The law seems to indicate that non-commercial use of a trademarked name for purposes which do not confuse consumers is acceptable. I think our site meets both those criteria. Mattel does not own a trademark on the women's name "Barbie". They own a tradmark on Barbie(R) brand dolls.
If the site was confusing to consumers or trying to make money off the Barbie(R) trademark, then Mattel _would_ be in the right.
They know this, but are seeing how far they can get with legal threats. That is what bothers me.
If a judge agrees with them, then I guess I was wrong. I've got no problem with that.
It amazes me how few rights people think they have. IANAL, but the following seems obvious when reading trademark law.
It actually legal for you to start a company whose name included the word "barbie" as long as:
the goods and services involved are not similar
there is no evidence of actual confusion by consumers
the intent in adopting its mark is not detrimental to the company
There are other issues too, but those three are enough to make it clear that Mattel owning a trademark does _NOT_ remove a pre-existing word from the language.
Furthermore, in this case: dilution does not apply to non-commercial use. The law seems to support that you have the right to use the word "barbie" (or other trademarked words) for your own non-commercial reasons.
Hopefully this goes before a court of law - instead of the corporation getting what they want because most people won't or can't make it there.
I didn't find your site in my searches because I always included the word "barbie".
Glad to see that (as I thought) if anyone actually stands up to these guys and takes them to court, Mattel usually ends up eating it.
And that's the point really, Mattel gets what it wants a majority of the time just because people don't know they can stand up.
Many of the posts indicate that people think that they actually don't have the right to call a users group whatever they want, when in fact, I believe that the law says they do.
Actually, dilution law does not apply to non-commercial endevors. Despite what we seem to have been led to believe, people can still do just about whatever they want on a personal level. Applying a domain name to it does not make it a threat.
Trademarks need to be defended, as you probably know, or the owners risk losing them.
Not in cases where there is no chance of product or service confusion (there is no "product" or "service")
If this were a parody site, I might be sympathetic, but this is a personal vanity site, and you will benefit from the "barbie" connection
It is a not-profit hobby site, not a vanity site. Both Aqua (signed to MCA records) and Barbie Doll Benson (the stripper) won their cases because they had money. If anything, this site at least deserves that much consideration.
As for claiming that your offer to sell the domain was merely a joke, I doubt it. Can you honestly say that if someone had sincerely met your price, that you would have declined?
Well, I would have had to decline because it is illegal.
Further, your Australian colloquial argument is disingenuous to the extreme.
That was a joke as well - not an argument. I simply wanted to demonstrate that Mattel does not own the word "barbie" or the name "Barbie". They own a trademark for a lifelike rubber doll called "Barbie". That is what trademark law defends.
There seems to be some confusion as to why this issue should bother anyone.
If you listen to the Aqua song "Barbie Girl", it is every bit, if not morso related to the Mattel trademark than our clan site - and it was made for profit. That means it is a legitimate trademark dispute. However, a federal judge threw out the case against Aqua. Aqua was backed by MCA Records.
In our case, we may or may not be able to follow through because we are backed by no one. I don't want to "win" the case, I just want a fair chance.
The internet puts people and corporations in the same battlefield moreso than ever before. There needs to be a way to level this out or all these stories will have the same outcome regardless of who was right.
Thank you. I think that is the real issue here. I have no problem with companies defending their trademark, but Barbie is a woman's name and if we're not trying to create confusion, I don't see how we're liable.
I did actually set up thebarbies.com to redirect to a barbecue site (bbq.com) for a day to demonstrate that in any case, they simply do not own the word "thebarbies" outside the context of rubber dolls.
It made no impression on them, so I put it back to normal. But it gave my friends and I a good laugh:)
15 U.S.C. Section 1125(C)(4) states the following about cases of dilution: "The following shall not be actionable under this section: (b) Noncommercial use of a mark."
Furthermore, trademarks (as I understand it IANAL) only apply in cases where I am causing customer confusion by either offering a similar product, or using their trademarked name as a common noun. We are doing neither of these things.
