realise is, your domain could be victim of reverse hijacking by big business, at any time in the future.
If you have your company on it, it will never be safe, even after investing ALL into your business. No 'first come - first served', WIPO are making it 'first to take legal action and pay them - first served'.
In my considered and informed opinion, UDRP is a big business charter to steal from you - the authorities help them.
You have been warned!
WIPO.org.uk - nothing to do with World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO.org).
apple.music.us.reg
apple.tech.us.reg
The authorities know this - they want to steal words that belong to everyone and give them to big business.
Making their friends in the legal profession rich at the same time.
Anyone with intelligence can make up their own mind if my opinion of them is correct.
My protest site is WIPO.org.uk
Nothing to do with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO.org)
I read some time ago that the company Kodak- and this according to a spokesman- got its name from gibberish. Apparently, you could not get a trademark for a term already in use- i.e., anything that was a recognized word in any language. So, since fandom was in the dictionary since 1903 (according to the article), how could they claim the rights to the trademark?
Or does there have to be a banner ad printed with a URL on the top of that dictionary page?
Claiming a trademark on a descriptive term like "fandom"
From the article...
Though the dictionary definition of "fandom" dates the word back to 1903, it first gained prominence in the 1930s, when readers who had letters published in sci-fi and fantasy magazines began writing to each other.
Then from Webster's Dictionary ...
Main Entry: fandom
Pronunciation: 'fan-d&m
Function: noun
Date: 1903
: all the fans (as of a sport)
However, both www.fandom.com and www.fandom.tv are competing in the same industry (sic) then perhaps fandom.com can claim that fandom.tv is not fair use.
"In a way, [Fandom.com] is starting to remind me of the Borg," says Tim Hansen, who runs the independent "Star Trek" Web site Section31.com. "They won't be happy until they have everything under their control."
Actually, given the following other comments in the article...
From then on, Fandom.com made it its mission to incorporate small fan sites and unite them under the fairly homogeneous Fandom.com umbrella. , and
Fan sites run under the Fandom.com banner do tend to be more resilient , and
According to Wood, Fandom.com doesn't just offer legal protection, it's also the fan equivalent of the big leagues. "Imagine, you're just a guy who runs a small X-Files site and suddenly this company wants you to run it for them, they're offering you a deal. Refusing it would be comparative to an aspiring actor refusing their first real break." Hmmm, protection and refusing it would be bad...
It sounds more like "The Family" business model.
Just so you know, I have acquired a copyright on the term "web site", defined as "a page loaded using HTTP and displayed on a computer screen." You are currently infringing on my intellectual property. You won't get away with this.
There's more to this than just randomly making TLD's. You also need some entity to be responsible for managing registration for the TLD. This was a large part of the reason that many of the proposed TLD's weren't accepted-- the people proposing them had no ability to competently regulate them. Besides, how catchy is something like "amazon.ustm"? I didn't think so.
Maybe they can band together into a larger organization themselves!
Oh, wait.. They already had that in mind when they created this..
It would be very easy for the new site to choose FansGarage, FansPlace, Fantopia, or anything else. There are plenty of names and it's easy to avoid confusion.
I realize this is a problem when companies like Ford go after car owner sites with the name Ford in it, but I think that the Fandom.tv owner should make some attempt to differentiate themselves. There's no reason for anyone to be confused.
This is absolutely disgusting I mean of all the dickless, unpleasant lowlife scumbag things to do. This sounds like a tort-law version of forced plagiarism - yeah, you've invested time and effort in your website now we can come in and take you over. Don't wanna? Okay, see you in court - we can afford to lose, you can't even afford one day's worth of lawyer's fees.
Elgon
That being the case, I wouldn't worry, since every single last one of the companises named above is either already bankrupt or heading that way at full speed. The entire "ad network" concept was nothing more than a ponzi scheme to begin with (usually fueled by page impressions driven by either porn, pirated content or both), and is currently in the process of crashing down like all pyramid scams eventually do. If fandom.com exists as anything more than a legal footnote a year from now, I would be shocked.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
You're absolutely right. I hereby claim that I need the trademark on ".com" to pay my bills. That should be good enough reason, according to your logic, to allow me to sue anyone who uses ".com" in their domain name, advertising, or, for that matter, idle conversation. Come to think of it, I could live a lot more comfortably if I held the trademark on the word "the", and complementary trademarks on the translations thereof into all languages with more than three speakers. Russians and speakers of other languages without the definite article will be charged for constructions requiring or benefiting from the use of the definite article when translated into English. Thank you for helping me solve my financial problems, and watch your mailbox for the first of many harassing lawyerletters(tm).
