Rich Jerk wants to Sue me!

That is an totally unprofessional statement. this is not true, its nonsense, in-house lawyers cost the same money as others. So these lawyers just sits around doing nothing if they dont sue you ???
He is trying to scare you, this is an empty threat. I bet he dont even have in-house lawyers. Only VERY big companies have that, he is not so big. And says he have several of them !!! several lawyers cost at leats $1 million a year.

 

Check The mail headers n stuff and tell us if possible

 

Rparker, you beast!

POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

Don't less this retard push you around. He'll never go through with suing as it will give him more bad reputation than your site ever could, if you took the story to all the big news players on the net.

Never give it to the big corporations. They think they own everyone. I'm glad you're scaring him by having an ace rank etc..

Keep it up mate!

Lee.

 

Yea, that's basically a template

 

He would actually have to sell one helluva lot of $49 ebooks to afford "in house counsel". Egads, man, that could run into the many millions.

The "Rich Jerk" site looks dead to me. The blog doesn't get updated that often. Can he really be selling a lot of these?

 

Does he not have to send a formel letter to you and does he not have to prove you got it? I mean who should he sue? Keep selling the domain to diffrent people in Thailand, Africa, South America then sell it back to you. Get it protected spend 10 $ to hide who is the owner. If you answer him answer from a hotmail adress with no name.

 

Well.... I wouldn't worry cause

ebay sucks is still live and that is a hell of a bigger company

http://ebaysucks.com/

I also read somewhere that you are allowed to own the sucks.com

Oh yea, here it is source


First, your allegation that statements on my client’s websites are “false, disparaging or defamatory” are actionable establishes that you are unfamiliar with the law of defamation. No one including PayPal, has a claim against my client (or anyone else) unless, at mininum, the statements complained of are false and defamatory. See Cal. Civ. Code § 45. Paypal has no claim for statements that are simply disparaging. As a public figure, Paypal also has no claim for false statements unless PayPal can establish, by clear and convincing evidence, that the statements were made with knowledge that they were false or with substantial subjective awareness that the statements were probably false. Also, you must establish that any statements complained of by PayPal are factual, and are not statements of opinion protected by First Amendment. This is an extremely difficult hurdle given the context of the statements posted on my client’s websites. See Global Telemedia International, Inc. v. Doe, 132 F. Supp. 2d 1261, 1267 (C.D. Cal. 2001); Computer Xpress, Inc. v. Jackson, 93 Cal. App. 4th 993, 1011 (2001). You have not identified any false statements of fact by my client, let alone statements that are defamatory and made with knowledge of falsity or probable falsity.

Second, the statements posted by others on my client’s websites are third-party content, and cannot provide the basis for any claim against my client. See Communications Decency Act of 1996, 47 U.S.C. §230©; Zeran v. America Online, Inc., 129 F. 3d 327, 330-31 (4th Cir. 1997), cert. Denied, 524 U.S. 937 (1998); Schneider v. Amazon.com, Inc., 31 P.3d 37, 40 (Wash. Ct. App. 2001).

Third, your contention that your client’s marks are being used in a commercial manner is simply wrong. That a publisher accepts advertising or operates for a profit does not transform those portions of the publication that are not advertisements into commercial speech. My client is free to make reference to PayPal, Inc. in commentary about that company and its business practices. See McLane Co. v. Craig, WIPO Case No. D2000-1455 (2001) (“Protest and commentary is the quintessential noncommercial fair use envisioned by the [Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution] Policy.”). My client’s use of the PayPal logo with a slash also is not an infringement. “No reasonable consumer comparing [PayPal’s] official website with [My client’s] site would assume [My client’s] site ‘to come from the same source, or …to be affiliated with, connected with, or sponsored by, [PayPal]. Bally Total Fitness Holding Corp. v. Faber, 29 F. Supp. 2d 1161, 1163-64 (C.D. Cal. 1998). “An individual who wishes to engage in consumer commentary must have the full range of marks that the trademark owner has to identify the trademark owner as the object of the criticism. “ Id. At 1165 n.4.

 

Sundaybrew nice! Send that to RJ that will jerk him off. Jesus he has to pay his law firm $$$$ to fix that one.

 

I wouldnt offer it to him for money. Then it could look like that was the plan all the time.