Thanks for the advice - I will add some more informative content to thebarbies.com.
According to the lawyer's letter, it is the joke page that triggered their interest. Apparently they don't have any claim unless we are seeking to profit from the domain, which we are not; under 15 U.S.C. Section 1125, where cases of dilution must establish "Blurring" and "Tarnishment".
(4) "The following shall not be actionable under this section: (b) Noncommercial use of a mark.
You are correct that perhaps we should have gone with.org instead, however Mattel is not a service provider yet they own barbie.net.
I really believe that one should be able to name a hobby site whatever one likes, as long as there is no potential for customer confusion. The law seems to back this up. However, Mattel may win simply because I probably can't afford a lawyer - this is what upsets me.
Windows loads IE on startup, the damn thing is always there running whether you want it or not, so contrary to your "you're not forced to use it" the simple truth is, YES YOU ARE. If you use Win95 OSR2 or any windows after that, you are forced to use IE, you are forced to let it suck up your RAM and CPU cycles, and you are forced to reboot when the fucking thing crashes and bluescreens you.
Adding the ability to render HTML documents into the file browser is a great idea. (As a module or inate - who cares?) It's so great, in fact, that everyone is doing it (MacOS, KDE, Gnome...)
Complaining about that is like complaining that you have to use their kernel AND their window manager AND their task manager... geesh! Why don't they just distribute the W2K kernel by itself!
These days an OS is many things. I want an OS that knows HTML. It's the right thing to do.
Note: I'm a Linux user and I do think MS is evil, but I also think that we should let natural selection decide.
3D images are a nice gimic, but I think the long-term goal is to create a completely immersive experience, i.e. virtual reality.
From the excellent book "The Visionary Position":
By experimenting with the display -- moving, by degrees, from a 20-degree field of view to a 30-degree field of view and so on up to 120 degrees, the team discovered that at the "60- to 80-degree point, it was like a switch went off in your head. Instead of looking at a picture, all of a sudden you thought you were in a place. You had a different way of interacting with the display. You brought in a different set of innate capabilities.... And we realized more and more that we were onto something really big. We found that you couldn't forget it, because it was like this world was a place. And we found that people learned really quickly when they were inside of it, that there was a remarkable acceleration of the ability to learn these things, to interact with them..."
Currently the best field of view is around 30% with VR goggles. I am excited about 3D, but it seems funny that no one seems to be working on increasing field of view.
Sure, it can be similar to wearing a ski-mask when you're robbing a bank. But that doesn't mean that every person who steps into the bank is a thief.
Well, no, but you still can't wear a ski mask into a bank. Seriously. You can't even wear a ski-mask into a Circle-K, as I learned from a friend of mine who was employed at said fine establishment.
Anonymity isn't always a good thing. (just check out slashdot) I'm not saying it's always bad either, but anonymity does breed suspicion for good reason.
I have come to the conclusion that criticizing art is a complete waste of time.
There is nothing that could be done to make M:I-2 "better". If every critisizm on slashdot was somehow incorporated into the film, "fixing" all it's perceived flaws, it would not be "better", it would only be different.
Much as you might like to think differently, your aesthetic taste is no more valid than anyone else's. And any thing you might have changed in the film to make it "better" for you would probably make it "worse" for someone else.
For some reason people expect art to reflect their tastes instead of the artist's. If you liked the film, great: it was intended for you. If not, great: it wasn't intended for you. Hope you find something that is.
I'm just bringing this up to remind any creative folks out there that they've no responsibility to make art for anyone but themselves. Good luck, Mr. Woo.
This is great news for people running *nix servers that need to be accessed securely by Windows users. Although it's a closed-source product, Vandyke has an excellent secure FTP client for Windows - SecureFX which came out a month or so ago.
Thanks to that and the OpenSSH group, I have been able to eliminate all clear-text passwords from my network, AND all my Windows users are happy!
As a note - I've been running OpenSSH 2 for about two weeks now on RedHat 6.1 with no problems.
ssh-keygen generates and manages authentication keys for ssh(1). ssh-keygen defaults to generating an RSA key for use by protocols 1.3 and 1.5; specifying the -d flag will create a DSA key instead for use by protocol 2.0.