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
Right, loser pays attorney's fees for the other side, that's a good one. Imagine yourself as the scrappy webmaster of an independent fan site unfortunate enough to find yourself in litigation with a worldwide media empire. You scrape together all the money you can spare to make the $1000 retainer and $150/hour for a competent local attorney. The media empire hires a team of three dozen lawyers, each of whom requires a $10000 retainer and costs $500/hour.
I can tell you the thought of paying your attorney's fees will not frighten the media empire nearly as much as paying the corporation's lawyers' fees should scare you. This is especially true considering that your one low-rent lawyer's chances of beating a team of lawyers who are all smarter and better educated, not to mention better supported by staff back at the firm, are slightly lower than your chances of talking Natalie Portman into pouring hot grits down your pants.
Really, you should be taken out and shot (with less-than-lethal ammo, of course) for suggesting something so stupid.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
As a former SMOF and SMOG, back in my Worldcon days in the 80s and early 90s, I find the actions of Fandom.com highly offensive, especially since domain rights should go to Jane's Fighting SMOFs for prior usage.
On the other hand, I know that defending a copyright and/or trademark means you have to write and send highly offensive lawyer letters, or you lose you copyright and/or trademark.
The best solution is for Fandom.com to lease the other versions for $1 for a 20 year lease, provided they remain trufan sites and not commercial enterprises competing with them.
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
I did float this idea to Bob Metcalf about a year and a half ago.
He didn't think much of the idea, but his arguments all centered upon the "We just got finished teaching everyone how to type '.COM', and you want to CHANGE that?" angle.
So Here Goes:
DEAR ICANN,
PLEASE GET GET OFF YOUR COLLECTIVE BUTTS AND FIX THE TRADEMARK/DOMAINNAME CONFLICT PROBLEM.
I'VE SHOWN YOU HOW. JUST DO IT.
LOVE, GENERALEMERGENCY
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
Put WIPO in charge of .GTM, and put the USPTO in charge of .USTM and let the other countries assign their own authorities.
And...the "amazon.ustm" argument is specious because adoption is just a matter of inculturation and is just a small amount of time compared to how long it took the planet to get used to .COM.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
Suits me just.fine
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
Netshredder could still use Netshredder.com, they just would NOT be allowed to assert trademark rights over it. Assertion would only be allowed in the .GTM (or whatever) TLD.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
WIPO would decide and administer.
2) Aren't trademarks registered in particular categories? So a trademarked "Cornflakes" in breakfast cereals is different from a trademarked "Cornflakes" in foot care.
Good Point. Solution:
cornflakes.yumyum.ustm
cornflakes.stinkfoot.ustm
3) Shouldn't country trademark domains be under the country domain? e.g. tm.ca tm.uk and tm.us rather than .catm .uktm and .ustm
This would be just.fine
4) Shouldn't the use of the country domains be left up to the registrars for those countries rather than having them subjugated by the US governement appointed ICANN?
Sure, but we created this mess. It would be nice if we were able to lead the way out of it.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
The ONLY way to end the cross TLD TradeMark infringement MADNESS and HyperLitigation is to bring National and Global trademark law and treaties in line with a .GTM scheme.
The alternative, DOING NOTHING, only allows us all to continue falling into a morass of litigation. If the freedoms of expression and invention of COMNETORGLand are to be preserved, then trademark disputes must PREVENTED by aligning the naming rights in a .GTM scheme with the VERY PROCESS that issues the trademark rights in a nationality, in the US, the USPTO.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
No one is proposing that businesses move, only that a trademark exclusive TLDs be created and administered by trademark authorities and that trademark enforcement within CONNETORGLand be forced to cease.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
Why... .TMTM of course!
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
Novel approach, but how does this scheme protect one from the trademark infringement claims of corporate bullies?
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
Actually, there are two different trademark concepts here: dilution, and genericism (where a mark becomes generic).
When a mark becomes diluted, the trademark holder loses the ability to stop others from using the mark. So, if Rolls Royce allows, for example, a dog food company to call their food Rolls ROyce Cat Food (assuming that no one would be confused as to source or sponsorship), and then another company did, and so on and so on, the mark would be diluted. It would still function as a trademark, but the owner would only be able to stop someone using the exact mark in the same industry. The power of the mark would be diluted.
