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Dropbox Releases Revised TOS
vanstinator writes "Today Dropbox has released a revised Terms of Service agreement due to the controversy caused by their recent update. This new version clarifies their position on data ownership and makes it very clear that you, and only you, have a right to your data. This is welcome news to any serious Dropbox user."
On the downside, though, NorbMan writes that a company called FilesAnywhere.com is "suing Dropbox, Inc. for trademark infringement. The complaint alleges that FilesAnywhere has been using the term 'DROPBOX' since 2004 as part of its service, and that Dropbox, Inc. has also closely duplicated one of its logo designs."
Dropbox is a generic term which predates either of those companies and I've frequently heard network shares named or referred to as "dropbox" or "drop box."
I don't care about their TOS, they can do whatever they want with my truecrypt volumes.
I'm still using it. If somebody wishes to steal my programming homework or my course notes on statistical mechanics, go right ahead. My valuable stuff is either not on Dropbox or it's in a Truecrypt volume - good luck breaking into that.
All this goes to show is that common sense once more comes out the victor: assuming that any such FREE service is secure and full of goodwill is foolish. They might be, but would you really want to take the risk? Start by assuming anybody can peek at your data and go from there.
To be clear, aside from the rare exceptions we identify in our Privacy Policy, no matter how the Services change, we won’t share your content with others, including law enforcement, for any purpose unless you direct us to.
however their privacy agreement still says they will gladly decrypt and give your data to law enforcement
Compliance with Laws and Law Enforcement Requests; Protection of Dropbox's Rights. We may disclose to parties outside Dropbox files stored in your Dropbox and information about you that we collect when we have a good faith belief that disclosure is reasonably necessary to (a) comply with a law, regulation or compulsory legal request; (b) protect the safety of any person from death or serious bodily injury; (c) prevent fraud or abuse of Dropbox or its users; or (d) to protect Dropbox’s property rights. If we provide your Dropbox files to a law enforcement agency as set forth above, we will remove Dropbox’s encryption from the files before providing them to law enforcement. However, Dropbox will not be able to decrypt any files that you encrypted prior to storing them on Dropbox.
Despite claiming to have used the term Dropbox since August 4th 2004, Officeware didn't file for a trademark until April 12, 2010, some seven months *after* Dropbox filed for their trademark, and nearly 20 months after Dropbox first launched their service. Heck, Dropbox even owned the dropbox.com domain six months before Officeware bothered to file for the trademark. Seems to me that if, even once you own it, you still have to proactively protect your trademark to be allowed to keep it, the law's not likely to look favorably on a company that hadn't even bothered to attempt to get a trademark in the first place.
IANAL, but it doesn't look to me like they have a leg to stand on.
Trademark != Copyright
Please get it right or stop using the words. If it is used to identify a company or product, it's a trademark.
Maybe I've been under the yoke of HIPAA too long but if you have sensitive information why are you trusting a third party with it?
I find being offended by me offensive.
You mean like Apple Corps v Apple?
The market where it happens is important. In the Apples' case, back when it started they were different companies operating in separate markets using names which have nothing directly to do with what they are.
An apple is a dictionary word, but it's a *fruit*.
Apple Corps has always been selling music. (Nothing to do with the fruit, they could the name for their company).
Back then Apple Computer was selling computers, i.e.: a completely different market, and could not get confused with Apple Corps (you couldn't accuse them of trying to ride the "Apple" hype).
Of course, now that *both* companies are selling music, it starts to get complicated. "I bought a song from Apple" is not unambiguous anymore.
Notice, however that their name contains an element - "Computer" - which is simply a description of their activity. They can't claim trademark on this part. If some other computer shop decide to name themselves "Strawberry Computer", Apple can't sue them complaining that both look too much alike because of the "Computer" part : It's just a generic term describing what they do.
I don't think there's any specific restriction against using "generic" words in a trademark to identify your company, else every company would have to have made-up words as their names. (that said, IANAL)
You can use whatever word you want for your company. *BUT* you have to make sure that the name is specifically recognizable to be able to enforce the trademark. If you simply use a description of what you do as a name, that's not enforceable. You can't sue other persons using the same words, these words are just the accepted dictionary words to describe your work.
That's also why a company must prevent the words from becoming generic, they are obliged to avoid diluting the brand name. Otherwise the word ends up being considered generic. It's "Fight for it or lose it".
Also, pure number aren't trademarkable neither. That's why Intel started naming their processor "Pentium". Up until then they used numbers (like Intel 486) and nothing prevents other company calling their product with same numbers (AMD and Cyrix called their compatible clones with the same numbers as Intel).
Regarding the current subjet : If you sell services for renting a (virtual) dropbox, you can call it "DROPBOX" if you want, but don't come crying if other companies call their dropboxes "Dropbox" too.
The only exception in this situation is that words like "dropbox", "locker", "safe" and all the other words that describe such services, normally are names for *physical* storages. FilesAnywhere might argue that, at the time they started using this name, the words were for physical storage and the trademark is original because it metaphorically applies to a different concept (*virtual* storage). But even then, due to the "fight for it or lose it" nature of trademarks, they should have actively worked to prevent "dropbox" being used for virtual dropboxes too. (as a counter-example: see how Google is trying to prevent "to google" to become a generic verb for "searching on-line". FilesAnywhere should have done the same)
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