That's trademarks. You have to use trademarks to keep them. A domain name you can squat on forever, or at least as long as you're willing to keep renewing it.
It is what it is. The UDRP is rigged so that even if you do have a strong claim it's costly and difficult to get the domain back. The OP didn't ask, "How do I take a stand?" He admitted he had a weak claim and asked, "How do I get it back?"
If its really that minor a domain, offer the current registrant a $100 and tell him it has sentimental value. These guys are registering under $10/year and realizing gross revenues in the range of $15/year. They'll take the deal.
Me: Letting tech folks like ourselves get tied up in the legal process details can lead to errors in judgment. We think, "Technically I did X, not Y so I'm not really guilty."
You: The BB trademark has the words "Best Buy" on a tag shape. The shirts had a similar shaped tag with the words "Improv Everywhere". But as Best Buy does not (as far as I know) sell their own shirts, there is no confusion.
This is exactly what I was talking about. "They didn't quite copy the logo so its not really trademark infringement." Bull! They created a logo of identical shape and color and put it at the same location and tilt on an identical shirt after behavior (during the prank) in which they exhibited a clear understanding that such a shirt would be mistaken for a genuine Best Buy shirt.
If this went to court, the odds of a judge granting an injunction are quite good.
They have a trademark on their yellow price-tag logo on a royal-blue background. And a copyright on the shirt/logo combination vested as soon as they made the first one. Would you seriously argue that the Improve Everywhere version is not a derivative work?
As the operator of whitehouse.net, I'm intimately familiar with parody and fair use.
The video and pcictures of their prank? Wonderful. Easily defended as parody. The special edition set with included best-buy shirt? Yeah, that probably gets a pass. Call it gray-zone. The shirt as a standalone, context optional? Sorry, that's pretty obvious infringement.
Not that I'd call Best Buy's lawyers smart given the Streisand Effect, but legally I'd have to side with Best Buy's position.
Courts do indeed "honor" cease and desist letters. As you point out, they do it by entering an injunction against the recipient upon the request of the sender. And as the OP pointed out, no US court would find fault or enter an injunction in the described circumstances, at least not if the defendant bothered to show up.
Letting tech folks like ourselves get tied up in the legal process details can lead to errors in judgment. We think, "Technically I did X, not Y so I'm not really guilty." Baloney. Put it in front of a judge and the response is generally, "Your actions speak for themselves. Stop wasting my time."
Sounds to me like the central problem is that after banning an abusive user with a genuine beef they then failed to take reasonable action on the genuine beef. As a result, two or three articles have become hopelessly corrupted and instead of freezing them in that state they should be declared hopelessly corrupted and removed.
Except that this ignores the truth behind the spam problem, that many people don't seem to care about. Spam is, at its root, an economic problem.
That's all well and good, but wake me up when you have a viable economic solution based on the premise that spam is an economic problem. And by viable I mean doesn't have a massive downside like e-stamps, trampling on the first amendment, or elevating jail times for spammers beyond those for violent crimes.
In the mean time, you'll have to pardon me if I don't throw up my hands and say, "There's nothing I can do about it! Its an economic problem!" 'Cause as it turns out, there are things I can do about it.
the local data centre there had a 15 degree C ambient baseline
Well that's just incompetent. For one thing, commercial electronics experience increased failure as you move away from an ambient 70 degrees F regardless of which direction you move. Running them at 59 degrees F (15 C) is just as likely to induce intermittent failures as running it at 80 degrees F.
For another, you're supposed to design your cooling system to accommodate all of the planned heat load in the environment. If your generators will be adding heat then the A/C needs to have sufficient capacity to take that heat back out.
And anyway, your generators shouldn't be adding heat. They should be walled off from the data center with exterior air exchange. Otherwise an error in the exhaust ducting risks killing your operators with CO poisoning.
Maybe they'll remove every "Delete" key from the keyboards?
Sort of. The White House is using an Enterprise email system, i.e. not Firefox + IMAP. The messages remain on the server where the admin controls what you can do. If he doesn't want to allow you to empty the trash folder, he just flips a switch in the config.
What you didn't know is that its based on an MMOG they created in partnership with Quantum Computer Services in the late '80s. Imagine Maniac Mansion with no fixed plot, about 100 times as large and with hundreds of other players in the game.
Quantum canned Habitat after the pilot test in order to recover space on the mainframe for AOL 1.0.
Exxon was cited by my IP law professor as, "this is an example of what it takes to create a trademark that genuinely can't be used by anyone else." But YANAL, so I guess you know more than he does. Because "exxon" has no meaning in any language on earth except in reference to the oil company, any use of the name will necessarily be associated with (thus cause confusion with) the company.