A mark becomes generic when it no longer serves to differentiate one mark from another. One of the most famous cases of this is "aspirin." It was original meant as the trademark for the product from Bayer (I believe that was the original vendor). But over time, it lost any "source identifying function." That is, no one realized it was a product originating from somehwere; they thought the trademark was the name of the thing itself.
Here, Fandom.com is merely policing its mark (if it can be called that). One of the things courts look to see is if the mark holder actively tries to stop others from using similar marks in the marketplace. If it looks like the owner doesn't care about the mark, then the court won't care.
Frankly, I wouldn't put to much credence in this cease and desist letter. I'm sure they would love to see Fandom.tv roll over, but there isn't much hope of that under ICANN's UDRP provisions. And because it appears that the couldn't get a Federal trademark registration and possess merely common law rights, a trademark infringement case is pretty weak at best.
-What He Said
Actually yes, you could take any commonly used word and put a TLD behing it and bully people into not using it. As long as you could show that people identify it as a source or sponsorship of a good or service (secondary meaning), then you would have a pretty decent case to stop others.
That's why the rush to register domain names has been considered one of the best "cash grab[s in] the world." I'm sure the guy that sold business.com thinks so.
-What He Said
Speaking of "whining like a stupid, pathetic 5 year old" . . .
You're going to have to learn to live with the fact that there is something called "trademarks." Trademark rights protect you from a confusingly similar, subsequent use of a mark. Its meant to prevent consumer confusion and is a good thing.
Whether fandom.com has trademark rights or if fandom.tv is confusingly similar is another matter altogether.
-Anonymous_Bastard
So are you implying that anyone can trademark any word in general circulation just by plunking a "dot com" behind it? That's ridiculous!
Did you read the article? Are you involved in real fandom? The word "fandom" has been in general circulation as a general term not a trademark (which is the basis of trademark dilution) since long before "dotcoms" were a gleam in Grace Hopper's eye (metaphorically speaking).
I mean, could I really trademark any commonly used word by putting a TLD behind it -- and then bully people into not using it? Sounds like the best cash grab in the world to me.
Interrobang[TM]
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.
BTW, .tv isn't a TLD like .com or .net. It is a country TLD for Tuvalu that was bought by some Canadian company to be sold as a business TLD.
"When it rains, it pours." --Morton's Salt
As for the other point:
fandom fandom
fandom == fan domination
"When it rains, it pours." --Morton's Salt
Should be:
As for the other point:
fandom != fandom
fandom == fan domination
HTML ate the angled brackets I prefer to use...
"When it rains, it pours." --Morton's Salt
Will the real dot-communists...
please stand up?
Seriously, folks. What happens when they get really mad and quit the chanting?
a quiet geek is a dangerous geek...
;)
Goat sex free since 2001
OK then, how about I call my company "the" without any caps? (Just to be argumentative.)
------------
While what you say is true to some extent, does it apply if you take a common everyday word and use that as your company's "brand" name?
Say I call my company "THE". Nothing else, just "THE". Do I then have the right to sue the bejebus out of any other company, enterprise, or individual that dares to use the word "the" in anyting? If so, then damn it, I picked the wrong name for my site.
------------
What about Yahoo? I think it's safe to say that "yahoo" was a fairly well known expression before the Internet existed, but I'd bet that if someone started using yahoo.tv, Yahoo.com's lawyers would be all over them like flies on $#!T
Actually, according to WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization), the registrar of the .tv domain is one of several country code domain registrars who have agreed to allow disputes in their domain to be resolved through WIPO's arbitration process using the rules of the ICANN dispute resolution system. So a challenge could be filed that way. Or Fandom, Inc. could go to a real court about it.
Fandom, Inc. is definitely a for-profit company despite any rhetoric it may have given about being a way for "poor oppressed fans" to band together against bullying corporations -- in fact, now they are showing themselves to be a bullying corporation themselves. They sell all sorts of stuff, and now own Creation Conventions (a for-profit con operator, not a non-profit fan-run one).
However, fandom.tv is technically engaging in namespace abuse, given that they are not located in Tuvalu!
--Dan
--Dan
Web Tips
1) A business depends on its brand name.
