What to do when your Domain is Threatened? 251
"My website offers free services to students, two of which are web based email and a student directory with full search capability yet Purdue claims that my domain infringes on the school's trademarked name. My question is, what legal rights do I have to keep my domain name? Any suggestions, or even a good lawyer whom I can call?"
Things like this make me also worry about the new cybersquatting laws that may end up putting the little-guy-with-the-neat-domain between a rock and a hard place.
ttyp0 continues: "After investigation I found that Purdue had only two names trademarked, which are "Purdue University" and "Purdue Boilermakers". I clearly state that we are not affiliated with Purdue University. There are other similar sites which use the word "Purdue" in the same fashion, such as, PURDUEPEOPLE.COM, PURDUECHAT.COM, and PURDUEDATING.COM to name a few...
Lawyers fight Lawyers (Score:2)
Good luck.
Work together? (Score:1)
Get a large enough glob of students in support of you, and I'm sure you can work SOMETHING out.
Most universities probably don't want to ruin students' views of them. And they can't continue the same service without you in charge if you won't let them (it's 'copyright (c) you' of course)
Just my take on it.
--
AC
Hold on to you domain... (Score:1)
But of course asking a lawyer wouldn't hurt
/Richard
Let 'em sue you first (Score:2)
There's no reason to worry until they sue you anyways. Once they sue you, you can start worrying about it and look for a good lawyer.
In the meanwhile, I'd reply to them that you don't agree with them, don't think your website is infringing their trademark, that it's a free service for their students, they only benefit from your website etcetc. Just to stay polite
Imho they're kinda stupid for shooting at someone who offers their customers free service.
Sad But True! (Score:1)
Personally, I think it was a bad call on your part to use the school's name to promote your site. Hits should be based on content, advertising, or word of mouth, not a popular name.
A domain name is an adress (Score:4)
In my humble opinion a domain name is an adress, it's a place where you put up your stuff. If they haven't registerd the domain (moved to that adress) I don't see why that would mean you are infringing on their trademark rights.
If you live in a street called lawyers lane, you're not expected to be a lawyer either, are you. I'm currently living in the Goeman Borgesiuslaan, and I'm not expecting to hear from the lawyers of his heirs, even though I freely hand out cards which state I live in the street named after him.
You moved to the adress first, you live there now. Though luck for them imho. I don't think anyone in your position has ever lost a lawsuit. But more then a few opted for a handy amount of money, that's perhaps something to consider. They don't want this lawsuit anymore then you do.
Whatever you do, don't allow them to bluff you into giving them the domainname. It's yours, it's your adress, and you followed all the right rules to acquire it. If they want it, they'll have to do or pay whatever it is worth to you.
Ask for proof of the alleged trademark (Score:2)
Get help from your users (Score:1)
Re:give the domain to Purdue Chicken out of spite. (Score:2)
hehe (Score:4)
:)
Re:Let 'em sue you first (Score:1)
Consult a lawyer. Ask the users of your domain for contributions. If they are not afraid to lose the domain, they will leave (and you have no reason to defend the domain to begin with). If they are using it, they should participate in the effort to defend it.
Purdueonline could easily mean POULTRY! (Score:1)
Re:Hold on to you domain... (Score:1)
Come to think of it why do you have
I think that purdue != purdueonline anyway.
TJ
My experiance (Score:1)
While I have never been threatend with legal action by the American companies concerned I have been offered large sums of money to compensate me if I agree to hand over the domain.
So far I have refused. The law is on my side. I bought it. I own it. It's mine.
I would write back to the university (cc your ISP) and state the information that you know about the trademarks owned and also let them know about the services you offer (for free!) to their students. It would also help to get the students on your side. No university wants an uprising within it's students!
In short, don't give in. The law is on your side. Don't let them take you without a fight!
why does a university want a .com (Score:1)
Material, material, material! (Score:3)
The interesting thing in this particular case is that your site pertains to your adversary! However, as you have had the domain for 3 years and have been using it in a legal manner, I would say you have a good case to continue using it.
It strikes me that the difficult situation here may be your ISP. I would recommend that you talk to them as well, outline the situation and find out what their policy is on such manners. They have less personal interest in this case and may well decide that they can no longer host your domain to avoid legal disputes. Try and convince them that you have a strong case and that it is in their interests to continue hosting the domain.
After that, I would talk to a lawyer - hopefully someone here will have suggestions for a good lawyer with domain issue experience in the States.
Finally, I would suggest that in my humble experience, these cases don't make it to court so very often. It's like Cease and Desist Orders, which can often be resolved out of court with little hassle, as long as both sides try and keep their heads.
Good luck!
preview (the fun is just beginning...) (Score:1)
this is the same institution that will later send you heaps and heaps of alumni association junkmail reminding you of the good times you've had at school and begging for contributions.
