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VirtualDub Author Stymied by Trademark Troll
trifish writes "The author of VirtualDub wrote on his blog that 'someone has registered "VirtualDub" as a "word mark" in Germany as of June 6, 2006 and is now sending out notices to people in that country demanding money for so much as mentioning the program and linking to the SourceForge download from their website.' Well, I confess that only now I fully understand why Linux, Mozilla, TrueCrypt, and other open source projects register their names as trademarks."
You are free to do so. With the twisted German jurisdiction, not you are to be held responsible, but the owner of the webpage you have been mentioning V********b, as he should/ought/could have prevented the mentioning on his page.
There actually *is* a reason why Germans are required to have a imprint on their pages (Don't believe me? Look for "6 Teledienstgesetz").
Screw the FSM - Real geeks believe in the Invisible Pink Unicorn
There is actually a rather infamous lawyer in Germany who's been harrassing people for a long, long time (especially for copyright infringement whose companion was, interesting enough, arrested for running a warez-FTP server), I wouldn't put it beyond him to register the VirtualDub 'word mark' to continue his profitable practice of milking the unsuspecting.
Why again is it illegal to shoot lawyers on sight?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You can't sue someone for using your trademark in a publication, as long as the trademark actually referrs to your product, there is no problem.
Why do you think review sites are allowed to bash Sony / Microsoft / FooBrand products without fear of retribution?
The point of a trademark is not to keep people from talking about your product, it is to keep another company from pretending to be your product.
According to german internet news site "golem.de", it is "Internet Dienstleistungen Kliemen". The page is offline now (it was hosted by arcor.de and had freecity.de redirect ads in a frame, so I guess it was free hosting). The redirect page listed Michael Kliemen (webmaster@kliemen.de) as the author. The onsite contact information was: Internet Dienstleistungen Raimar Kliemen, Hauptstr. 99, 67126 Hochdorf, mail: info@kliemen.de, phone: 0151/10372291 (that's +49-151-10372291 internationally).
> "Well, I confess that only now I fully understand why Linux, Mozilla, TrueCrypt, and other open source projects register their names as trademarks"
In the case of Linux(tm), it's precisely because back in the mid-nineties, someone named William Della Croce, Jr. tried to hijack the mark and extort money from various vendors and publishers. It took a year, and a bunch of money, to get the matter resolved and the trademark reassigned to Linus.
It was an ugly and sordid affair, and I really wish there were better alternatives than either registering a mark or allowing it to be attacked by trolls. Prior use of a mark--even an unregistered mark--does (or should) count against trolls, at least in the US, but it can still be a hassle to fight them off if the mark's not registered. Personally, I would like to see the term "Linux" become a generic term (like "Aspirin"), but I can understand why Linus is reluctant to allow that to happen after the Dell Croce incident.