2)Most people are stupid, and the only reason they remember a business is by its name.
3)People will forget and be unable to recognise businesses, if these names are not strictly imposed.
Put simply, our system of commerce depends on Brand Names, at a very fundamental level. I can understand this companies actions, they are just trying to trade and make money, after all.
Inspiration is the Oxygen that surrounds me
Inspiration is the Oxygen that surrounds me
Genius is the seed that I contain.
About a year ago this time, when I was working for AnotherUniverse.com in Virginia, there were rumblings that the company was in financial trouble. Luckily, it seemed these nice gentlemen from California were willing to bail us out through a cooperative venture.
Shortly after I left the company two months later, they'd made all the employees sign their lives away with non-compete agreements; they forced the founder and president (Steve Milo, now working for Marvel Comics) out of his position into an advisory role, and then got rid of him entirely; and they slowly subverted and subsumed the AnotherUniverse name by dismantling the website and catalog and rebranding it. In short, AnotherUniverse.com was assimilated. There's no other word for it. I'm glad I got out when I did.
My friends who still work there say things are functioning well, and the company is apparently doing well. But then again, the Borg appear to be doing well as they conquer the universe too.
_______________________________
To my knowledge, the people at Fandom never claimed that their trademark had anything to do with the original meaning of the word fandom. In fact, if you visit their site, you'll see that the core premise is something called "Fan Domains". FanDom (emphasis mine) was a combination of those words - akin to MicroSoft.
.coms has brought the issue into a new arena, because people are no longer truly battling over identity, they're battling over the right to be the sole owner of a word.
.tv should only be for things relating to Tuvalu or television in some way. .org should only be for non-profit organizations. And so on. .gov, of course, is tightly regulated. You don't see anyone registering fandom.gov, do you?
Mind you, I'm not defending them. I think what they're doing isvery very wrong. But I also think that the trademarkability of dictionary words issue isn't really a strong argument. Inktomi, for instance, is in a dictionary somewhere, but does that mean I could register inktommi.name and get away with it? Should I? What about Levi jeans -- there's a Levi in the Bible.
What this has traditionally come down to is a matter of trademarking within your realm. So while I could not have made a new toothpaste named Crest, I could have made a dishwasher detergent called Crest. Nowadays, the battle over
For example, Coke. If I type Coke into my Internet browser, it's going to default to coke.com. But why does Coca-Cola have the right to be coke.com? What if I run a drug treatment center for cocaine addicts and my acronym is COKE. Why would I have to defer to another organization named coke? Because they were bigger? That's not supposed to be justification in this country. Because they are more popular? Bah. Because they were first to get the domain name? Yes.
Ultimately, the real problem is the way TLDs work. Coca-cola doesn't just want coke.com because they're a commercial entity, they also want coke.org, and coke.foo, and cokesucks.com, and anything and everything with the word coke anywhere in it. (Bad example, since this isn't precisely true in the case of Coca-Cola, but it's for the sake of argument). And the reason for this is that there's a total lack of enforcement on TLD standards.
Should it be more regulated? That's a whole other beast and I don't wanna get off on a rant here. As it is I'm getting smacked down by Anonymous Cowards who apparently know who I am from my old job. Show yourselves, ya bastards!
_______________________________
Now I can't make that Ricky Martin fan page, hope you're happy.
It is really telling that the Creation company, which runs for-profit Science Fiction and Star Trek Conventions is involved this these people. I remember my first and only Creation Con back in the Early '80s...back then Fan run cons where charging $20 for a weekend membership, and it cost me $25 for one day at the Creation Con. Creation Cons are consistantly over priced, have crappy programming and driven up the speaker's fee s for guests so much that the average convention cannot afford guests. Thankfully, SF Book oriented conventions never really became a target for Creation...we still have good, inexpensive conventions for people who enjoy Science Fiction and Fantasy Books!
ttyl
Farrell J. McGovern
Founder, CAN-CON Ottawa, Canada (That is the same places a OLS)
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
This company (fandom.com) exists because its corporate backers think they can make money. But with the attitude towards even big, well known, highly visible dot-companies being what it is today, I wouldn't bet a whole lot on fandom.com's survival.
And with their attitude -- homogenizing fansites for profit -- and their actions, they deserve to go under.
Good riddance, won't be missed.
And this case is not even about infringing on a copyright.
