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Playboy sues Search Engines over Trademark
takshaka writes "Playboy Enterprises
has joined the mass of trademark litigants, alleging that Excite and Netscape are violating its trademark by serving banner ads for other adult sites whenever visitors search for the magazine's home page.
This seems to be yet another case of actively defending a trademark to avoid name dilution.
But, really, how many people who type "playboy" as a search term are actually looking for playboy.com?
" I just search for the articles.
no. set it so that search for arseholes puts them on top of list.
Freedom of speech is all good when you use it to make money selling pix of girls... but when another comes to compete... then we start lawsuits... no 1st amendment here, hugh is a hypocrite
They should shut up and pay Netscape legal costs.
If I search for Dell and get a Gateway banner it means Gateway was smart.
Maybe they just don't want to buy advertising banners from Netscape and are sore just because others are willing.
Perhaps Netscape should recategorize them under arseholes/assholes/idiots instead of XXXX sites. So when people type in arseholes, their site ends up top of the list.
Good idea?
Maybe they should just remove Playboy from all their search engines.
Anyone that made that search would just get
"No matches found"
Does anyone know if Playboy's court-filed complaint is available online?
That's how it is on TV, in newspapers, and on busses.
I wouldn't say TV and newspapers have non-targeted ads... You won't see the same kind of ads in the sports section than in the cinema section. On TV, you won't see the same kind of ads while watching a kid show then while watching a sex movie! It may be easier to target ads on the Internet, but it's not the only place to do so!
when ppl query on full questions like the search engins are some kind of all knowing oracle :)
So?
How's that different from having a category of search words (like "Playboy", "Penthouse", "Hustler", "nudity", "f*ck", etc.) and displaying a banner ad from a pool when one of these words is searched for?
Sueing book stores for putting copies of hustler and big'ins next to copies of playboy?
This is interesting...yahoo in a Playboy search doesn't display any banner. I guess they are covering their ass.
Why should playboy come up first? I might actually be looking for a site about "Playboy magazine's abuse of the legal system" when I type "playboy".
There is no guarantee that a search engine will give any kind of result.
How is this different than when I go to the store, buy a pack of Marlboro Lights and get a coupon for Camels?
Seems like well directed marketing, truthfully. I'd imagine you have a bit less brand loyalty in porn though...
Utter silliness. It isn't that the search engines aren't showing the Playboy pages as part of their search listings, but that they also show banner ads from potential competitors while doing so. Well gosh, tough luck. Unless the advertiser specifically goes out of his way to make the advertisement mislead the user into thinking that it's relevant to the query, then there's no issue of user confusion. After all, you're at a search engine to get back search results, not banner ads, right?
That as long as Playboy.com is the first site to
come up, It should not matter. It's not wrong for the search engines to direct banner ads based on a search, and it does not weaken playboy's trademark one bit as long as they come up as the first destination in a search.
the search engines might be in trouble. they should not be letting companies with related services/products buy the term "playboy".
if you search for "playboy" and see a pic of a naked lady, you are probably going to assume the picture is associated with Playboy Enterprises in some way. there is a high possibility of confusion.
don't get the issue mixed up - if playboy were demanding that the search engines not return pointers to trademark-infringing sites when people are searching for "playboy", that would be different. the specific issue (misleading banner ads) does seem like a clearcut case of trademark infringement.
Lawyers should be permanently banned from the internet.
We should go all the way and ban them from the courtroom! Make them only able to advise their clients about the issues and the clients would be the ones to argue the case directly in court... That would be intersting. After that verdict against the gun manufactures today... who knows. Sorry, I guess that was a little too off topic.
Anyways, your site probably (should) will be safe because it is directly related to the simpsons and not an attempt to confuse their trademark. Of course I'm no lawyer. It might help to put a "Simpsons is a copyright/trademark of Fox" and even ask them for some sort of official endorsement. Not all corperations are sue-happy and they would certianly enjoy any positive publicity.
What are Playboy going to demand next? That their
magazine isn't placed next to other porn magazine on the newsagent's shelf?
Someone should sue webcrawler for their horrible privacy infringement.
They don't even say on their homepage that they broadcast everything you search for.
If they were a European company, they'd be convicted long ago.
I mean, shit, type playboy into any recent browser's Location text field and you'll go straight to the Heffner smut shack.
Who's next? Netscape for suggesting that Penthouse, Hustler, and Cigar Afficionado (!) are "related" to the Playboy home page?
Sheesh
First thing we do...
And if the big search engines all do this (perhaps they could share a list of "troublesome tradmarks") then Plyboy, Estee Lader, etc. will finally shut up.
Sure, the customer asked for Playboy, but is the store really breaking the law if there just happen to be other magazines on the rack?
Playboy Magazine deserves to protect their copyrights and trademarks, which include 'Playboy magazine' but not the word 'playboy' in every use.
that was actually funny :)
At least from what I understand, the owner of whitehouse.com is suing netscape because smart-browsing for 'whitehouse' provides no mention of his whitehouse.com porn site. And I thought I had too much free time...
They have a lot of articles, which they are very very interesting, with all the pictures...
:P
The problem is if the pictures are being sold and they are not actually from Playboy Enterprises.
There is a very real chance that someone thinks they're buying from a source they trust, but end up with junk and blame Playboy.
Imagine if some properitary software companies starting buying banner space using "Linux" to suck in users that don't fully know the difference.
Perhaps the law is fuzzy in this area.
The thing is, the shared netizen ethic is not, and by it there are clear issues of right and wrong on this issue. Folks are expected to follow them.
Thing is, lawyers aren't good netizens -- just like AOLers -- and, like AOLers, they're despised by those whose communities they disrupt.