I believe that ssh2 needs to be on all the machines involved, but key login seems to work for me.
Since all web browsers take the liberty of rendering an HTML document differently, I figure Microsoft, Mozilla, etc. are all guilty of copyright infringement as well.
I wonder if I could sue MS for rendering my page differently than I intended?
How about a class action suit by the posters of Slashdot?
In my opinion evolving an existing codebase is always better than starting anew - assuming the existing codebase is functional.
It took Be forever to get their system usable, and it's still not as stable as X. I think the incredible amount of time that it has taken Mozilla to come together demonstrates this as well.
The thing with working code is that god only knows which subtleties are critical and which are just cruft. Changing them individually allows you to learn and improve. Throw out the whole thing and you've got to remake every mistake made the first time around.
This I may be wrong about, but doesn't vipw do transactional passwd updates?
If you meant a programmers interface, well, isn't that what flock() is for?
You've obviously never bothered using MySQL
on
Why Not MySQL?
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· Score: 1
MySQL has a simple and clean solution to most every missing feature that people perceive.
In this case, there is a TIMESTAMP datatype - a datetime column that auto-updates on a write to that row. This is simpler to use than triggers and works just as well.
Why do it this way? It works, it's simple, and it's fast.
The article has an overly simplistic view
on
Why Not MySQL?
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· Score: 1
Having developed high-profile corporate web applications using both Oracle and MySQL, I have a few thoughts, from a practical point of view.
There is a lot more to the data path than just the database. Even though Oracle has a load of constraints and checks available, it can't check everything. So what ends up happening is the database checks some things and the scripts check the rest. That makes two sources of logic that can be out of sync and cause bugs. The company that used Oracle was plauged by corrupt data - not because of Oracle, but in spite of it. In addition, this style leads to lots of SQL hardcoded in the scripts, which becomes difficult to maintain when you've got 800 scripts. (Despite the article's claim to the contrary, even Oracle can fall victim to hardware failures. I've seen it happen)
The company I currently work for uses MySQL. There are no consistency checks AT ALL in the database, and that's fine, because we built a simple to use abstraction layer between the scripts and the database. Our scripts no longer have SQL, and the homegrown abstraction layer (DataModel.pm) is fully responsible for all the consistency checks. So far this has worked beautifully, and we have been able to build an equally complex system with far fewer programers and admins because of MySQL's simplicity.
Oracle is a fine product. Personally I can't justify the price or the complexity.
In the end, though it's all about how YOU design YOUR system. You must take into account the tools you're using. Choosing MySQL over Oracle will not in and of itself be a problem.
The Universe got along just fine before we were around to observe. It's not like we created the Big Bang or anything
Hmmm. And how exactly do you know that? Did you observe in some scientific text that someone observered via various interpretations of observing light from the sky that the universe was here before us?
As a note, I'm a skeptic of all this myself, but we seem pretty certain that our observations are stronger than our observations... don't we:)
Slashdot Mirror
Except the site is non-commercial and therefore not subject to the dilution laws. The law backs this one up, actually.
If the site was confusing to consumers or trying to make money off the Barbie(R) trademark, then Mattel _would_ be in the right.
They know this, but are seeing how far they can get with legal threats. That is what bothers me.
If a judge agrees with them, then I guess I was wrong. I've got no problem with that.
It actually legal for you to start a company whose name included the word "barbie" as long as:
- the goods and services involved are not similar
- there is no evidence of actual confusion by consumers
- the intent in adopting its mark is not detrimental to the company
There are other issues too, but those three are enough to make it clear that Mattel owning a trademark does _NOT_ remove a pre-existing word from the language.Furthermore, in this case: dilution does not apply to non-commercial use. The law seems to support that you have the right to use the word "barbie" (or other trademarked words) for your own non-commercial reasons.
Hopefully this goes before a court of law - instead of the corporation getting what they want because most people won't or can't make it there.