The Cure of the ills of Democracy is more Democracy.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
So, to sum up the story, a corporation with a bunch of money starts a mass of homogeneous website for "fandom" (note the "little 'f'") to protect them from bullying IP lawyers...and their IP lawyers are now attacking any "fandom" that isn't in the "Fandom.com" club.
To me, this raises a couple of questions:
A vote for the lesser of two evils is still a vote for Evil.
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
I think that POOR VICTIM's best course of action is to tell them to shove it up the EVIL BAD COMPANY corporate ass, perhaps in better terms though.
I still don't understand how POOR VICTIM can really be domain squatting if they actually have a valid website up with relative content. Domain squatting is registering doctor.com and bidding it off to the highest bidder.
Someone has their head so far up their ass it's just going to be nasty. Remember Colgate-Polmolive Vs. ajax.org, same thing.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
Read the article that precedes the discussion; it indicates that the word came into existence in the 1930s.
Fandom
Is
A
Source
Of
Income
Blar.
Apple Computer was sued by Apple Records over exactly this same sort of bullshit.
Let's face it, getting businesses to move is many times harder than getting people to move.
.discus where a person can register a domain like microsoft.ffa and NEVER be penalized for any otherwise legal content on there.
.kids and a .sex domain areas. I don't care if some people say "well what about artistic nudity, where should we put that?" Well, duh, figure it out on a case by case basis depending on standard law backed up by psychological study. Or just do it anyway you want to, already. I'm sick of the indecisiveness that makes kids suffer whitehouse.com while adults suffer a complete and total lack of knowledge of what to expect on the internet. If we can categorize into organizations and comercial traffic (already an extreemely fuzzy mix), we should go right ahead and categorize by topic, discussion, and appropriateness. It may not be great, but future filters won't have to worry about filtering out Dick Armey's website!
So let's make a "trademark free" zone like
Surely, this system might take the sting off of people claiming guinessbeersucks.com must be taken back or they will go broke, so joe blow must give it back and has no rights to it. Just take guinessbeer.ffa and be set for life with your audience. Of course the corporations themselves would be prohibited from owning their own trademarks there.
Also, we still need a
-Ben
I thought one of the reasons for TLD's was so that one company could have blah.com and another could have blah.tv?
--
They are doing the legally required trademark protection so as not to lose it.
Maybe no one but me read through the entire article. There is this link on page three. According to the USPTO, Fandom.com's claim on the word Fandom as a trademark is "Abandoned: Applicant failed to respond to an Office action." It's a bit late now for them to be whining about it, don't you think?
2000-06-19 - Abandonment - Failure to respond
1999-10-29 - Non-final action mailed - 1st action
1999-10-15 - Case file assigned to examining attorney
ISTM that they they are crying foul (where a foul is said to be a breaking of the rules) when apparently they didn't want to play by those same rules themselves before now.
--
"We're an apex predator with the fecundity of a base level herbivore... We're a virus with shoes..." RazorJAK
"by the fan's, for the fan's" what?
Obviously the apostrobphe has taken on new meaning since I last used it.
Whats up folk's!
There, now I have it right...
just my blog and pix
The irony here is incredible. One of the reasons fandom.com was founded was as a way for fansites to band together, to share resources to fight off corporate bullies. Now they have become a corporate bully themselves.
Still, their idea is a very good one. A union of fan sites would have more power. Affiliate sites could spread the news of impending lawsuits or cease and desist orders much further and more quickly than a lone site. Publicity is often all it takes to curtail a corporation's bad behaviour. Information could be shared, about the little guy's rights, about what legal steps to cover your ass, etc. The knowledge gained in one skirmish could be used by all.
The bottom line is, fan sites are created by fans. When corporations bully the fan sites, they are bullying their customers. And if enough of their customers get angry about that kind of behavior, change can be effected. Fans do have a lot of power in the relationship, if we can find an effective way to use it.
Don't forget that Friday is Hawaiian shirt day.
And how exactly will it be legally insulated from "trademark bullies". Trademarks are based upon the laws of the country. If ICANN decided tommorow that .com is trademark free it won't stop the big companies from sueing domain holders and saying stop using our trademarks. Saying "Oh ICANN lets us use your trademark" won't stop them, they'll just go on to say how the law of the country say I have protection no matter where the trademark resides. The law on trademarks would have to be changed to have something like this happen.
