The new owner of the domain example.com has contacted us to request that we change it. Eg: "Change it or I will sue."
To the best of my knowledge - we don't have to
1) prior use (the page was added over a year ago) the domain was acquired a few days ago.
2) we could call it example.com anyway as long as it wasn't pretending to be example.com
3) we could call it example.com if we were writing about example.com.
Does anyone know if I'm right? (or have a better way of putting it)
What if trademarks were involved?
In this case the entry is over a year old - and I think the domain owner is only wasting our time with this because it appears higher in google searches than the actual domain.
Anyone had experience in this?
If the domain is a really big name (like M$ or Google), definitely change your site title, because they probably would sue. If its a guy's webserver in his garage, I don't think I'd worry about it, he probably doesn't have the money to sue.
Probably the safest thing to do is change the title. Just to be nice to the domain owner, and maintain a sense of e-kindnes.
Don't look to me for legal advice, though !
If you haven't done so already take a look at this thread, now pinned to the top of this forum that touches on trademark issues:
[webmasterworld.com...]
ChillingEffects.org is a fairly good resource. It may even have an article on the topic you raise. (I think it may.)
I've also found that search engines do a decent job of pulling up court opinions or summaries of court opinions if you query the right strings in quotes or using other Boolean modifiers. Your queries would likely embed URLs, URIs, webpage titles and trademark as the keywords. I vaguely recall reading a case once or twice on the topic. Unfortunately, case law tends to be fact sensitive, limited by jurisdiction, etc. (See Charter)
Since we really can't go much further than this allow me to post this note:
Moderator's Note: IF anyone cares to post up a link to either a law school law review article on point or a direct link to a judiciary website where an opinion on topic is published I'm game for that. I'm not game for posting links to anyone's blog or similar "resource" per WebmasterWorld's TOS prohibitions.
Please take a look at the Charter section about trademark issues. It lays out why the topic is SO problematic and, therefore, why we no longer venture that far into the topic. Thanks to everyone for cooperating per the Charter.
[edited by: Webwork at 12:27 am (utc) on Mar. 31, 2008]
I thought that it should be a more or less yes/no answer, is my understanding of the situation correct.
If the situation is that a domain name should not be a page title - or part of a page title - then I can think of thousands of examples where google.com or yahoo.com big players etc - are - most obviously on quantcast.com and alexa.com
(in this case it's a small player - so I don't think that this will go anywhere - I just really detest these bullying tactics)
Yes, if it is relevant to the subject of your discussion and does not confuse people into thinking the trademark holder endorses your content.
So my understanding looks to be correct - in US jurisdiction protection is even stronger for someone wanting to write about a domain (or play with words) than I'd posted.