Glad to see that (as I thought) if anyone actually stands up to these guys and takes them to court, Mattel usually ends up eating it.
And that's the point really, Mattel gets what it wants a majority of the time just because people don't know they can stand up.
Many of the posts indicate that people think that they actually don't have the right to call a users group whatever they want, when in fact, I believe that the law says they do.
Congratulations to you for standing up to them.
Actually, dilution law does not apply to non-commercial endevors. Despite what we seem to have been led to believe, people can still do just about whatever they want on a personal level. Applying a domain name to it does not make it a threat.
Not in cases where there is no chance of product or service confusion (there is no "product" or "service")
If this were a parody site, I might be sympathetic, but this is a personal vanity site, and you will benefit from the "barbie" connection
It is a not-profit hobby site, not a vanity site. Both Aqua (signed to MCA records) and Barbie Doll Benson (the stripper) won their cases because they had money. If anything, this site at least deserves that much consideration.
As for claiming that your offer to sell the domain was merely a joke, I doubt it. Can you honestly say that if someone had sincerely met your price, that you would have declined?
Well, I would have had to decline because it is illegal.
Further, your Australian colloquial argument is disingenuous to the extreme.
That was a joke as well - not an argument. I simply wanted to demonstrate that Mattel does not own the word "barbie" or the name "Barbie". They own a trademark for a lifelike rubber doll called "Barbie". That is what trademark law defends.
Thank you. Those are all excellent suggestions.
If you listen to the Aqua song "Barbie Girl", it is every bit, if not morso related to the Mattel trademark than our clan site - and it was made for profit. That means it is a legitimate trademark dispute. However, a federal judge threw out the case against Aqua. Aqua was backed by MCA Records.
In our case, we may or may not be able to follow through because we are backed by no one. I don't want to "win" the case, I just want a fair chance.
The internet puts people and corporations in the same battlefield moreso than ever before. There needs to be a way to level this out or all these stories will have the same outcome regardless of who was right.
Thank you. I think that is the real issue here. I have no problem with companies defending their trademark, but Barbie is a woman's name and if we're not trying to create confusion, I don't see how we're liable.
It made no impression on them, so I put it back to normal. But it gave my friends and I a good laugh :)
Furthermore, trademarks (as I understand it IANAL) only apply in cases where I am causing customer confusion by either offering a similar product, or using their trademarked name as a common noun. We are doing neither of these things.
Thanks for the advice - I will add some more informative content to thebarbies.com.
According to the lawyer's letter, it is the joke page that triggered their interest. Apparently they don't have any claim unless we are seeking to profit from the domain, which we are not; under 15 U.S.C. Section 1125, where cases of dilution must establish "Blurring" and "Tarnishment".
(4) "The following shall not be actionable under this section:
(b) Noncommercial use of a mark.
You are correct that perhaps we should have gone with .org instead, however Mattel is not a service provider yet they own barbie.net.
I really believe that one should be able to name a hobby site whatever one likes, as long as there is no potential for customer confusion. The law seems to back this up. However, Mattel may win simply because I probably can't afford a lawyer - this is what upsets me.
Adding the ability to render HTML documents into the file browser is a great idea. (As a module or inate - who cares?) It's so great, in fact, that everyone is doing it (MacOS, KDE, Gnome...)
Complaining about that is like complaining that you have to use their kernel AND their window manager AND their task manager... geesh! Why don't they just distribute the W2K kernel by itself!
These days an OS is many things. I want an OS that knows HTML. It's the right thing to do.
Note: I'm a Linux user and I do think MS is evil, but I also think that we should let natural selection decide.
From the excellent book "The Visionary Position":
By experimenting with the display -- moving, by degrees, from a 20-degree field of view to a 30-degree field of view and so on up to 120 degrees, the team discovered that at the "60- to 80-degree point, it was like a switch went off in your head. Instead of looking at a picture, all of a sudden you thought you were in a place. You had a different way of interacting with the display. You brought in a different set of innate capabilities. ... And we realized more and more that we were onto something really big. We found that you couldn't forget it, because it was like this world was a place. And we found that people learned really quickly when they were inside of it, that there was a remarkable acceleration of the ability to learn these things, to interact with them..."