Step 1: Did the link farmer claim to have a trademark on his site? That is, was his logo followed by a "TM" or an "R" in a circle? The mere use of a name does not confer a trademark, nor does asserting it in private email. You have to publicly claim a trademark on it and notify those who see it that you're claiming trademark status.
Step 2: How strong is the trademark? A mark like Exxon is extremely strong. It has no existance except for the oil company. If you use "exxon" in any context you're probably violating the mark.
"Simpledog" is the concatenation of two english words. Its already weak. Next its use seems to be for a link farm with generic search links about dogs. Weak weak weak. If he had a trademark it would probably only extend to the use of "simpledog" for a link farming page. Everything else (including a blog) would probably fall outside the trademark. If he had one to begin with.
Personally, I'd search the PTO for a trademark registration and then register it myself if I didn't find one. Ignroe the fellow (don't reply) until the registration is granted. Then send him a registered letter advising him that if he doesn't give up the name on which you have a registered mark, you'll sue.
Of course, that's not the end of the story and just 'cause he can't win doesn't mean he can't sue you in some geographically inconvenient location. So if you worried, you need to visit a local lawyer.
The words "client" and "server" have a well defined and broadly understood meaning in the industry. A client contacts a server. The server replies. So no, it can't be arbitrarily applied to just anything.
If you run bittorrent, your PC acts as both a client and a server. Running a server on your residential comcast account is a violation of the terms of service. Cutting that connection is neither discrimination nor abandonment of network neutrality; its simple contract enforcement.
This is not new. The prohibition against running servers on residential accounts has been around since the dialup days. What is new is that they're targetting the application instead of cancelling or forcibly upgrading the account.
If you don't like it, pay the extra bucks and upgrade to the hobbyist / small business account. If you pay for an account which permits you to run a server and they still interfere, then you have a real complaint.
Slashdot Mirror
That's trademarks. You have to use trademarks to keep them. A domain name you can squat on forever, or at least as long as you're willing to keep renewing it.
It is what it is. The UDRP is rigged so that even if you do have a strong claim it's costly and difficult to get the domain back. The OP didn't ask, "How do I take a stand?" He admitted he had a weak claim and asked, "How do I get it back?"
If its really that minor a domain, offer the current registrant a $100 and tell him it has sentimental value. These guys are registering under $10/year and realizing gross revenues in the range of $15/year. They'll take the deal.
Me: Letting tech folks like ourselves get tied up in the legal process details can lead to errors in judgment. We think, "Technically I did X, not Y so I'm not really guilty."
You: The BB trademark has the words "Best Buy" on a tag shape. The shirts had a similar shaped tag with the words "Improv Everywhere". But as Best Buy does not (as far as I know) sell their own shirts, there is no confusion.
This is exactly what I was talking about. "They didn't quite copy the logo so its not really trademark infringement." Bull! They created a logo of identical shape and color and put it at the same location and tilt on an identical shirt after behavior (during the prank) in which they exhibited a clear understanding that such a shirt would be mistaken for a genuine Best Buy shirt.
If this went to court, the odds of a judge granting an injunction are quite good.
They have a trademark on their yellow price-tag logo on a royal-blue background. And a copyright on the shirt/logo combination vested as soon as they made the first one. Would you seriously argue that the Improve Everywhere version is not a derivative work?
As the operator of whitehouse.net, I'm intimately familiar with parody and fair use.
The video and pcictures of their prank? Wonderful. Easily defended as parody. The special edition set with included best-buy shirt? Yeah, that probably gets a pass. Call it gray-zone. The shirt as a standalone, context optional? Sorry, that's pretty obvious infringement.
Not that I'd call Best Buy's lawyers smart given the Streisand Effect, but legally I'd have to side with Best Buy's position.
There are some who would argue that if I fart and fan it in your general direction, that too is protected speech. They might even be right.
Sur they can. Ever heard of libel?
Yeah, it has to do with the written word. Slander, on the other hand, relates to speech.
Courts do indeed "honor" cease and desist letters. As you point out, they do it by entering an injunction against the recipient upon the request of the sender. And as the OP pointed out, no US court would find fault or enter an injunction in the described circumstances, at least not if the defendant bothered to show up.
Letting tech folks like ourselves get tied up in the legal process details can lead to errors in judgment. We think, "Technically I did X, not Y so I'm not really guilty." Baloney. Put it in front of a judge and the response is generally, "Your actions speak for themselves. Stop wasting my time."
Sounds to me like the central problem is that after banning an abusive user with a genuine beef they then failed to take reasonable action on the genuine beef. As a result, two or three articles have become hopelessly corrupted and instead of freezing them in that state they should be declared hopelessly corrupted and removed.