Of course this gets deeply into the whole Global vs Country debate, but unless the TLD is hosted in a country without any trademark laws its going to be a problem.
where nothing really exists, but you can be assured, somebody owns it anyway.
72656B636148206C72655020726568746F6E41207473754A
Fine, but do you know how many search engines there are out there? Or how many there were when google launched? Who would be using the cutting edge search engine 1/1/3867?
All opinions are my own - until criticized
You really mean "...what is so hard about using 64.209.200.100 to find something..." don't you?
I guess you just answered your own question.
All opinions are my own - until criticized
I read the article last night, and something's been troubling me. Perhaps a lawyer type could clear it up for me.
The little I know about trademarks has led me to understand that if a trademark becomes diluted, that is if they the holder of the mark fails to prevent the word from becoming commonly used, they lose their right to it. This is why the Kleenex folks are always ranting and raving about using generic terms such as "tissue." They are doing the legally required trademark protection so as not to lose it.
So it might seem that even if Fandom.com does have a trademark on the word, which the article casts as unlikely, that the word has been so heavily used that they have ground to stand on to claim it as a trademark.
Dan
It could (quite reasonably in my opinion) be argued that not being based in, or having any relevance to the island of Tuvalu counts as using a .tv domain name "in Bad Faith".
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
Both etoys.com and fandom.com claim in their cease and desist letters that they own the trademark. Neither actually do.
Just like the etoys V etoy case they don't actually have the trademark. Fandom.com doesn't actually own the trademark. They applied to the trademark but according to the office it's a "dead" application. Read: The patent and trademark office sent it back probally wondering why they were laying claim to it when Star Log has been using the team years before the WWW was a Wet Dream in a Swiss research lab.
Besides, if you have a company, or product that is say, the "netshredder". Nowadays, people look for you automatically at netshredder.com. Where do they go now? netshredder.ustm? .gtm? .com? .product? I personally think that we need a *better* way of handling domains that is "product" friendly
The people at RealNames thought of this too and created RealNames Internet Keywords.
Tetris on drugs, NES music, and GNOME vs. KDE Bingo.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Even if ICANN was to come out with a new TLD, it should be .parody . That way, the corporations can still sue everyone with a com/net/whatever for "false representation of their trademark"
That's why OpenNIC created the .parody domain. Install OpenNIC nameservers in resolv.conf (or the Windoze equivalent) and learn more at http://www.parody. (Note that you have to know somebody who has root on your mailserver to be able to send a registration request to hostmaster@parody.)
Tetris on drugs, NES music, and GNOME vs. KDE Bingo.
Will I retire or break 10K?
What constantly amazes me is how companies pull this #$%^ on the web. I hate using a generic term like that...but the world is just too small to fight over your .com name sometimes. this is not like Typosquatting...but more like registering a new domain.
.com after it and your get someones business. That does not make me wrong and evil..we both just used the same name. But, that business could (and there have been cases of it) charge me with squatting or sue me for the rights? Just because he owns a business named after my family name? Imagine the problem this would cause in the US with someone of the last name of Smith!
I, for example, have a site registered for my family that is my last name. However, put a
Now, granted those sites are different and this fandom one is the same sort of content. But this isn't amazon.net, the network of books. This is a commonly used word since 1906 (according to the article). Besides even the evil geniuses at amazon.com allow someone else to own amazon.net. If I remember..there was once a dispute over gateway.com, where the computer company was forced to gw2k.com? Was that so bad? Did people still make it there?
Bottomline, IMHO, there is room enough for all of us out there. Can't we all just get along?
Fight Spammers!
Oh, a wise guy, huh? You are right, this is the stumbling block with a numberic system: the first step of getting a search engine ot directory service. The solution, like the telephone system, is to have a handfull of standard numbers for these services. So http://1/1/1, 1/1/2 , 1/1/3 etc could be assigned to search engines and 1/2/1, 1/2/2 etc to directory services. This would require some administration on behalf of the organisation looking after the assignments, but I don't think it would be too hard.
BTW I only use slashes to divide the numbers in these examples because it reduces the number of people that say "oh, IP addresses", in fact I think dots are better and hold out the possibility of doing the whole thing without changing Bind (v8+).
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
I've said before (there would be a link at this point if /.'s search engine was any good) that numbers (in a hierarchy system, eg http://13/1832/7, this is not IPs) are the only solution and got nothing except "I can't remember numbers" back. Like I can!