Re:A domain name is an adress (Score:2)
Domain name squatting was once regarded as completely appropriate, but this was more than four to five years ago or something like that, when big companies only had started looking at the internet and there was no such thing as the web boom. In those days, you could register for example compaqsux.com and no one would seem to bother. This is not the case anymore. If you own compaqsux.com, you shouldn't be surprised if you had recieved a letter from Compaq's lawyers by now. You should be surprised if you hadn't.
Why is this? Because almost all companies nowadays treat the Web as one of their official marketing channels, and a damn' important one. They're keen to protect it. Besides, something about trademark law says that if you don't protect your trademark, you lose the right to it, i.e. you can't successfully sue people later on that use it. If Compaq was aware that compaqsux.com existed and didn't act, they would have a hard time later on stopping other domain names like that.
So the sad thing is that domain names fall under trademark laws. They can sue you even if you registered it "first", because it was illegal of you to register and use their name in the first place.
Street addresses are different. They often consist of people's names (but not trademarks) and these people are often dead, and the streets are given these names in honour. I think that if it was a person that recently (in less than 40 years or so) passed away, they would even have to ask the relatives or something, but I'm not sure about that.
Disclaimer: The name Compaq and all deratives of it above was only used as examples.
harassment? (Score:1)
SL33ZE, MCSD
em: joedipshit@hotmail.com
trademark infringement and dilution (Score:3)
However, if other sites exist with the "Purdue" name in them, and Purdue University has not threatened or sued them, their stance is shaky. I am not a lawyer, but my understanding is that if you have a trademark, and don't defend it uniformly, then to some degree you lose rights to it.
Another thing to consider, which potentially weakens their stance, is other businesses which have the Purdue name, but are unrelated to Purdue University. (I'm not talking domain names, but business names outside of the Internet.) The Purdue brand for chicken comes to mind. In other words, if Purdue is associated with several well-known businesses then the University's claim to anything with "Purdue" in it is greatly weakened. Since your site deals directly with the Purdue University, I'm not sure how much this counts.
In any case, the best advice is what's been stated by others: communicate with them and try to find an alternative. You're not on great legal ground to fight them.
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University Names (Score:1)
They just don't have the right (Score:1)
Re:Lawyers fight Lawyers (Score:2)
You'll have to be careful with that ... here at UNC, my understanding is that the legal aid lawyers available to students are employees of the University and hence can't initiate legal actions or, I would surmise, even give you legal advice if you're involved in legal proceedings with the university. It wouldn't be at all surprising to me if the same turned out to be true at Purdue.
Re:Get help from your users (Score:1)
give up and move on (Score:3)
1. University administrators are nasty people. If you get in their way, they will be needlessly cruel to you.
2. Universities have a million and one ways to fsck you up, whether or not you win in court. This website is not worth your whole rest of life.
3. And you will always have a hard time getting any sort of support, because people will always believe their side of things -- when people don't understand the issues, they go by reputation, and Purdue has a better one than you do.
In general, I'd advise anyone to fight like a tiger if right is on their side. But educators are such vindictive sods that I'd make an exception. Your two options are:
1. Give 'em the name, but scorch the earth, destroy your site and let them deal with the user complaints. This will annoy them, but they'll have their name, and they won't be angry enough to hurt you.
2. Co-operate fully, as per AC's suggestion. This way, you have to swallow some crow, but keep your site and keep your users happy.
What I would not do is to organise any sort of student protest. This will frighten and humiliate the admins, and they will break you on a wheel in revenge.
Of course, all this is assuming that you have some sort of life which you would like to preserve. If you're keen on fighting it out to the death, go for it, and good luck to you!
either way, look on it as a learning experience . . .
jsm
Re:A domain name is an adress (Score:1)
(something like 1-800-CALLME) ? It would not be that strange if someone's phonenumber would resolve to something like 0186-COMPAQ.. I think this would be comparable..
//rdj
Threatening Domains (Score:1)
Get Medieval (Score:5)
You'll want to start with the Domain Name Rights Coalition [domain-name.org], which has a lot of good information, including a page about your rights (more specifically, the trademark holder's rights - you have no rights) under Network Solutions' trademark policies. If you pass those tests (which I believe you do, unless Purdue has a trademark on Purdue Online which predates your domain registration), you're in much better shape - NSI won't automatically shut you down. Purdue always has the option of filing suit, you see, but under certain circumstances NSI will take action preemptively against you and you'll lose without ever entering court.
Read your domain name registration agreement!
Of course, Purdue's case in court is weak. It cost them almost nothing to send this demand letter; if you knuckle under, that's a nice domain name for them with almost zero expenditure. They don't have a right to possess all domain names with Purdue in them, any more than Frank-the-chicken-guy does. You aren't attempting to extort money out of them (at least I hope not), you're providing your own independent, ongoing service. You're not attempting to confuse visitors into believing that Purdue runs the site. All of these factors are important. Read up on the criteria for actually infringing someone's trademark, like I said earlier, and send the nice lawyers a letter indicating that you know your rights and stand by them. Send them a list of all the other domain names with the string "purdue" in them - there are several sites which offer wildcard domain name searching. Don't offer to sell them the domain name. If you want to sell, you must retain a lawyer for that.
