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Aimster Loses Domain to AOL
mduell writes "The National Arbitration Forum (NAF) decided that the "AIM" in Aimster violates America Online's trademark and that Aimster must relinquish several Internet domain names with "AIM" in them to AOL." Just another in a long series of cases that prove that if you have a trademark, you have the right to any domain name that contains those letters in that order. I don't like it any more then you do.
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$you = new YOU;
honk() if $you->love(perl)
So the solution for them is to just drop the A.
;)
Then they make it work with ANY IM client - AIM, ICQ, Jabber, Yahoo, MSN, etc... (Jabber would probably be a good start here - port the existing infrastructure to a jabber-based model, then plug in other IMs at will =)
Of course, I'm sleep-deprived and running solely on caffeine, so this probably is a really, really stupid idea, since it sounds cool to me
What is Aimster? Is it anything to do with AOL Instant Messenger? If so, then they *are* using the "aim" part to play on AOL Instant Messenger, and diluting the market value of the brand. Or is the name a coincidence?
Kind of a double-standard here? It's okay if the site in question just bitches about a company, but not if they make money?
No double-standard, its called free speech.
Trademarks can't be infringed upon for commercial use (which is what AIMster is doing) -- that's the whole pointof a trademark -- to keep your MARK in TRADE distinct from others' use of marks in trade. To prevent commercial confusion.
Using a trademark to offer criticism (as in Burger King saying "McDonald's hamburgers have 50% less beef") is perfectly legit.
Saying "fuck General Motors" is a grayer area, because by itself it isn't offering much criticism (although it could be equally argued that it doesn't run much risk of confusing consumers, either -- who would think GM would sell products under that slogan?)
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Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Aimster was named after AIM because it incorporates your AOL Instant Messenger buddy list. This is a pretty clear use of a trademarked term, and it *is* trying to indicate that they're related.
AOL is completely whithin their rights, and if they didn't defend themselves than they could easily lose the ability to defend themselves in the future.
The real news story is that the otherwise legally on-top-of-it Aimster team let this slip.
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There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
Here's a "what if?" :
/etc/resolv.conf.
:-)
What if everyone out there who thinks large corporations stealing others' domain names is crap, and who runs a nameserver, decides to tell AOL to piss off, and put in DNS pointers to aimster's site for www.aimster.com anyway? There's no law that says I *have* to listen to the root nameservers.
Then, anyone who wanted to see the uncorporatized Internet could just stick on of these namservers in their
Couldn't we use OpenNIC to do something like this?
Yeah, I know, it's far to idealistic to think enough people would do this for it to actually work, but I find it a neat idea in theory anyway.
-Wintermute
Well "AIM" is the full acronym of their software, so you'd probably have to have a full Windows title, like "windows95" or "windowsxp". However this does mean that if I were to create a domain called "windowsxpfixes.com" that had a list of tweaks or fixes to Windows XP (assuming of course it doesn't run perfectly out of the box) that MS could snatch my domain.
That sounds pretty scary. It might even mean that if I created a domain called "xpenhancer.com" to sell a multiple-desktop tool for Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft could legally take the domain away.
Note that nothing here says that Aimster claimed to be made by the same people who made AOL Instant Messenger. The mere fact that the name incoporated the name of related software was enough.
This ruling could have huge ranging implications. Think of how many computer fan websites there are out there that use the name of the product in them. www.matroxusers.com, www.amdzone.com, www.voodooextreme.com, www.geforcefaq.com... Since these are normally fan sites it's in the best interest of the companies with the related trademarks to ket the fans express themselves, but what if company XXX comes out with a crappy product and XXXtweak.com trashes it in a review?
This is pretty scary stuff. In the past it seems to me that most of the domain names taken from someone were non-commercial ones that often were squatting on the name. But now what can you do? If you have a domain name that insults a company, they can take it. If you make a product designed for use with another product they can take your name. If you don't make a product at all and you're careless they can take it. Who is safe? I can see it in the news tomorrow:
AOL's hit list.
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-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Microsoft owns the trademark on "Windows".
So basically what were saying here is that any product name of the form Win* can have its domain taken by Microsoft.
This is not good.
Note to WinTrolls: (For once, I am simply using Microsoft as an example, and not deriding them.)