I'm sure the "ISP Community" would be happy to accept $6B of the MPAA's money to implement content filtering.
The sky is green. The grass is blue.
What? No it isn't.
We say it is and we want a jury to decide.
No.
Except that this ignores the truth behind the spam problem, that many people don't seem to care about. Spam is, at its root, an economic problem.
That's all well and good, but wake me up when you have a viable economic solution based on the premise that spam is an economic problem. And by viable I mean doesn't have a massive downside like e-stamps, trampling on the first amendment, or elevating jail times for spammers beyond those for violent crimes.
In the mean time, you'll have to pardon me if I don't throw up my hands and say, "There's nothing I can do about it! Its an economic problem!" 'Cause as it turns out, there are things I can do about it.
There's an old salesman's saying:
It takes no particular talent to sell a dollar for fifty cents.
Its called Yellow Journalism. While Slashdot has never been a bastion of journalistic purity, this particular article is way over the top.
I'd like to see a seamless switch from wired to wireless and back so I don't lose all my putty sessions.
the local data centre there had a 15 degree C ambient baseline
Well that's just incompetent. For one thing, commercial electronics experience increased failure as you move away from an ambient 70 degrees F regardless of which direction you move. Running them at 59 degrees F (15 C) is just as likely to induce intermittent failures as running it at 80 degrees F.
For another, you're supposed to design your cooling system to accommodate all of the planned heat load in the environment. If your generators will be adding heat then the A/C needs to have sufficient capacity to take that heat back out.
And anyway, your generators shouldn't be adding heat. They should be walled off from the data center with exterior air exchange. Otherwise an error in the exhaust ducting risks killing your operators with CO poisoning.
Maybe they'll remove every "Delete" key from the keyboards?
Sort of. The White House is using an Enterprise email system, i.e. not Firefox + IMAP. The messages remain on the server where the admin controls what you can do. If he doesn't want to allow you to empty the trash folder, he just flips a switch in the config.
No more so than if I said, "I ate a Big Mac at McDonalds today."
What you didn't know is that its based on an MMOG they created in partnership with Quantum Computer Services in the late '80s. Imagine Maniac Mansion with no fixed plot, about 100 times as large and with hundreds of other players in the game.
Quantum canned Habitat after the pilot test in order to recover space on the mainframe for AOL 1.0.
Exxon was cited by my IP law professor as, "this is an example of what it takes to create a trademark that genuinely can't be used by anyone else." But YANAL, so I guess you know more than he does. Because "exxon" has no meaning in any language on earth except in reference to the oil company, any use of the name will necessarily be associated with (thus cause confusion with) the company.
Step 1: Did the link farmer claim to have a trademark on his site? That is, was his logo followed by a "TM" or an "R" in a circle? The mere use of a name does not confer a trademark, nor does asserting it in private email. You have to publicly claim a trademark on it and notify those who see it that you're claiming trademark status.
For fun, check out http://www.uspto.gov/main/trademarks.htm and click "search" over in the right-hand box.
Step 2: How strong is the trademark? A mark like Exxon is extremely strong. It has no existance except for the oil company. If you use "exxon" in any context you're probably violating the mark.
"Simpledog" is the concatenation of two english words. Its already weak. Next its use seems to be for a link farm with generic search links about dogs. Weak weak weak. If he had a trademark it would probably only extend to the use of "simpledog" for a link farming page. Everything else (including a blog) would probably fall outside the trademark. If he had one to begin with.
Personally, I'd search the PTO for a trademark registration and then register it myself if I didn't find one. Ignroe the fellow (don't reply) until the registration is granted. Then send him a registered letter advising him that if he doesn't give up the name on which you have a registered mark, you'll sue.
Of course, that's not the end of the story and just 'cause he can't win doesn't mean he can't sue you in some geographically inconvenient location. So if you worried, you need to visit a local lawyer.
The words "client" and "server" have a well defined and broadly understood meaning in the industry. A client contacts a server. The server replies. So no, it can't be arbitrarily applied to just anything.
If you run bittorrent, your PC acts as both a client and a server. Running a server on your residential comcast account is a violation of the terms of service. Cutting that connection is neither discrimination nor abandonment of network neutrality; its simple contract enforcement.
This is not new. The prohibition against running servers on residential accounts has been around since the dialup days. What is new is that they're targetting the application instead of cancelling or forcibly upgrading the account.
If you don't like it, pay the extra bucks and upgrade to the hobbyist / small business account. If you pay for an account which permits you to run a server and they still interfere, then you have a real complaint.
Did they solve the problem where the same or indistinguishably similar character appears multiple times in the character set?