 

OOOO....guess what another development. Instead of attacking me he has decided to target Site5, my hosting company with these threats and it seems they are starting to buckle man...

Hello,
>
>We have received documentation claiming that the domain 'richjerkscams.com' is violating a valid US registered trademark. Please remove all references to "Rich Jerk", and any other copyrighted or trademarked names for which you have no legal permission to use, unless use of said content or trademark is protected by US law.
>
>If you have any comment or questions, please let us know.

Thats another headache right there. I hope they won't buckle man...

 

move to some offshore servers for time bieng . like some chinese server or something like dat or offer them a price and sell it

 

You can tell them that there is a dispute going on wether or not that the domain 'richjerkscams.com' is violating a valid US registered trademark.

Your site should be very easy to move, just move it out of the US.

 

I agree that saying things like that are completely unprofessional. This is most definitely a threat tactic.

My advice? First: hold your ground. Hire a good IP lawyer. Or even try to get the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation - a non-profit legal team that works mostly with digital rights cases http://www.eff.org) to take a look at your case. Either way, reply to his claim and let him know you'd like him to mail any legal claims to your post office and you have no intention of responding to whiny legal threats made via email.

Second: Perhaps get some consulting. Figure out your business plan. How do you plan to benefit from keeping this domain? I believe in fighting for principle's sake, but I do know that fighting for principle can't keep business doors open. So decide if this is an opportunity after consulting with a lawyer and a couple of other second opinions. It looks like affiliate sales are out for Rich Jerk. You might find a few supporting "informative" products, like books that offer advice on how to avoid scams and such. That way you aren't profiting off the "rich jerk" portion of your domain, but you are providing a service for the "scams" portion (which he has no claim on). Perhaps you could spin off your own product or business with advice on what you learned during this whole ordeal.

I can tell you that by fighting you will A) Gain more publicity than you had before. B) Get more links coming into your site from bloggers, forums, and like-minded Internet Marketers. C) Rich Jerk will probably still thrive and possibly make even more ebook sales than before (it's true that there is no such thing as bad publicity). I'd recommend posting every form of contact, every motion to sue, every threat, and ever email that you receive from him on the front page of the site. Ride the publicity while you can.

Also, this is very important, notify your domain registrar, ISP, and hosting company as soon as possible. Send them a copy of the email threats you received, let them know that you don't think he has a legit claim, and that you are working with lawyers to resolve the issue and ask for their support from their legal teams as a loyal customer.

Good luck!

 

no youd have to be a fool to buy it.

I have glanced through it and it just seems like some shit affilate programs ect.

but there was something I did learn about 4 points which he does give for free on the homepage I think. urgency to buy it, fear, ahh i cant remember

the site to me screams SCAM all over it.

Just noticed the as seen on tv logo thats just gota tell you its shit.

I would say keep the name and fight it if paypalsucks.com got away with it then you should be able to. Even if its a registered trademark I would have gathered paypal.com had a reg trademark as well when they went after paypalsucks.com

 

You're generally fine if it's a spoof site or a legitimate complaint-style site. However, with the domain implying it's a "scam", that could be libel (it's stated like a fact and not simply an opinion, no matter what the actual content of the site is).

While it looks like, in a way, you're promoting the ebook, you can still be in trouble. Your site is drawing traffic from theirs in the SEs, and you're profiting through ads. It also doesn't look like a legitimate spoof or complaint site. Having reviews and such in and of itself is fine... just not using their trademark in the domain.

I'd get rid of this one and go with a more general domain if you're going to be comparing different products anyway.

 

interesting thread...RJ looks like a scam to me or at least an overpriced and bombasted product on the net.

Btw, do you guys know scam.com? In that forum, many programs are marked as scam

 

i dont know much about the law but it doesnt make too much sense thatyou can trademark something like "the rich jerk".. i mean if you can trademark simple sentences than i think id be trademarking the sentence "merry christmas" (for example) and everytime someone says merry christmas i would jump out of the shadows and sue them for all the money they got! lol,

 

It's not just a general phrase, it's an "identity" or "brand," and it wasn't in common usage before he came along.

 

You should get a real lawyer to look at this. If you have
the money to fight it, you could be plowing new ground. The reason
I say this is that he is advertising himself as a jerk, therefore
he is open to be treated as a jerk.

But get some competent legal help or give up.