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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.
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 Cure of the ills of Democracy is more Democracy.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
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"
:Choosing the exact same domain name and
:registering in the TV domain is sure to
:cause some confusion.
.tv extension anyway, or, for that matter, .biz, .name, .info, or any of the other new ones? If my name is Marty Fandom and I register fandom.name, are they going to come after me? Adding TLDs is pointless if you can't use words that are already being used with .com, .net and .org.
Then what's the point of having a
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