Utube Sues YouTube

An anonymous reader writes "From The Age article: Universal Tube, which sells used machines that make tubes, has said it has lost business because customers have had trouble accessing its site." So now Utube is suing YouTube seeking a cease and desist on the youtube domain. (I wonder if they think Google's pockets might be deeper that the previous owners'.) This again raises the problems of domain names colliding across different industries and countries, and reminds me of the etoys/etoy tussle a few years back. Should domain name simply be exempt from trademark legislation in all countries or is it a legit thing to fight for?"

Comments

Obligatory

[RichPowers]

"Universal Tube, which sells used machines that make tubes..." Well now we know who built the backbone of the Internets

What about...

[SnowZero]

How long before they go after ewetube?

I know, that was baaaaad.

Re:What about...

[aerthling]

The owners of that domain will probably feel a bit sheepish if they do.

Illiteracy

[Petronius.Scribe]

Rather than sueing YouTube, why don't they sue the marketing morons who decided that "u" made a good abbreviation for "you" in product names and marketing campaigns? If people didn't automatically skip the y and o then this wouldn't be an issue.

Re:Next in line: Cisco

[maxwell demon]

Of course, Cisco routers don't power the internet. Unless they now make routers with integrated power plants. :-)

Imagine the scene

[19061969]

In a busy boardroom of a company that, well, uses industrial tubes.

MD: "Ok folks! We need to buy 3 miles of indutrial tubing to complete this job, get paid, and then we can have our bonuses for working hard!"
Lackey1: "Ok boss! I'll just go to U-Tube to buy the tubing."
MD: "Good one lackey1. You make sure we place that order by 5.00pm tonight."
Lackey1 goes off to his computer in his office.
Lackey1: "Duh, ok! Let's type in youtube.com and order them tubes."

Watches screen.

Lackey1: "Hey! There's a video of some fat guy miming to Shakira!"

Later, in boardroom at 5.00pm.

MD: "So did you order those tubes we need to make money and get bonuses?"
Lackey1: "Duh, no boss! All I could find was videos of people! They didn't sell no tubing!"
MD: "What the f___?!?!"
Lackey1: "S'true I tells yah! I typed in youtube.com and never realised that it was the wrong website. That honestly never occurred to me!"
MD: "Gahh! We're going to go bust! If only we could have found u-tube's website, we'd have been rich! Wahhhhh! I want my mommy!"

Re:obviously

[Feanturi]

Of course it's not a truck, everyone knows that data takes the bus.

Re:It's the all encompassing .com that's the probl

[threeturn]

Let me guess, you sort your socks before putting them away - right?

Re:There is no such thing as bad publicity

[wyverspur]

No, No

They make universal tubes the internet runs on.

*ducks*

Re:UTube could make a fortune

[Pollardito]

There is genuine confusion here, between the two names -- if you just pheonetically say "You Tube dot com", the listener can't tell the difference. The proper party for Utube.com to be sold to use Youtube.com, then it can just be made to point to the main site.

it's not even any better in the south, every time they type in yalltube.com it gets them to an equally useless tube-related site

Re:/. quality continues it's downfall....RTFA.

[geoffspear]

Also stop saying "tinfoil hat". For a bunch of geeks who pride themselves on being "accurate", aluminum foil and tin foil are distinctly different things.

Yes, and we also know that aluminum doesn't stop the mindcontrol rays like tin does, asshat*.

* Sorry for the inaccuracy. I know that "rectum hat" would be more accurate, but it takes longer to type.

I knew I should have. . .

[Hamoohead]

. . .registered youtoob.com!

Re:There is no such thing as bad publicity

[MS-06FZ]

Except it costs you more money, too - you need a bigger pipe

Wait a minute... don't these people make pipes? If they strung together a series of their tubes, I bet it just might work...

Re:It's the all encompassing .com that's the probl

[Colin Smith]

Nope. All my socks are black.

HTH.