Company Name in URL Not Copyright Infringement

Christoph writes "CNN reports that a man's website, http://www.bosleymedical.com, criticizing the Bosely Medical Institute does not infringe the institute's copyright on its name. The man's attorney is quoted as saying that the court's decision 'is an important victory for free speech on the Internet. It makes clear that consumers can use a trade name for a company they want to criticize.' The appeals court, however, reinstated part of the lawsuit in which Bosley alleged that Kremer is violating a so-called cybersquatting law by allegedly attempting to sell the site to Bosley in exchange for removing the disparaging material."

Comments

copyright?

[latroM]

They are probably talking about the trademark law. But that's what you get when you use the term intellectual property, more confusion.

Re:copyright?

[Macadamizer]

I think that two words would fall under 'fair use' for copyright. You are allowed to take short bits and quote them.

As others have noted, this is a trademark problem, not a copyright problem. There is no "fair use" under copyright here, because words, short phrases and titles are not copyrightable subject matter to begin with.

Re:copyright?

[tverbeek]

They are probably talking about the trademark law. But that's what you get when you use the term intellectual property, more confusion.

It's obvious that this is a trademark question. It has nothing to do with copyright, and it's only confusing if you don't know anything about intellectual property law. Seriously, sometimes /.ers sound as silly as a non-tech person talking about a "56 megahertz" dial-up connection, calling a 3.5" diskette a "hard disk", or saying that Microsoft invented the web browser.

Listen people: if you want to be taken seriously about legal matters, stop jabbering like impassioned no-nothings and learn something about the topic first. Saying "copyright" when you're talking about trademarks is like putting an "I'm an id10t" sticker on your forehead.

Re:copyright?

[Anonymous Coward]

First you say that there is no such thing as IP law. Then you say that a class of laws were created for specific purposes at different times.

Some possibilities follow.

1) You believe that that the term "intellectual property law" has a meaningful referent in the form of copyright, patent and trademark law, but believe that the grouping is not a very useful one because it obscures important differences between the term. Restated, you believe the term has meaning, but choose to advocate against using it, because of your social agenda. I agree with that position in this matter, for the record. If this is the case, though, you contradict yourself because you say that there is no such thing as "IP Law" and then immediately say that three different things which you (hypothetically) agree are part of the body of "IP Law" were, in fact created. This is a contradiction, unless you're of the obviously false belief that these laws were created but no longer exist.

2) You don't believe that the term "Intellectual Property law" actually refers to copyright, patent, and trademark law. If that's the case, not only are you ignorant, but you might as well have said "But there is no such thing [as IP law]! Apples and bananas are both fruit with different nutritional content", since you'd be of the belief that the three classes of law you refer to must not be part of IP Law since no such thing exists. Why even mention the two groups together?

If you intend to argue that it's reasonable that most people would be confused about the difference between trademark and copyright even though they're very different things precisely because they are commonly understood to be part of a whole known as "IP law", then you should say that instead of making clearly false claims.

Why do I care?

It's because, although I agree with what you're trying to say, you're making the rest of us look like petulant idiots. The term "intellectual property" clearly has a referent. Furthermore, I suspect you agree that the referents have existence. It's like claiming that the term "Santa Claus" has no meaning because he doesn't really exist, and then going on to complain about department store Santas.

So, let the *sucks.com race begin

[The I Shing]

People will be snapping up the *sucks.com domain names now, but be warned, companies will still threaten suits for trade defamation if they find disparaging remarks about them or their products on the web.

You keep using that word.

[Elwood P Dowd]

The linked article seems to conflate copyright and trademark. I imagine this is a trademark dispute, not copyright. I don't think you can copyright anything as simple as a name.

Re:They should have waited

[LiENUS]

The reason he got away with this is because he was not selling the domain name for money. The judge ruled since he was not linking to competing hair loss clinics it was ok.

Re:Maybe BosleyMedicalSucks.com, but this?

[Yolegoman]

Time for a new TLD: .sucks.

Re:Use correct names

[josh3736]

I get wrong number calls all the time, but that's beside the point.

If you want to use a "phone number type" system, you're more than welcome to use 66.35.250.150 to come to Slashdot from now on. And 216.239.37.99 for Google. Can you remember those numbers without writing them down?

The whole point of having domain names is so you don't have to remember the IP address of the computers you want to connect to. DNS is the "yellow pages" of the Internet. If someone wanted to, they could register their phone sex business as "Teh White House" in the phone book.

Scrapping DNS is certainly not the solution.

Re:This is dirty...

[xstonedogx]

It's entirely possible the guy just wants a refund from the company and/or compensation for the trouble of setting up the site and whatever costs he has incurred from the website.

It could be blackmail, but without knowing what this guy is thinking, I don't think we can reach that conclusion. If he's a greedy bastard, it's probably blackmail even if it didn't start out that way. But what do we really know about the guy's sense of morality and ethics?

It's not quite the same thing as naked pictures of your wife. This guy has perfectly legitimate reasons to want to post this information outside of whatever potential profit he may or may not hope to gain.

And heck, it's entirely possible his attempt to sell was in response to the company attempting to buy him off.

"We'd be happy to pay you $X to remove the site."

"Okay, that's fair."

"Ha, sucker! See you in court."

Re:What about in an Email

[Nazadus]

Actually, I think that becuase you aren't representing them nor selling something as them, then you are ok.

What I *think* they were thinking was that you could be sending emails as dmv@domain.tld -- and this would probably tick them off, as you could be causing trouble in their lands (not that I think they could do anything about it... but...)

Generally, the reply of "The please list to me every alias or email address I can not have, so that I may purge my database. I would also like proof of you owning said names and characters. Failure to produce a clean and consice list will result in your emails being ignored and this alias continued. I would also like to note that since that email alias is the one I contact you with, that you are implying that you do not want to contact me anymore and would thusly like to contact me via telephone (insert number here). I would like a signed statement of the such, so I can keep for my records."

I say this, becuase I've been in the same boat as you... usually they just stop talking. If they then proceed to nag you, get a signed letter and remove the name. Afterall, if they need to send you something, they've done promised they would contact you via telephone. I, personally, would not accept snail mail as an option as it can't be trusted (yes, sir, we mailed it 3 months ago. What? you didn't get it. Too bad, so sad; you get the idea). I've never recieved a signed letter, but they usually stop talking because they aren't willing to back up their talk.
It ain't legal if it ain't on paper... generally speaking, of course. /two bits

Re:BosleyMedicalSucks.com

[Dun Malg]

But the argument for potential confusion is there.

So long as the site at bosleymedical.com doesn't pretend they ARE Bosley Medical, where's the confusion? You get to the site and see it's a complaint site, and the confusion is over.

With *sucks or *reallysucks domains the confusion argument is rendered mute by the bulk of US court decisions.

Forcing all protest into something like a "(whatever)sucks.com" is like saying picketers can only march along a 40' section of sidewalk around the corner, next to the building loading zone.

Also, the word you're looking for is "moot", not "mute". Arguments are rendered moot.