Posted by Charles Bronson:
I laughed out loud. My mom came in and read it, and she laughed out loud.
That gives a nice tripple-meaning.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I think I understand what the previous poster was trying to say. It wasn't very clear, and at first I thought it was a load of **** as well.
/could/ have a case against Yahoo for not stipulating that the ads couldn't be misleading in this way. This argument is weaker than the first, but I wouldn't reject it outright.
:-)
But.
Playboy maight have a legitimate claim.
IF:
Yahoo, et. al. were deliberately selling banner ads on the basis that they would be turned up specifically when the user searched for "Playboy". In which case Playboy would definitely have a legitimate gripe against Yahoo.
OR:
These banner ads were specifically designed to mislead users into thinking that they (the ads) were from Playboy or Playboy-related products. If that were the case, then again, Playboy
If, however, Playboy is just complaining that generic porn-site ads were displayed whenever the user entered a porn-related search term (such as "playboy"), then they are total arseholes, and this complaint should be blown out of the galaxy
Basically, what I'm saying, is that the article didn't give enough details for me to be comfortable making a judgement one way or the other. And I think that's what the poster you were responding to was trying to get at as well.
(NB: I use the term "Yahoo" here to reference any search engine portals that Playboy is complaining agains, not necessarily Yahoo in particular).
- Sean
- SeanNi
- SeanNi
- #include "standard_disclaimer.h"
I think I understand what the previous poster was trying to say. It wasn't very clear, and at first I thought it was a load of **** as well.
/could/ have a case against Yahoo for not stipulating that the ads couldn't be misleading in this way. This argument is weaker than the first, but I wouldn't reject it outright.
:-)
But.
Playboy maight have a legitimate claim.
IF:
Yahoo, et. al. were deliberately selling banner ads on the basis that they would be turned up specifically when the user searched for "Playboy". In which case Playboy would definitely have a legitimate gripe against Yahoo.
OR:
These banner ads were specifically designed to mislead users into thinking that they (the ads) were from Playboy or Playboy-related products. If that were the case, then again, Playboy
If, however, Playboy is just complaining that generic porn-site ads were displayed whenever the user entered a porn-related search term (such as "playboy"), then they are total arseholes, and this complaint should be blown out of the galaxy
Basically, what I'm saying, is that the article didn't give enough details for me to be comfortable making a judgement one way or the other. And I think that's what the poster you were responding to was trying to get at as well.
(NB: I use the term "Yahoo" here to reference any search engine portals that Playboy is complaining against, not necessarily Yahoo in particular).
- Sean
- SeanNi
- SeanNi
- #include "standard_disclaimer.h"
I use lynx to read it myself. Loads a hell of a lot faster!
So is history being re-written to claim that Heafner coined the word playboy? Do they think they own the word now? Even MSN returns a bunch of mineral related stuff if you search for "slate". Is "Playboy Magazine" paying anyone to have their search engines include them, or to move them closer to the top of the list than they would be otherwise, or are they just looking for a free ride?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
"Other people who bought this book also...."
I don't see how it's trademark violation to display an ad for a related website... or am I missing something?
Maybe one solution to this problem would be for the search engines to not "target" the banner ads shown depending on keywords in the search. Then neither the people associated with any trademark of a keyword which a user inputs, nor their competitors would be able to complain about unfair treatment.
Any banners shown by sites which are returned as a result of the search are, of course, nothing to do with the owners or operators of the search engines.
At least in altavista searching for a url finds all sites that link to that url. Very useful for a number of reasons.
Gee it's been ages (weeks) since I performed a search using one of those old search engines. Try www.google.com you won't regret it.
Lawyers should be permanently banned from the internet.
Hmm...
What if i wanted to register www.telephonerules.com... Alexandre Graham Bell gonna sue me?
Fox has been known to shut down sites bearing no resemlance to their own, and ones that never claimed to be the official sites. I know of a lot of X-files sites that were 'foxed' over so-called intellectual property.
How ironic that Playboy, once a champion of free expression should be persuing this ridiculous legal action against people who are simply practicing good product placement.
Next Microsoft will be suing NBC if they sell an advertising slot to to Netscape during the same show they buy advertising on.
This is simply a case of Playboy desperate to cover its ass as the internet slowly puts paper magazines out of business. Sorry Heff, just as your rag goes on a shelf with a bunch of other rags, your smut site goes on a rack with a bunch of other smut sites.
I think they'd be better off investing time and money in creating a site that can compete than trying to censor the ads of the competition.
When will copyright law die? 10 years MAX for copyright, 5 years MAX for patents. NO SOFTWARE PATENTS.
;))
(my two cents
æeee!
Articles, what articles? I didn't know Play Boy had articles.
-Master Switch, one more element in the machine
I don't understand why people don't just block banner ads. You save bandwith while at the same time not allowing yourself to be targeted with advertisements... check out www.junkbuster.com or mail me for a copy of my squid redirector that block banner adds...
That is all we need are more global-hyper-mega comglomerates suing for some not-to-well-defined reason. I love this country! Everybody has their hands on everyone elses pie.
-Signed Me
-- Infatuated with the fact that they can, software developers usually don't stop to think if they should.
Have ever looked at the Ticker at webcrawer.com
It shows what people are searching for and you would be surprised at what lame things are out there.
Some people do infact search for
"www.playboy.com"
Check it out:
http://webcrawler.com/SearchTicker.html
The really ridiculous thing is, playboy thinks it owns the word "playmate". Doesn't almost every child in the world have a playmate? What if Excite places the banner for a daycare center tied to that keyword? Would playboy still argue that their infringing on their perverted use of the word?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney