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Domain Defense News
Andrew Tannenbaum
was the first to inform us that Archie Comics has
dropped its threat of
legal action against veronica.org
In related news, Captain Ajax
writes "Ajax.org, making good on its vow, is sponsoring
an initiative
that coordinates grass-roots efforts to stop domain-names
from being wrongly usurped by well-monied corporations and
other unethical individuals. " I hope Captain Ajax's
initiative will put an end to this nonsense.
You Bastards!
Corporate lawyers need to start paying attention. All they do is hurt companies PR with this kind of stunt. Then again, if they're getting paid, maybe they don't care.
In any case, the father says they would have to take Veronica (the kid) to court, as the site is registered in her name. Is this legal? I thought minors could not enter into a legal contract.
--
Jason Eric Pierce
I wish that sites would be left alone; however, the problem lies with Trademarks, not the companies. When you are granted a Trademark, it i s legally binding ONLY if YOU as the holder enforce it. The moment you stop enforcement of your trademark, it is no longer a valid trademark.
Xerox fights hard to keep its name from being the 'generic' term for copiers. If that happens, they lose their own name as a trademark and it becomes public domain. If an article in a paper appears and someone calls a copier a Xerox machine (and it isn't the brand Xerox), the writer will get a letter from Xerox asking for a retraction.
The web is no different.
It's already been stated that this is a trademark issue and that Archie Comics is required to defend it.
;).
Get out of your underdog/little guy mentality people. This isn't 1984. I think Archie Comics did what they legally had to do, then ethically rescinded as *they had planned from the beginning*.
"Now that Mr. Sams has publicly stated that the veronica.org Web site will be devoted to his daughter, we have withdrawn our request.''
That's all Archie Comics wanted to hear.
For some reason, Slashdot seems to attract the people who view themselves as underdogs fighting against Big Brother. Hmm, maybe this has something to do with the Linux factor
Am I the only one who sees the irony in that Yahoo story? The article seems to take the side of the Veronica.org website, but yet aren't they trying to shut down Yahooka?
Or maybe I'm just too bored at work and am reading too much into this.
Captain Anonymous
Sites aside, defense of trademark is important.
Consider, if Linus fails to adquately defend the Linux(TM) trademark, it becomes available to anyone for anything. Which means that Microsoft could, say, rename Windows 2000 to Linux 2000.
(That ought to give people nightmares!)
One of the network morning shows had Veronica, the parents, and a Archie Comics flack on air this morning.
The flack was apologetic and spun things well, explaining that they'd never seen the veronica.org site before they launched the suit, and that they were touchy about these things because of a past incident. Apparently, "archiecomics.com" was reserved by someone and used as a porn site.
Stefan
While it's true that companies have to defend violations of their trademark, not everything containing said name is a violation. For instance, they are definitely not obligated to sue every parent who names their kid Veronica. Nor are they obligated to sue the maker of archie or anyone who uses the insult "jughead". I think all of these are pretty clear-cut cases. Yet trademark lawyers tend to overlook common sense for some reason...
If what you postulated were true, Microsoft would be in quite a pickle with good ole Windows*.
--
Jason Eric Pierce
* Okay, probably not true, since I think their actual trademark is on "Microsoft Windows"
You are correct. Not the Minix/Amoeba guy. You don't think he'd waste time reading slashdot, do you? :)
Correct me, if I am wrong, but I was always under the impression that proper names could not be trademarked, copyrighted, patented, or in any way owned by any entity.
Thus, there is no way that Archie comics should have been able to hold sole rights to the names Veronica, Archie, etc. (Seeing as Jugghead is not a proper name, I think they can own that one.)
You know the only reason they dropped the suit is because of the bad press, not because of the assurances that there will be no porn. According to an article in C|Net, Archie comics was worried about children typing www.veronica.org, and inadvertently seeing porn. So, they complained. I hate corporations that lie through their teeth like that.
Then of course, we have the Child OnLine Protection Act going before the judge today. If people want to be parents, they need to take the responsibility to raise their kids, not have the federal government pass laws to do it for them. If parents don't want their kids looking at porn, they should make their kids very aware of that fact, not hope the government will do it for them.
If we're all concerned that Archie Comics shouldn't be allowed to grab the name "VERONICA", what has been accomplished now that it has been grabbed by David Sams Industries?
Does anyone know (or care) that Sams and his wife are television producers and he is a former NBC News producer?
Everyone has been yelling at Archie Comics because they claim only non-profits are supposed to use the "ORG" extension. If that is so, why is this site "SLASHDOT.ORG"?? Seems it is the site of a publisher, just like Archie Comics?? Could it be that Rob malda found that Chris Richardson got the name "SLASHDOT.COM" before him and, so, rather than doing the honorable thing and picking another name, Malda ripped off Richardson through the use of the "ORG" extension?
Anyone got any thoughts????
Indeed you do not. Your comment proudly displays the fact that you have no earthly idea what consitutes a -violation-
of trademark. Using the trademarked name of a product in normal conversation (which entities like slashdot.org were ruled by the Supreme Court to be) -to refer to that product-
is never a violation. This means that if I say 'Yeah, Linux 2.2.0 is just around the corner,' no trademark has been violated. I am referring to the operating system created by Linus Torvalds.
If, however, I were to rent a billboard from which I displayed 'Linux 3.0 from Anonymous Coward Industries-- It's the wave of the future, baby,'
that is a violation of trademark. In addition, trademarks are only valid within specific realms; a breakfast cereal named 'Linux,' for example, would not violate the 'Linux' we all know and love.
Handled it much better -- look at the veronica.org site again boozoo!!
David Sams' letter notes that the site wasn't even up when the lawyers quesytioned what Sams Industries had in mind!!!
I don't know about the rest of you, but it frankly scares me to think anyone would fight for a company trying to grab as many domain names as they possibly can. What will be left? Do we really want the web to be owned by big companies? Isn't this what the antitrust case is all about?
This message came from Andrew Tannenbaum? The creator of Minix?
Actually, I just looked at my favorite textbook (I have two of his books) - Andrew Tanenbaum is DEFINATELY spelt with one n.
Michael.
(vivarium@home.com)
But my gay father is bill gates!
Trademarks are an evil invention of Microsoft(r). Death to Microsoft(r) Windows(tm)! Long live Open Source(sm)! Go Linux(tm)!
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Subject says it all.
Online petitions are the online equivalent of the cruise missile... very accurate and powerful. Quick and longer range, too.
#941
Read the article closely - the writing seems to
imply that Archie Comics went after the site because they were expected it to be a porn site
based on the presence of a nude baby in a bathtub
(Which is certainly a valid concern). If veronica.org was that, and continued to exist without Archie Comics intervention, then the
name "Veronica" would have been diluted, and Archie would have lost it's hold on that trademark. This, IMO, is definitely a valid
concern for trademark laywers. And in the
resolution of this issue, the venorica.org holder
stated that the site is not porn, and the Archie
people are happy now. Ideally, the situation could have been handled better -- a causal inspection of the site would have yielded the intent as a showoff page for a baby girl, and not
a porn site; Archie could have sent an email asking the holder about the content, and as a
small jesture, to provide a pointer to
vernonica.com to prevent mix ups, and then all
would have been well, and Archie would not have
embrassed itself.
Constrast this with the pokey.org fiasco a while
back, where the lawyers were going after the
use of the name for a clean site. That was
ended after the Gumby founder stepped in and
said it was ok (Hmm, another party doing the
legal work for the actual creator -- sound familiar, anyone??).
Of course, I wish that the vision that the average
Joe User would never have to know an IP or URL
really existed -- then these trademark hassles
over domain names would be futile. Unfortunately,
the web got popular too soon for this to work out.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
veronica.org is registered to the parents. If they say that they are holding the site for thier daughter in trust till she is old enough to take posession of it, then that's thier right to do so. It is after all thier site and they can do whatever they want with it within the bounds of legality.
Register a site to my cat? I wish I could do so, but I think the name "Linux" is already taken.
-- Wiccan Army, 13th Airborne Division "We will not fly silently into the night"
Do they teach anything in law schools about dealing with PR aspects of legal actions(not to mention actually knowing what the other party is doing, rather than going off half-cocked)? I believe the concept of 'winning in court, but thereby losing in the marketplace' preceded computer communications, but it applies even more now, when perception of a vendor as a legal bully can be quite enough to lose an entire market(just ask a little company called System Enhancement Associates).