Currently the best field of view is around 30% with VR goggles. I am excited about 3D, but it seems funny that no one seems to be working on increasing field of view.
Well, no, but you still can't wear a ski mask into a bank. Seriously. You can't even wear a ski-mask into a Circle-K, as I learned from a friend of mine who was employed at said fine establishment.
Anonymity isn't always a good thing. (just check out slashdot) I'm not saying it's always bad either, but anonymity does breed suspicion for good reason.
There is nothing that could be done to make M:I-2 "better". If every critisizm on slashdot was somehow incorporated into the film, "fixing" all it's perceived flaws, it would not be "better", it would only be different.
Much as you might like to think differently, your aesthetic taste is no more valid than anyone else's. And any thing you might have changed in the film to make it "better" for you would probably make it "worse" for someone else.
For some reason people expect art to reflect their tastes instead of the artist's. If you liked the film, great: it was intended for you. If not, great: it wasn't intended for you. Hope you find something that is.
I'm just bringing this up to remind any creative folks out there that they've no responsibility to make art for anyone but themselves. Good luck, Mr. Woo.
Thanks to that and the OpenSSH group, I have been able to eliminate all clear-text passwords from my network, AND all my Windows users are happy!
As a note - I've been running OpenSSH 2 for about two weeks now on RedHat 6.1 with no problems.
ssh-keygen generates and manages authentication keys for ssh(1). ssh-keygen defaults to generating an RSA key for use by protocols 1.3 and 1.5; specifying the -d flag will create a DSA key instead for use by protocol 2.0.
I believe that ssh2 needs to be on all the machines involved, but key login seems to work for me.
I wonder if I could sue MS for rendering my page differently than I intended?
How about a class action suit by the posters of Slashdot?
Hey! Being an asshole is fun!
It took Be forever to get their system usable, and it's still not as stable as X. I think the incredible amount of time that it has taken Mozilla to come together demonstrates this as well.
The thing with working code is that god only knows which subtleties are critical and which are just cruft. Changing them individually allows you to learn and improve. Throw out the whole thing and you've got to remake every mistake made the first time around.
If you meant a programmers interface, well, isn't that what flock() is for?
In this case, there is a TIMESTAMP datatype - a datetime column that auto-updates on a write to that row. This is simpler to use than triggers and works just as well.
Why do it this way? It works, it's simple, and it's fast.
There is a lot more to the data path than just the database. Even though Oracle has a load of constraints and checks available, it can't check everything. So what ends up happening is the database checks some things and the scripts check the rest. That makes two sources of logic that can be out of sync and cause bugs. The company that used Oracle was plauged by corrupt data - not because of Oracle, but in spite of it. In addition, this style leads to lots of SQL hardcoded in the scripts, which becomes difficult to maintain when you've got 800 scripts. (Despite the article's claim to the contrary, even Oracle can fall victim to hardware failures. I've seen it happen)
The company I currently work for uses MySQL. There are no consistency checks AT ALL in the database, and that's fine, because we built a simple to use abstraction layer between the scripts and the database. Our scripts no longer have SQL, and the homegrown abstraction layer (DataModel.pm) is fully responsible for all the consistency checks. So far this has worked beautifully, and we have been able to build an equally complex system with far fewer programers and admins because of MySQL's simplicity.
Oracle is a fine product. Personally I can't justify the price or the complexity.
In the end, though it's all about how YOU design YOUR system. You must take into account the tools you're using. Choosing MySQL over Oracle will not in and of itself be a problem.
Hmmm. And how exactly do you know that? Did you observe in some scientific text that someone observered via various interpretations of observing light from the sky that the universe was here before us?
As a note, I'm a skeptic of all this myself, but we seem pretty certain that our observations are stronger than our observations... don't we :)
Heh - maybe this shows that I'm just a youngin' but I find it funny that the UNIX system can support 'high-level "C" languages'. Oooh! Ahhh! :)