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And how exactly would this work? I would agree that we have too many lawyers in America today, and the law is too byzantine and obscure so that they are more necessary, but do you really think it is possible for human beings to implement a legal system of any kind with nobody at all performing such a function?
No matter how clear and simple the law is, if there is a procedure for administering it (such as our network of hearings and trials) then someone will have to advise plaintiffs and defendants on how to adhere to that procedure, since most of us won't know all the ins and outs.
And even the clearest law may not be understood by everybody. Lots of people seem inclined to interpret the law one way when they are the aggrieved party but another way when they are being sued. It's the job of a lawyer to explain these folks' true position to them, so they can avoid going to trial and getting whacked because they didn't understand the situation (or, alternately, so they can sue for just compensation which they might not have realized could be theirs).
This doesn't mean we need a system like we have, but try to be realistic. When Shakespeare wrote "first, we kill all the lawyers" those characters were planning a revolution; this was recognition that lawyers are a linchpin in the rule of law, and the first step in subverting that rule of law would have to be to get rid of them.
Of course, I suppose we could try anarchy, but I don't think that would work too well with our population and our level of technology. One day all those wunnerful feedback mechanisms that drive the invisible hand of the market would overshoot and we'd end up living in caves again. So, have you some other idea? Just wondering...
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
Whether the owner of a trademark can stop others from using it depends on such factors as:
Any more questions?
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
And of course we all know that (as they actually argued in court) the chain restaurant Hooters refers to the sound made by their owl mascot.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
I worked at aimster for a few months before deciding they weren't going anywhere (read: yes, i know why it's named what it's named). The reason for "AIM"ster is that you were "AIM"ing for only your buddies. Any semblance to AOL's product offering is entirely coincidental. The fact that aimster (supposedly) integrates with IM products is a happy side note as well.
In the case that you weren't aware, aimster is a p2p app that was supposedly designed to integrate well with IM infrastructure (i say supposedly because, well, i know how the previous version worked =), and allow you to only share files with your buddies. The versions i worked on were rather lackluster, and the file sharing didn't work for most people most of the time. I can't speak for the new version, as it was released after i left the company.
Much as i dislike aimster, i think johnny had a good idea, and he was willing to support me to do the reverse engineering of AIM's OFT (AIM File Transfer) in an open manner. We have a partial implementation of it in libfaim, but nobody really cares enough to finish it up.
It's okay if the site in question just bitches about a company, but not if they make money?
Hit the nail on the head with that one. The fuckgeneralmotors case is free speech. The aimster case is someone taking advantage of someone else's name to help their own product.
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Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
- Nietzsche
You know, you guys don't have any right to complain about the spreading of FUD when you do it so often yourselves. AOL wouldn't have any right to the domain www.aimtokill.com as long as nobody was offering instant-messenger stuff there. You know that.
I agree that this is stupid, as long as Aimster has notices in reasonably conspicuous places to the effect that they are not affiliated with AOL, they should get to keep the domains. The name Aimster is not meant to confuse people into thinking its an officially AOL-endorsed product but its a clever (well, maybe not that clever) play on words that both lets people know its a file-sharing service and that it works with AIM.
However, just because this case is stupid doesn't give you the right to spread FUD, so keep quiet!
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
There is more involved here than just similarity of names. In this case, you have a product that is closely related to the trademark holder's product, and there is a significant possibility for confusion. That's probably why they lost.
If "Aimster" was a device for hunters or a water pistol, AOL would have much less of a claim and probably would have lost this one.
Yes, Aimster does say that he (the creator) did get the idea from his daughter while she was using her AOL Instant Messanger and the fact that YES the name is derived from that but come on! The reason behind having such laws is so that other people won't infringe upon the value of your company's name or product.
This would involve name like calling your software "Microsoft Perl 2000". That would imply that the company (in this case Microsoft) either supports the use of the name (and endorses it) or has created it itself. When this is not true the law is needed.
Aimster and AIM are not competing products nor are the two companies involved competing at any level. People will not invest in Aimster because it has a name similar to AOL, in fact the web site (last time I was there) even mentioned that there was absolutly no relation between the two businesses.
This is sad, it really is. How much does a large company need to push? Hell, Archie Comics thinks that they own the rights to the name Veronica. I'm just glad my name hasn't been in a comic book or closely resembling any corporation.
- Cuyler
Does this mean the next time I go for target practice I owe AOL $$$ so I can work on my AIM?
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