And take the time to write up some webpages about the situation and post them on purdueonline.com. Inform the school newspaper and local papers that Purdue is trying to hijack your domain name. Publicity is never a bad thing when you're in the right.
--
Michael Sims-michael at slashdot.org
Show why you registered it (Score:1)
I am a student at Purdue University. Three years ago, I decided to purchase the domain PURDUEONLINE.COM and use it for whatever reason
The most important thing for you to do is document the reason you registered the name ("for whatever reason" doesn't suffice). If you can show that you did not register PURDUEONLINE.COM in bad faith, you have gone a long way towards protecting your rights to the domain.
The main problem for domain owners in "cybersquatting laws" is registering a domain that only makes sense in relation to someone else's trademark. If you can find other businesses and projects named after Purdue but not affiliated with the university, that might help bolster your claim.
I ran PurdueBUZZ. I consolidated with mrhoops.com (Score:2)
One of the discussions that I have had with my three partners is that of using Purdue in the domain name.
I'd be MOST INTERESTED to know how this turns out.
Our take was that we didn't want to test the waters, per se.
Drop us a line if you have updates or questions.
F. Thorn
Re:A domain name is an adress (Score:1)
Its BS man (Score:2)
One more thing... (Score:1)
Last I checked, it was owned by the fansonly.com owner.
I asked if he'd sell it about a year and a helf ago. He said he planned on using it.
I guess he probably is interested in your case as well.
F. Thorn
Not always a good idea. (Score:2)
It's sad, and it's unfair, and it should probably be illegal, but it happens a lot, and not just with domain names. I know of a few people myself who've had this happen to them.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
This happened to me. (Score:2)
I've written a chat software which is now called OpenVerse [openverse.org]. When I started writing it, it was called Metaverse. But it turns out some company named SJGames owns this word (surprisingly, they only obtained a trademark for this word after the book SnowCrash was released.
It seems SJGames CONFIGURED a mush and called is Metaverse and trademarked the name.
So I'm happily working on my chat program when I get a letter from that company telling me I can't call it Metaverse cause they own the word.
I was a little upset to say the least but what can I do? I'm just a lowly free software programmer and I don't have any lawyer money to protect me from them.
I Quickly folded up Metaverse and changed the name to OpenVerse but now I worry about the next big guy to come along. What will I do then? Throw my project out the window? Fight it with no money and loose? All of these thin trademarks are really upsetting.
There should be some merrit when it comes to trademarks. I feel that simply configuring someone elses free software and then trademarking a name based on that is pretty damn thin to me.
law (Score:1)
Re:I'm first! (Op!) (Score:1)
slashd is the Slashdot daemon, and is repsonsible for refreshing the pages every 60 seconds.
Re:University Names (Score:1)
Re:Get help from your users (Score:1)
Also, I'd be surprised if Purdue University owns the trademark. Seems to me that Purdue chicken would have gotten the claim first. Not that I know, though.
Re:law (Score:1)
It used to be so...
Now it is not, if I understand this year news right.
Money talks
Pretty straightforward example of infringement (Score:1)
If things get sticky (Score:1)
Obvious, but... (Score:5)
Don't trust that they don't have a case because people on here tell you they don't, the best advice anyone can give in a case like this is one that was already given. Ask a lawyer (not a nerd
One thing worth saying though, is that if you decide to wait until they sue you knowing they have a case and assuming you'll give up the domain and things will be fine at that point, you should be aware that the offer to return the domain from you is not sufficient to force them to withdraw the lawsuit, and they can choose to continue it to a court case if they want.
There are very few rules preventing malicious lawsuits here in the U.S.
Cease & Desist letters, or your website & the law (Score:2)
Have your cease and desist letter framed and keep it as a lasting memento/badge of greatness. I have several of them and frame each new one. Perhaps a personal thing, but I do see them as a sign of the site gaining...er...notice.
In the shortterm I would do nothing more than writing a very gentle response stating that you are a non-comm site and it is your belief and understanding that your sight does not infringe on Purdue. There are several good domain defense groups/sites. Check out http://www.ajax.org/dda/ which is the sight of Domain Defense Advocates and the infamous ajax battle .
Hope this helps. If you get a second letter, please feel free to email me, I may know someone down there. Also, I am certain that Purdue School of Law has a clinic and that some young law student would love to chew on this. Good luck.
rootrot
Apples and Oranges (Score:1)
A trademark is not a word that companies have the rights to, but a non-generic word that someone would use to describe them... ie, you wouldn't describe a university as a "purdue" and in that context perdue university has legitimate trademark.
Re:give up and move on (Score:2)
The things I do regret all belong to the same class: caving in when I should have stood up for what I believe in. Therefore, I would urge ttyp0 to consider not only what the present looks like now, but also how it's going to look seen from the future. Are you going to be able to look back and say you did the right thing? Perhaps more importantly: will you care? It all depends on what kind of person you are.
