In February I got a letter from Mattel's goons telling me to cease, desist, etc because my domain name contained a popular girl's nickname (my name, actually) combined with another word.(link omitted to avoid the/. effect) They even wanted me to turn my domain over to them for free. I worried for a while and then decided to send a letter essentially calling their bluff. Gave them the usual "reasonable person would not be confused" and "this is not a commercial site" spiel, and just last week I got their reply. Now they just want to make sure that my domain/website is free of any and all commercial references, and apparently they will leave me alone.
My ordeal isn't over yet, so I can't say that this is the right way to do it, but it is looking pretty good for me. Had they not decided to be reasonable, I had planned to submit my tale of harrassment to every news site I could find.
My advice is, take it as far as you can. I wouldn't commit myself to a protracted legal battle that you would probably lose, but I would do my best to convince them that my site was not infringing on their trademark. Your case is somewhat different, because my site is strictly a vanity site, which, having nothing to do with Mattel's product, was easy to defend. It was almost black and white. Yours, I suspect, has a lot more grey area. Good luck to you!
Something like a boolean search string? Those are used in genealogy databases since so often, a particular surname can be spelled many different ways, a boolean search assigns specific numbers to sets of similar sounding letters and turns up everything that could be even remotely phonetically related. It generally does a good job at taking spelling errors into account. Seems like it would work better than anything else for napster because of it's speed and ability to overlook misspellings.
I'd assume that they use the term "voluntary" in regard to women since there are many, many cases of INVOLUNTARY sex by women (ie: rape). Hopefully you wouldn't consider a raped woman to be an adulterer.
OK, I am admittedly an amateur sound tech, with a semi-pro setup here. I have an awesome mixer that was bought used from a small *real* studio, without which, I am sure my recordings would not be nearly as good. I have a few rather cheap mics and some mid-grade compressors, EQ's, effects processors and lots of assorted live sound reinforcement stuff (I do both live and recorded sound engineering). I record through the mixing board onto hard disk, then burn to CD once I tweak it.
Now I agree that the equipment I have will probably not ever have the dynamics of a lot of the major studio recordings, and no, I don't get to mix it down to death, BUT..... Most of the bands I work with are local bands with some degree of talent, and they don't walk into my soundproofed outbuilding expecting to make a record that sounds like "Dark Side of the Moon", most of them just want to cut a demo that is halfway decent. Given the choice between recording on a cassette deck or recording in a rinky-dink home studio and getting decent sounding, nice looking CD's, most small budget bands would choose the latter if it were affordable enough, and now it IS affordable enough.
I don't see why we are comparing home studios to pro studios. Most of the people doing home recordings aren't striving to be as good as a pro studio, they are simply trying to do better than a cassette deck and a radio shack microphone (which is what the band I am currently working with was trying to use until they realized they could do *much* better.) And to me, that's what the home recording technology we have today is all about, just having the ability to do it a *LOT* better than the "old" way. I don't promise my bands a pro-quality recording experience, and they don't expect one. I do promise them an affordable method of recording that is superior to the *old* affordable methods, and they are usually satisfied with the results. I can't make a bad guitar player sound like a good one, but I can record his bad guitar playing quite accurately:-)
bikergeekgal
PS, I cringe at having to say this, but "acoustic" is not spelled "accoustic". Sorry, I'm an anal-retentive spelling nazi and I can only hide that part of my nature for so long;-)
Well, although between us, we have the details of my life a bit skewered, you do have the basic idea. I find your response to be quite well put, and truthfully, I have no problem with you. You are free to do and say as you wish and while I may not always agree with your points of view on things, I do welcome them, because, like you, my ideals are also evolving constantly. Everyone needs a point of comparison, and perhaps between us, we've provided some/. readers with that. Thanks for helping provide a rather interesting discussion.:)
Think about this then. I am the mother of three children. None of them were born within wedlock, although they were all born within a monogomous long-term relationship. After losing one of our children to SIDS, the children's father and I did wed. And we were divorced within a year. I was discovered to have cervical cancer shortly thereafter, and can no longer have children. I do have a wonderful husband, with whom I will never have children, and I do not see any need to end our relationship just because we won't have any children together (tho to our credit, we do go through the motions fairly often just in case:P).