A minor is not considered to be legally competent, and cannot be bound by the terms of a contract, nor can a minor be sued. However, the parents of said minor can be sued.
For example, if my son threw a rock through a neighbor's window, he cannot be sued for damages, but I could be.
Veronica cannot be sued, but her father most certainly could be sued about the web site. Archie Commics could wait for the publicity to die down, and persue David Sams once again.
highersource.com?
Wasn't that the domain for Heaven's Gate?
teleny, friend of cats.
Surely not the Andy Tannenbaum?
Hmmm. I sent private email to Sengan about the domain name squabble. I did not expect to have my name broadcast so prominently, when I post followup comments to slashdot, I just call myself trb. I am not the Minix guy, and neither of our names is spelled Tannebaum. I'm Andrew Tannenbaum, I've been hacking UNIX for over 20 years, I was more active on the net/usenet before it got so crowded. The Minix guy is Andrew S. Tanenbaum. We both worked at Bell Labs at the same time around 1980, and the mailroom found it somewhat confusing. If want to be ambiguous in a different way, call me trb.
So what if the domain HAD been used (or intended for use) as an adult site? Where does Archie Comics get the idea that they own the name Veronica?
If there were actual trademark infringement, I could understand, but unless the site had some relation to the Veronica character in Archie Comics, they have no right to demand that others refrain from using the name, even if it were a pornographic web site. (Though in that case, they'd probably have enough money to win the suit.)
Even within the domain of comics, they would have to prove that the use of Veronica infringed on their trademark. Both Archie and Richie Rich have a character named Reggie. Should they be suing each other for giving characters well-known if not all that common names that pre-existed both their comic strips?
Alan R. Light
I mentioned this one time before, but everytime one of these domain squabbles appears, I think first of clue.com ...
Minors can indeed walk away from the contract any time they feel like it. However, you can refuse to enter into a contract with a minor because they are a minor. There might be some exceptions to this rule, such as possibly the neccessity for children to enter into contracts for certain essentials.
I tend to agree. There's a lot of knee-jerk "fight the man" snap-judgement overreaction going on here.
... but they can't all have firstnational.com ....
....
The internet used to be this sleepy little academic/geek thang that you actually had to explain to people. Now that it's intersected with the Real World (tm), it's big business, and yes, there will be lawyers involved.
It was a stretch to go after "veronica.org" but I can see why they did it. I think Hasbro is being obtuse for insisting on "clue.com", though. (A lot of movie sites don't even try to get the film title anymore -- you see domains like "titanicmovie.com" -- but those are ephemeral, anyway.)
It's a bigger problem than just this, because nobody's yet figured out how to properly handle the fact that -- for example -- there are at least 1000 separate "First National Bank" businesses in the US. They had no problem coexisting when they were only in their indivudal communities
I bet there might even be another "clue computing" out there.
I know I was dismayed to find that my relatively uncommon company name "Birch Grove SOftware" already had an internet presence in 1994, when I first considered registering with InterNIC. I"m in Illinois, that one is in Texas
lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
Hopefully this will send a message to the big corp's that want to hold us down.. :)
I though here name was Veronica...Not David. And, why is it that the domain is registered to a company?
Here's the Internic listing...
Registrant:David Sams Industries (VERONICA3-DOM)
505 South Beverly Drive, suite 1017 Beverly Hills, CA 90212 US
Domain Name: VERONICA.ORG Administrative Contact:
DiAngelo, Rio (RD4076) rio@HIGHERSOURCE.COM 310 -281 -8434
Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
Web Sites Now Hostmaster (HRA11-ORG) hostmaster@WEBSITESNOW.COM
310-553-7000x260Fax: 310-786-8349 Billing Contact:
Sams, David (DS9384) mrhit@AOL.COM 310-772-0770 (FAX) 310-772-0714
Record last updated on 15-Dec-98.
Database last updated on 19-Jan-99 16:07:10 EST.
Tanenbaum's name is with one 'n'. And I .cs.vu.nl
wouldn't know what Andy would to with a
world.std.com as he lives here in the
Netherlands and works at
Ivo