--
Make sure you're not violating trademarks (Score:1)
I'm not familiar with American universities but I would assume they've got a lot of money they can throw around at people so you can't safely assume the expense of a law suit would hold them back. Put a value on your time and decide if its best for you if you remove any links to official purdue services.
I'm not siding with them, I think they're behaving like trolls, but the act of having a lawsuit filed against you may be more aggravating then any moral victory would be.l
Cowardice. (Score:2)
It's discouraging to see that. Essentially, it's cowardice.
Partially, geeks are legal cowards because the have too much to lose - they have a lot of income potential, and they don't want to jeopardize it - and partially, I think there's a culture here that's conflict averse for anything other than text flamewars.
Personally, I'm a scrapper, descended from a line of scrappers - including people who fought Latin American dictators and faced exile and death for their convictions. I am pretty sure I would put up a fight in a situation like this - it's sad to see that few will, because you will never enjoy rights that you don't struggle for.
Re:trademark infringement and dilution (Score:1)
No offense, but the chicken company is Perdue, not Purdue. I don't think there is a big company out there that uses Purdue as its name. So that kills the evenly defensed trademark issue. The way I remember things, even departments within the university had to get permission to use the seal. So Purdue is pretty psycho about protecting their name.
Re:A domain name is an adress (Score:1)
Re:If you want to sell, you must retain a lawyer (Score:1)
Not that I doubt the charlatans most people call congressman would pass a law saying that.
Do you perchance work for the Committee for the Prevention of Unauthorized Practice of Shystering?
How ridiculous! (Score:1)
Similar Case (Score:1)
Alexis
Re:Sad But True! (Score:1)
In my own experience, having a good lawyer as your legal-flak handler makes all the difference in the world. Do not wait for a court date to be handed to you by a summons server. "An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure." If they see that you have a bright, shiny, well made shield the attack may be called off. "Doh! Thought we were just picking on a little guy and could get what we want with little or no fight."
If that does not work then when they do sue P/R them to death. "Hey, everybody, this big brute of an institution is wasting money with frivolous lawsuits."
Then next time pick a name that is completely unrelated i.e. "Red Brick", "2X4", "juice", whatever.
Re:trademark infringement and dilution (Score:1)
What an a-hole (Score:1)
Domain vs. Content vs. Fair Use (Score:1)
I'd expect that as a student, you'd get some sort of "fair use" protection, just as I'd expect an underground "student publication" to. You'll want to read up on trademark/fair use stuff, or try to find a lawyer who'll give you an idea of the applicablility of fair use. The fact that they're not even questioning the content of the site would make me wonder seriously about it. If a student can't use their University's name, then what value is that affiliation? I'd also go to the local campus newspaper and start trying to get them interested in a story. If you can find a friendly lawyer who thinks you've got a fair use exemption, then have them send an answering letter to the University. You may also want to make sure it's perfectly clear on the main page that the site isn't affiliated with the University and that they own the trademark. It's easier to win if you can prove that there's no dilution of their mark. Their case will probably be about dilution, focus on that, not on just using the name. Also, use disclaimers in any mail you send from the domain.
Talk to a lawyer if at all possible, and try the "Dear University, I feel my site is covered by fair use doctrine, however I've added strong language to the disclaimer on my site to protect you from dissolution of your mark. If you'd like the text of the language changed, I'd be happy to work with you to come up with mutually agreeable verbage." Watch how it's worded though, you don't want to admit an infringement, just that you want to reach an agreement without giving up your domain.
HTH,
Paul
Re:Let 'em sue you first -- bad dvice! (Score:2)
Do not wait. I'm not a lawyer, but I can tell you that waiting to consult a lawyer (who is expirenced in this) is a bad idea.
Get a lawyer to look over the case, give you a preliminary thoughts. Take his advice, but perhaps write a letter of response that you have received their letter and are researching the relavent areas of law. Make sure it is neteral, you don't want to give any impression that you are leaning one way or anouther.
Now go to the local library and do research. A law library is better, but any one will do. Go to the law sections and read how to be your own lawyer books, and all the relavent area of law. This should take many hours, so plan on spending a lot of time reading. Lawyers may be paid to know the law, but they rarely know enough. If you know the law you can either save him some research, or perhaps win the case when you bring up relavent areas that he wouldn't have looked for. Some lawyers are good, some are too lazy to do it right. (Use tact when suggesting things to him though, a lawyer who doesn't like you will not help you)
When I mention a paid lawyer above, not just any lawyer, you want one who knows the internet and internet law. (But you can get recomendataions from a local lawyer)
Of course the publicity angle mentioned above doesn't hurt, students tend to side with the underdog, they may put enough pressure on the university that they back off.
um...wow (Score:1)
Hopefully this'll get enough press on campus to make a difference.
What's the University going to do with the domain? (Score:1)
purdueonline.com vs. www.purdueonline.com (Score:1)
Webster's definition (Score:2)
Re:OH gee, too bad (Score:1)
Just curious but why, if your friend flashed, was it a big deal about the pics being on the web?