If we're going to bring religious beliefs into this, the way i heard it is A.)Divorce is a sin in Christianity, and once you're divorced, you're an adulterer should you remarry. B.)Your primary relationship is that which you share with God, next comes your relationship with your husband/wife, and children are actually ranked below that of husband and wife.
Now, from an evolutional standpoint, we exist solely to procreate. Not to procreate within the bounds of marriage, simply to continue the human race.
Therefore, from either viewpoint, I find your comments completely offbase. Marriage is the joining of two souls for the rest of their earthbound years. It is not the joining of two souls for the purpose of having children, and I resent the implication that my marriage is not as valid as that of my sister because she is creating children and I am not. Would you also say that a couple that has been married for 40 years, having already raised their children, should divorce because they will not have any other children?
Perhaps I'm just responding to a troll, but I don't understand how a rational person could make a statement like the one you've made.
if you call my house with the caller ID feature blocked, the chances are very high that you will get a message telling you that I am not accepting calls from people who have caller ID blocked. It's kind of like radars and radar detectors and radar detector detectors etc, a crazy circle of unnecessary technology.
If I saw ads in Time magazine that depicted the "lead drummer" from Metallica raving about Ibanez drums, I'd do more than call Time's 800 number, I'd call Ibanez too, because they don't make drums, and Tama, to tattle on Lars for switching brands. Besides which, how can a man be the "lead drummer" when there is only one drummer in the band?
If you want to nitpick, then I'll point out that he/she did *not* type the word style (or even soyle), the word in question is actually "still". Sorry, I just couldn't resist it.
Is it really proper for a self described "devout pacifist" to hold a grudge for over a year? I'm not an overly enthusiastic pacifist myself, but I find it impossible to stay truly mad about anything for very long. Life isn't fair and it doesn't get any easier once you leave school.
Slashdot Mirror
In February I got a letter from Mattel's goons telling me to cease, desist, etc because my domain name contained a popular girl's nickname (my name, actually) combined with another word.(link omitted to avoid the /. effect) They even wanted me to turn my domain over to them for free. I worried for a while and then decided to send a letter essentially calling their bluff. Gave them the usual "reasonable person would not be confused" and "this is not a commercial site" spiel, and just last week I got their reply. Now they just want to make sure that my domain/website is free of any and all commercial references, and apparently they will leave me alone.
My ordeal isn't over yet, so I can't say that this is the right way to do it, but it is looking pretty good for me. Had they not decided to be reasonable, I had planned to submit my tale of harrassment to every news site I could find.
My advice is, take it as far as you can. I wouldn't commit myself to a protracted legal battle that you would probably lose, but I would do my best to convince them that my site was not infringing on their trademark. Your case is somewhat different, because my site is strictly a vanity site, which, having nothing to do with Mattel's product, was easy to defend. It was almost black and white. Yours, I suspect, has a lot more grey area. Good luck to you!
Oh. Duuh. LOL. Think I'll try waking up before i post next time ;).
Something like a boolean search string? Those are used in genealogy databases since so often, a particular surname can be spelled many different ways, a boolean search assigns specific numbers to sets of similar sounding letters and turns up everything that could be even remotely phonetically related. It generally does a good job at taking spelling errors into account. Seems like it would work better than anything else for napster because of it's speed and ability to overlook misspellings.
I'd assume that they use the term "voluntary" in regard to women since there are many, many cases of INVOLUNTARY sex by women (ie: rape). Hopefully you wouldn't consider a raped woman to be an adulterer.
OK, I am admittedly an amateur sound tech, with a semi-pro setup here. I have an awesome mixer that was bought used from a small *real* studio, without which, I am sure my recordings would not be nearly as good. I have a few rather cheap mics and some mid-grade compressors, EQ's, effects processors and lots of assorted live sound reinforcement stuff (I do both live and recorded sound engineering). I record through the mixing board onto hard disk, then burn to CD once I tweak it.