Letters score over numbers in only one way: advertising. It's a lot easier to read and memorise a name. But the cost is all this cyber-bulling, as the article calls it. Ultimatly the whole point of the DNS structure is going to be lost in that domain owners will effectivly claim the right to use all the TLDs for any given domain name (in the case of Wal-Mart for all possible domain names starting with the letters Wal)
The degree to which the TLDs are already irrelivent is something which /.'ers do not seem to be aware. The namespace in DNS is actually shrinking and, as long as lawyers get money for making it shrink, it will continue to do so until only companies can afford to buy useful domain names.
But, to get back to the numbers, what is so hard about using Google to find something and click on the link? Nothing, and how would it be harder to do that if the url in the link was numeric?
In a similar way, directory portals like Yahoo would still work to most people's satisfaction as would bookmarks and links in pages.
The point I'm making is that a numeric system does not have to require users to memorise huge lists of long numbers.
Using telephone numbers is not a good idea, though.
There is a problem, it is getting worse, if you don't like my solution tell us yours.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
I have been campaigning for the TLD of
The USPTO and DoC have given big business the controlled usage of all words.
The authorities have bastardized our language - they have taken all words away from us and make them fit for only one use - only as trademark system. It is a very bad system at that, used by only one supplier of each name, out of thousands worldwide.
Extract of 9 October email to DoC & USPTO:
"Here is an analogy, just for a moment imagine, if you will:
You go to your dictionary and look up definition for the word 'apple'. It says the following:
Apple - a maker of computers. This is the sole meaning; any other use will be a criminal offence."
If Fandom is trademarked name it should be identified as such.
I have been campaigning for the TLD of
The proper use of a trademark - It has to be set apart by special typeface or script. And use "tm" for an unregistered mark and "®" for a registered mark.
The Domain Naming System (DNS) encompasses all words - it is NOT a Trademark System, so requires a tag - like "tm".
The TLD of
Anyone that says the DNS is a TM System is abridging the freedom of speech. Which means they are against the First Amendment.
Something that Secretary Mineta, DoC, seems to be. I have told him so!
You could also ask Paul Mockapetris, creator of Domain Name System. He will tell you it is not a TM System.
Or was not registered as of this writing...
--
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I run a fan-site myself (although I doubt I'd ever be a target of anything: fandom of Elite and Frontier First Encounters is rather a niche kind of thing to start off with).
But I have to think: what could I do if I was threatened in this way? In reality, not a lot, and sites like fandom.com know this - and use it to their advantage. They know they can steamroller the 'little guys' and they do.
My father told me one thing when I was a kid - concerning company mergers. "Son, in business, there is never a marriage. Only a rape".
When fandom.com picks up a new site - marriage or rape? I would HOPE it would be the former. But it looks like my Dad was right all along...
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
The jury would laugh it out of the court room and "fair use" would result in copyright holders to think twice about submitting these "cease and desist orders".
Burn Hollywood Burn
At the risk of repeating the article, I find it incredibly offensive that Fandom.com would try to pursue this battle, when to anyone with an ounce of common sense they don't have a leg to stand on.
The word "fandom" been around since 1903 (from article) thus, they cannot claim trademark infringement. If they somehow manage to do so, I'm going to register www.chair.com and bang on everyone's doors with cease and desist letters.
As for cybersquatting, that is defined as registering domain names with the express intent of reselling them for profit later. This is something that was *not* done. The site www.fandom.tv is a legitimate fandom site. It reminds me of a story I heard about coca-cola suing some guy somewhere for having www.coke.(ccTLD) Apparently, it was a memorial site for his friend that died from cocaine. Does anyone else remember this?
Gah! This whole thing makes me sick.
It may look like I'm doing nothing, but I'm actively waiting for my problems to go away.
--Scott Adams
"Planet" gamers and Gamespy and such sites have been using somewhat less overt coercion to grab the market for game fans for years... when did this become news? I don't know how many great sites operated by individual fans have been gobbled up by these syndicates and turned into worthless joke sites.
;)
Pass the monopoly, please.
-Kasreyn
(Yeah I know this is kinda a weak post but compared to the offtopic flamebait and trolls in this conversation already, it's downright Insightful 5 if ya ask me
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
The .tv top level domain has an entirely seperate trademarks policy which is the responsibility of the country (I forget which) that .tv belongs to.