Re:OH gee, too bad (Score:1)
Under my understanding of the law, any pictures taken in public locations can be published however seen fit. If he snuck into your room and took pictures of you, then you'd have a right to be pissed. But he took pictures in a public location, where your friend WILLINGLY exposed herself to the crowd. Why, may I ask, is it any different if the people in the crowd see her naked in person or if they see her naked on a website?
Then you threaten the guy to take them down? Good thing he wasn't sue-happy as most Americans seem to be.
Interest In Education (Score:1)
Maybe if you were really good at some sport they wouldn't give you such a hard time. Sports are what's important you know.
Meanwhile you had best quit screwing around trying to educate yourself and get the legal battle going. That way you'll be delayed in your education and have to spend more $$,$$$.$$ to finish it up.
Directory? (Score:1)
If a school I attended allowed the database of students to be used for whatever purpose, I'd be a little miffed.
Alumni (Score:2)
If you do have to give it up, try to assign ownership to a student-run organization that is not under university control, or at least with a great deal of autonomy, that can raise a big stink if the administration gets coercive in how the domain is used.
Re:If you want to sell, you must retain a lawyer (Score:1)
dns doesn't work with trademarks (Score:2)
Trademarks are designed to work within specific classes of goods and services. Purdue the school is certainly within Class 41, Education. Since the site in question isn't being used to sell (or "trade", as the case may be) anything, it doesn't really fall into any class. But even if it did, it probably would be a different one, and there would be no conflict.
Furthermore, trademarks DO NOT remove the usage of a word from the language. Just because someone has trademarked the letter Q (Paramount has, by the way) doesn't mean you can't use it. As I understand it, descriptive use of trademarks is okay. You are allowed to call the Boston Marathon "The Boston Marathon" without the permission of the trademark owners -- you don't have to call it "that big long famous race that's held in Boston. That might apply in this case as well.
--
Lawyers (Score:1)
Re:If you want to sell, you must retain a lawyer (Score:2)
About this case (Score:1)
The University came after me last year when I launched PurdueDating.com [purduedating.com], however they did not pursue the domain, just the fact I was running off Purdue's network, thats why I left their network and relaunched my site. ttyp0 and I speculated that they wanted the domain so they could build a site they could make money off of, and figured that he would just say 'Here you go'.
Jason
We need more TLD and *restrictions* on them (Score:5)
Besides the constant talk about trying to add new top level domains, I really hope such talk includes placing restrictions on those domains. Things such as
But once again, it boils down to the fact that e-commerce has put too much value on the domain name, which 5 years ago, was of very little importance to any net-savvy person. *sigh*.
Electronic Frontier Foundation (Score:1)
WWW.EFF.COM [eff.com]
oki900
TIME - a measurment of it's self to determine how much time it takes for time to pass.
Re:A domain name is an adress (Score:1)
DON"T give them any ideas, please!
Re:What's the University going to do with the doma (Score:1)
The university made him take off the phone directory on there because they claimed they owned the phone numbers/information in there. Does anyone really OWN that kind of information?
Jason
response (Score:2)
Although your point is probably valid, in that I didn't give much evidence of not being a chickenshit, I'm actually not one. Among the organisations and people with whom I've picked fights during a short but belligerent life are: the Inland Revenue (several times), the British Army, the Swiss Banking Commission and the Richardson family (S. London). I've looked into the barrel of a gun and talked my way out of it. As a community leader, I've stood face to face with a man who was later convicted for arranging the murder of three (fellow) drug dealers and told him he wasn't welcome in our estate. This isn't macho-talk, just a record of the things that happen to you if you're articulate, political and more than averagely cocky.
Of all the battles I've been in, however, the ones which left me worst bruised have been fought against educational institutions. You are wrong to assume that they will hold back from being vindictive; they correctly assume that they will get the best of the PR battle. Big universities can flunk you, throw you out, etc, etc and who are the newspapers going to believe? A prestigious institution of learning, or some guy who flunked college and claims that they have a vendetta against him? As soon as you take on the authority which rates people for credibility, you start to develop credibility problems of your own.
Second, to Mawbid:
I've done a lot more things that I regret than you have, for example; both sins of ommission and of commission. I would wholeheartedly agree with you that people should always stand up for what they believe in.
But I'd urge ttypo to consider whether this is really "something he believes in", or just something he wants. If it's the first, fight like a tiger. If it's the second, you need to weigh up the balance of advantages. As far as I can see, it's the second, and the balance of advantages says "give up and move on".
Many things are worth going to the wire for. Political views, loved ones, the truth. Possessions never are. And a domain name looks much more like a possession than anything else to me.
God, I never thought I was going to get so philosophical. I must care about this more than I thought.
jsm
PS On a practical note, I might suggest that a write-in protest by
Re:How ridiculous! (Score:1)
Earlier Case I remember (Score:2)
Not weak. (Score:1)
IANAL, but I searched the web a bit and I don't agree. First of all it seems to be pErdue chicken, not pUrdue. Except for Purdue Pharma [pharma.com] the word purdue seems to be almost exclusively used in the context 'Purdue University'.