:-)
;-)
Now I agree that the equipment I have will probably not ever have the dynamics of a lot of the major studio recordings, and no, I don't get to mix it down to death, BUT..... Most of the bands I work with are local bands with some degree of talent, and they don't walk into my soundproofed outbuilding expecting to make a record that sounds like "Dark Side of the Moon", most of them just want to cut a demo that is halfway decent. Given the choice between recording on a cassette deck or recording in a rinky-dink home studio and getting decent sounding, nice looking CD's, most small budget bands would choose the latter if it were affordable enough, and now it IS affordable enough.
I don't see why we are comparing home studios to pro studios. Most of the people doing home recordings aren't striving to be as good as a pro studio, they are simply trying to do better than a cassette deck and a radio shack microphone (which is what the band I am currently working with was trying to use until they realized they could do *much* better.) And to me, that's what the home recording technology we have today is all about, just having the ability to do it a *LOT* better than the "old" way. I don't promise my bands a pro-quality recording experience, and they don't expect one. I do promise them an affordable method of recording that is superior to the *old* affordable methods, and they are usually satisfied with the results. I can't make a bad guitar player sound like a good one, but I can record his bad guitar playing quite accurately
bikergeekgal
PS, I cringe at having to say this, but "acoustic" is not spelled "accoustic". Sorry, I'm an anal-retentive spelling nazi and I can only hide that part of my nature for so long
Well, although between us, we have the details of my life a bit skewered, you do have the basic idea. I find your response to be quite well put, and truthfully, I have no problem with you. You are free to do and say as you wish and while I may not always agree with your points of view on things, I do welcome them, because, like you, my ideals are also evolving constantly. Everyone needs a point of comparison, and perhaps between us, we've provided some /. readers with that. Thanks for helping provide a rather interesting discussion. :)
Think about this then. I am the mother of three children. None of them were born within wedlock, although they were all born within a monogomous long-term relationship. After losing one of our children to SIDS, the children's father and I did wed. And we were divorced within a year. I was discovered to have cervical cancer shortly thereafter, and can no longer have children. I do have a wonderful husband, with whom I will never have children, and I do not see any need to end our relationship just because we won't have any children together (tho to our credit, we do go through the motions fairly often just in case :P).
If we're going to bring religious beliefs into this, the way i heard it is A.)Divorce is a sin in Christianity, and once you're divorced, you're an adulterer should you remarry. B.)Your primary relationship is that which you share with God, next comes your relationship with your husband/wife, and children are actually ranked below that of husband and wife.
Now, from an evolutional standpoint, we exist solely to procreate. Not to procreate within the bounds of marriage, simply to continue the human race.
Therefore, from either viewpoint, I find your comments completely offbase. Marriage is the joining of two souls for the rest of their earthbound years. It is not the joining of two souls for the purpose of having children, and I resent the implication that my marriage is not as valid as that of my sister because she is creating children and I am not. Would you also say that a couple that has been married for 40 years, having already raised their children, should divorce because they will not have any other children?
Perhaps I'm just responding to a troll, but I don't understand how a rational person could make a statement like the one you've made.
if you call my house with the caller ID feature blocked, the chances are very high that you will get a message telling you that I am not accepting calls from people who have caller ID blocked. It's kind of like radars and radar detectors and radar detector detectors etc, a crazy circle of unnecessary technology.
If I saw ads in Time magazine that depicted the "lead drummer" from Metallica raving about Ibanez drums, I'd do more than call Time's 800 number, I'd call Ibanez too, because they don't make drums, and Tama, to tattle on Lars for switching brands. Besides which, how can a man be the "lead drummer" when there is only one drummer in the band?
If you want to nitpick, then I'll point out that he/she did *not* type the word style (or even soyle), the word in question is actually "still". Sorry, I just couldn't resist it.
Is it really proper for a self described "devout pacifist" to hold a grudge for over a year? I'm not an overly enthusiastic pacifist myself, but I find it impossible to stay truly mad about anything for very long. Life isn't fair and it doesn't get any easier once you leave school.