On a different, not related to the above, note, if Fandom.com is just an organisation of poor, oppressed, non-profitmaking fan sites bunching together to protect themselves against bullying corporations, what the f--- are they doing in .com? That's what .org is for. That's the very definition of .org.
Perhaps I need to register "I-hate-ISPs.net".
--
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
What bothers me more and something that I watch out for is this umbrella'ing of the various sites at one 'official' place for the legal protection specifically mentioned here. Fandom.com is one, but I know several other examples: WB had set up AcmeCity for fan pages with the ability to use graphics and sounds that WB had granted permission. LucasArts set up the Star Wars site for all SW creative efforts. I'm sure there's more. I think from one aspect, this is a great thing, as it shows that said companies realize that fandom DOES exist on the net and it's better to nurture it (with some ability to trim) than to let it run rampent without checks. On the other hand, all they are doing this for is for the publicity and profit, mostly. There's ad banners at most of these pages, and because it's a fandom site, it's really easy to target it. Some sites say the content becomes theirs, even if you leave the site. But again, if there are any other alterior motives, they haven't been made obvious yet.
I've been watching how the commercialization of the net has affect net fandom, and to be truthful, I don't think we've lost much. If you try to put long clips (or whole episodes) of a show on the web, you'll be shut down, but short clips as per fair use tend to be ok. You try to put up images or stories that put characters that shouldn't even be in compromising positions into compromising positions and you'll be hit. You try to make money off the visitors to your site using fair use items, and you'll get a nice letter. But these are all obvious cases of reasonable copyright/trademark protections.
What I'd REALLY like to see, instead of an umbrella'ing of sites, is for the various entertainment companies that hold the copyrights to fandom's programs to create a true contract (you'd have to mail it back in and such signed) whereby you and the studio agree that you have a fan site, and that you'll run it within all the usual provisions of fair use and non-infringing copyright as expected, for non-profit use, but on any server that you want, with the agreement that if you do happen to post something that shouldn't have been, the studio would work it out with you as opposed to immediately taking action (in others, some legal protection). In addition, I'd really like to see studios hire 'fandom correspondents', part-IP lawyers, part webmasters, that would be able to work with independent site owners to determine what is fair use and to make a better connection between the fans of the show and the studio.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Wonder if they're going to go after the misspellings too, like Yahoo.com going after Yaho.com and Yehoo.com.
...because they're in for a shock when they go after femdom.com.
heeh!
--
What happens when you outlaw guns
The complainant (fandom.com) must demonstrate that 1) the alleged infringer has a name that is confusingly similar, 2) the alleged infringer has no rights to the name, and 3) the alleged infringer registered in "Bad Faith"
Fandom.tv is confusingly similar, but seems to arguably have rights to the name -- Fandom may be considered too generic a name to be a trademark. (Of course, this all depends on how well the lawyers argue it.)
As for Bad Faith, Fandom.com probably will (in this case) try to prove that Fandom.tv registered the name in order to benefit from the people confusing the too -- that is, their nabbing fandom.com's readers. But that seems a little silly, since who would automatically the .tv instead of the .com?
From the article, there doesn't seem to be a bad faith intent here. So while this does not appear to be cybersquatting, its fuzzy as to what can be proved.
I can spell. I just can't type.
This is TOTALLY ICANN's fault.
ICANN had (and still does have) the opportunity to create a .GTM domain for the EXCLUSIVE use by global trademark holders. They should also set up .USTM, .CATM, .UKTM and so on, domains for national trademark reservation. Use of the .COM, .NET and .ORG should be open and free for all purposes, AND SHOULD BE LEGALLY INSULATED from "Trademark Bullies".
I've been saying this for two years now.
ICANN...WAKE THE HELL UP!!!!!!
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
The comparision with Ford is misleading. A closer example would be if someone owned "cars.com" and someone else started "cars.tv". If you take out a domain name which is a single, non-trademarked generic term (like "Fandom") then though titties if someone else uses it, mate.
And, anyway, the whole point of the TLDs (generic or country codes) is to divide up the namespace and allow this sort of thing. The reason it doesn't work is twats like you don't understand or honour it.
Taking your approach would mean the removal of TLDs: we would just have www.ford or www.ms or whatever, since you are saying that owning a domain in one TLD should be equivalent to owning it in them all.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"