He is a student at the Purdue University, so it's pretty obvious where he got the inspiration for his domainname. They are accusing him of trademark infringement. If there are no states, rivers, companies named 'Purdue something', I'd say they'd judge that he is indeed using a derivate of their name, and I'd say they can make him stop.
Some people mentioned that he's not making money of the domainname, that he didn't buy it in an attempt to sell it later, and that the school should get a .edu domain. That all seems completely irrelevant to me if they're out to stop him using the name based on trademark infringement.
But then again - I'm not a U.S. citizen, and I am not very familiar with U.S. laws. If I were you I'd consult a lawyer, rather asking the /. community.
What about the other 50 *purdue*.* domain names? (Score:4)
CCPURDUE.COM
PURDUEMANAGEDCARE.COM
GREEKSATPURDUE.COM
BIGPURDUEFAN.COM
PURDUEPRIDE.COM
PURDUEAPARTMENTS.COM
PURDUEGEAR.COM
GO2PURDUE.COM
PURDUEALUMNICLUB.COM
PURDUETALK.COM
PURDUERULES.COM
PURDUETEAMLINK.COM
PURDUECATALOG.COM
PURDUEBOOKSTORE.COM
GOPURDUE.COM
PURDUEPRONET.COM
PURDUEMAIL.COM
PURDUEBOILERMAKERS.COM
PURDUEONLINE.COM
PURDUELAW.COM
PURDUEEFCU.COM
PURDUEBIOPHARMA.COM
HPURDUE.COM
PURDUEFAN.COM
PURDUEDATING.COM
E-PURDUE.COM
PURDUEJOBS.COM
PAULPURDUE.COM
PURDUEPHARMA.COM
PURDUE-LAW.COM
PURDUE-FEDERICK.COM
PURDUEFREDERICK.COM
PURDUEFREDRICK.COM
PURDUESPIRIT.COM
PURDUEPEOPLE.COM
PURDUE.COM
PURDUESPORTS.COM
PURDUEU.COM
MRPURDUE.COM
PURDUENET.COM
PURDUEBOOKS.COM
PURDUEGRAD.COM
PURDUEHOUSING.COM
PURDUEUNIVERSITY.COM
JOHNPURDUECLUB.COM
PURDUEFUND.COM
PURDUECOOPERATIVES.COM
PURDUEPETE.COM
PURDUEALUMNI.COM
PURDUEBASKETBALL.COM
PURDUESOURCE.COM
Re:We need more TLD and *restrictions* on them (Score:1)
Does this mean that I should be able to register compaq.org (they're not a non-profit organization) or compaq.net (they're not a network provider - well maybe they are actually)? I think not.
But once again, it boils down to the fact that e-commerce has put too much value on the domain name, which 5 years ago, was of very little importance to any net-savvy person. *sigh*.
5 years ago, netscape.com was important. How else would I have known where down download Mozilla 1.0 beta? ibm.com was important - how could I have gotten drivers for OS/2 (yeah, I may have gotten them via some BBS)?
Re:A domain name is an adress (Score:1)
Chances are the university just wants that domain name for their own use. But instead of going through the proper channels and asking you to sell it, they're beeing greedy and trying to scare you into handing it over, costing them nothing but some fancy looking legal paper, an envelope and a stamp.
My advice is to wait it out; if they come at you with big guns, then call a lawyer or plan your next step. I think there's a good chance they'll realize their attempt at scaring you has failed, and either drop the issue or offer a monetary `settlement.' But don't respond with drastic measures until you're hit with drastic actions. And good luck!
-kugano
trademark infringement (Score:1)
Re: Webster's definition (Score:1)
-kugano
Re:Directory? (Score:1)
Offtopic as hell (Score:1)
Sorry, It had to be done.
Don't panic! (Basic TM law info) (Score:5)
I'm a lawyer and (worse?) a law professor, so I have to start with disclaimers: this isn't legal advice, consult a lawyer who is familiar with the facts of your situation, etc. etc. YMMV. Consult the other disclaimers [catalog.com] at once, etc. etc..
I should also note that what follows is based on the law at the time the letter was written (i.e. I am not taking account of the cybersquatting bill [loc.gov], which AFAIK has not actually passed both houses yet although I gather it's almost a foregone conclusion).
Furthermore, trademark law varies some (but only some) from country to country. I know much more about US law than I do about other countries. What I do know about European trademark law, however, suggests that the position of a domain name registrant viz a viz a brick & mortar trademark holder is a little less favorable in, say, the Netherlands, than it would be in the US because the distinction between commercial/non-commercial uses is less strong, and because mere registration may qualify as "use" of a trademark or some other type of infringing activity. What follows is primarily geared to the US domain name registrant.
As a general rule, trademark law divides the universe of trademarks into two families: a fairly small set of "famous" marks (think "CocaCola (tm)" and everything else. In the US the "famous" marks (and, weirdly, maybe some non-famous marks) are protected by relatively new federal anti-dilution statute and in many but not all states by (older) state anti-dilution laws which do vary. All trademarks, whether famous or not, are also protected against "confusion" and "tarnishment" (and other stuff we'll ignore for now). Tarnishment prosecutions are rare, but the law protects against the association of a trademarked name with something really bad (porn or drugs), modulo first amendment concerns (but then beware libel law). Running a porn site, even a free one, might well be considered tarnishment if the site's name was easily confused with a trademarked name.
The critical points to understand, as a first approximation to the law only, are these:
Note also that all new registrations and all re-registrations in .com, .org and .net will henceforth be subject to ICANN's new take-it-or-leave-it dispute policies [icann.org] at the option of a complainant with a trademark seeking to wrest a domain name from a non-trademark holder.
So, don't panic. Please keep in mind that the new cybersquatting bill may obsolete some of the above. I understand the bill was amended last week and I have not had a chance to look at the latest text, which is why I'm not discussing it.
A. Michael Froomkin [mailto],
U. Miami School of Law,POB 248087
Coral Gables, FL 33124,USA
Look at the site. (Score:1)
Doesn't look like student help thing to me.
This doesn't really change my view that Purdue couldn't own
it, but I start to wonder about why someone would post
that they are providing student services.
neo
Re:give up and move on (Score:1)
About the only thing they could do anything about is it they own the information contained inside the site, which they do not own. There are numerous other sites that allow you to POP off anothers mail server. If they went after that I'de hate to see any other site that allows you to POP off any other server for mail....every ISP could sue them. And then every ISP could then sue Microsoft for OutShit, and AOL for Netscape Mail
We live in a world where we sue for power. Do you know where your 'su' is?
Jason
Re:give up and move on (Score:2)
Who is your academic advisor?? This might be someone to talk to early on, and try to win over to your side. Especially if you're in geek school. (CS) The best thing to do would be to ask the assistance of some faculty members that would be sympathetic to your plight. They can help you get a much better grasp of the hierarchy's involved around the university, and can be a welcome angry voice. Remember, in the eyes of these administrators, you are still a "kid". They believe you to be irresponsable, etc. A mature "respected" voice would go a long way to aid in your plight.
In the immediate future, a polite letter informing the university that you do not see where there is any trademark infringement, and that you plan to hold on to the domain for the time being would be your best course of action.
Should the University persist, I would shop the domain around to see if Perdue Chicken, Perdue Heavy Industries, Will Perdue, A friend of yours named Perdue, or anybody else is interested in the domain. Sell it for an amount that will pay for the internic costs, and be done with it. This is known as the "Scorched Ethernet" strategy. You might raise the ire of one of the Administrators of the university, but hey, this will just prepare you for the PHB you will eventually work for.
You have many options available to you, but I think that caving in to the administration is one that you will regret. "A life lived in fear is a life half lived."
You have a 50/50 chance of winning a lawsuit depending on the Judge, and you could probably appeal it until the point is moot, but you will lose your sanity and your credit rating in the process.
If nothing else, after shopping the Domain around, you could inform the university that you have an offer on the domain already, and explain that if they are going to force you to give it up, you would just as soon recoup your investment in the domain. But if it gets to this point, contact a lawyer for the wording so it does not sound like a threat. There are some technicalities involved in this. I had a similar problem with a company I used to work for, and now neither of us have the domain, and I have a better job.
~Jason Maggard
"I have achieved peace in our time"
~Neville Chamberlain
Re:A domain name is an adress (Score:1)
RE: Well, I must say you're wrong... (Score:2)
Domain name squatting was once regarded as completely appropriate...
The second part of your post implies that anything to do with the word Compaq (for example) is trademarked, which may or may not be true. However, ttyp0 [mailto] checked, and clearly states not only that "I found that Purdue had only two names trademarked, which are "Purdue University" and "Purdue Boilermakers"." but also that "I clearly state that we are not affiliated with Purdue University."So on this point, again, the website owner has made efforts to completely obey the law.
This leads to my final dissection of your post, in which you say "...something about trademark law says that if you don't protect your trademark, you lose the right to it, i.e. you can't successfully sue people later on that use it." That is correct. Except that the name Purdue isn't trademarked, just "Purdue University" and "Purdue Boilermakers. Which means that your final point ("They can sue you even if you registered it "first", because it was illegal of you to register and use their name in the first place.") doesn't hold up to reality.
The bottom line is, if the University wanted the word "Purdue" trademarked, they should have done it years ago. Since they didn't, they don't have the legal right to challenge PURDUEONLINE.COM [purdueonline.com]'s right to exist.
Re:A domain name is an adress (Score:1)
Ignoring their official letter is probably a bad idea. Spend the Hundred bucks and get a lawyer to send them a letter.
forgey
Find a lawyer! (Score:2)
How to find a lawyer? There's a lawyer directory called Martindale-Hubbell, which you can find at most any library. They also have a website [martindalehubbell.com], but I don't know if that actually contains the full content of the book or just those people who've added an online listing.
This book lists not only the lawyers and their types of practices, but also certain important statistics that help you decide how good they are. Find a lawyer and talk to them. You may or may not have a case, but Slashdotters are not the ones to tell you that.
Field Report: xfiles.com (Score:2)
The Fox Network [fox.com] soon saw upset that xfiles.com existed and wanted the domain name.
The webmaster, whom I worked under, fought hard, and he retold his story Here [ruletheuniverse.com].
The eventual downfall came when Fox threatened to litigate in expensive lawsuits. My boss had the legal right, but the big money of FOX could muscle his middle class income into poverty with just one legal battle.
So we caved, and created Chatphiles.com [chatphiles.com] instead.
*Carlos: Exit Stage Right*
"Geeks, Where would you be without them?"
Re:We need more TLD and *restrictions* on them (Score:2)
I'd argue that if logic prevailed over IP, then compaq.org and compaq.net are fundamentally different from compaq.com, and Compaq has no right to claim those domains.
The problem is that of image. In the perfect world, if the average joe saw they were at compaq.net, they would know that they are not at a site that is necessarily affliated with Compaq. Thus, Compaq would have no reason to think about compaq.net. Unfortuatnely, e-commerce has elevated the URL to a status symbol. It's almost but not quite too late to place restrictions on domain names to remove the status of URL, or at least limit them to a subset of domain space.
Re:We need more TLD and *restrictions* on them (Score:2)
First, let's add .web, .www, .home, and other TLD that are not company or organization web sites, but are just probably the initial definition of web sites.
During the transition period, before these new TLDs are open, all holders of .com sites that are not commercial businesses would be allows to register within the new TLDs on a name by name basis (eg you own slashdot.org, you could only get slashdot.web or slashdot.www). This would be FREE OF CHARGE, along with the stipuation that at the end of the transition period, the .com domain would be removed from the registery. If the domain name owner does not want to give up the .com domain, he has that right, pending the fact that they would no longer have the first come first serve rights that NSI current grants, leaving them open for any domain name conflict issues.
Now, I know this will screw up many search engines and a lot of other things too, so the nameserver people would work with the search engine sites to work most of this out. The transition period would have two halves; the first is the above, and the second would be when web site maintainers and search engines would begin to readjust all points to fix those sites that moved (if NSI provides a list of the old and new domain names, this ought to be as simple as a perl regex!)
Advice from an alum (Score:2)
Hey Brent,
I'm a CS '97 grad from Purdue (and I'm guessing we know each other, but I digress) and I recall this type of thing being the subject of a couple talks I heard when I was there.
The first one that comes to mind is when Dr. Comer [purdue.edu] talked to our 413 class. One of the students asked what he thought about someone registering comer.com , and he totally blew it off, saying that when they developed DNS, they never expected people would just go out registering everything, so that's just the way it goes. I know Dr. Comer can be a hard person to find, but (especially if you're a CS student) if you can get him to put in a nice word for you with the administration, saying that that's just the way the system (in part developed by Purdue) was designed to work, it would probably be a big boon for your case. Of course there are deeper political issues with doing that: I'll leave that as an exercise to the reader.
The second source you'll want to check out is University Cleaners. I heard the owner (who's like a PU ME class of '56 or something) give a talk at a leadership conference. Seems that when he started University Cleaners 30 or 40 years ago, he got the same kind of letter from the University, saying how he had to change the name because people were getting the impression that his business was owned or something by Purdue University, which we all know is a bunch of bunk. Anyway, he made a big case for himself, presented it to Purdue, and they dropped the issue. So look him up and see if he has any pointers for you.
Of course, a bunch of letters from Alums can't hurt. I'd be happy to participate. Just let me know where to send it if you organize such an effort.
Hope this helps!
-"Zow"
#define GETALAWYER
#include
Theory is nice, but . . . (Score:2)
You need to do two things: (1) Assess the value (aesthetically, commercially or otherwise) to you of keeping the domain name; and (2) Assess the merits of Purdue's claims.
This much is clear, you cannot answer the latter question effectively without getting good advice from a competent lawyer, and in this case an expert on the subject will be far more efficient than a low-end techno-newbie, even at one-third the rate.
I can assure that no contributor to slashdot, lawyer or non-laywer can give you sound advice based solely upon the information provided, so should you decide to act upon any advice you receive here, be assured you will get in value precisely what you paid for the advice. Might as well flip a coin.
But if you do complete those analyses, you may discover that the matter can be dismissed with a letter, or even if it cannot be, that it would be worthwhile to fight (or try to outstare the other side) with respect to a genuine lawsuit. From this information, you can actually plan and execute a strategy, rather than merely react to the letter.
For your own good, Its probably best not to respond to the letter until you have obtained advice of competent counsel, except perhaps to advise the other side that you will communicate with them after you have obtained and received advice of counsel.