I wish to buy a name, I dont no how to word this. So i'll use this example myspace---.com <--- nothing to do with myspace but the name infront is that legal or illegal to do?? I saw a post on harrypotter domains and how they get lawsuits like crazy.. Is it legal to put a companys name in front such as like the example i gave you or like "ilovepepsi.com" or something is this illegal??
Really depends on the company/trademark your after.... Coke for example will sue I know... Myspace won't.. so you just gotta test the waters....
Also... if you receive a letter from a company I know of some people who used to sell the domain to the company for $1000 which is just short of the legal fees involved so it saved the company money and the people got a grand! But I'm not sure if it works anymore....
It's hard to give an opinion on an unknown name, but generally speaking, a trademark owner owns the rights to a name "Pepsi" - adding words to it doesn't get around infringement. It is usually a good idea to stay away from trademarks - especially if you are using the trademark hoping to get some traffic off their name. If you really want a good opinion, pay for an hour of time with a good intellectual property rights attorney. MySpace has filed a number of Federal lawsuits - including suits against sites that only had "myspace" on the site, not the domain name.
what about when two directories start at the same time. Article-gems.com (my article directory) and articlegems.com (somebody elses) both started in 11/06. The other articlegems.com seems to be just using the name as a name, while I am using it as a theme. Any advice?
The hyphen doesn't matter. The usage of both sites overlap. articlegems was registered 8 months sooner so they would be able to claim first usage. Let me point out that there are a lot of domains that could have trademark infringement claims against them and the majority of them will never be contacted. As a general rule, the bigger the site/company, the greater the chance of having problems. Many smaller sites don't want to spend the money to take legal action (although some will). When a company has gone to the trouble of filing for a registered trademark, they are much more likely to take legal action - in fact, it is required that they protect their trademark by going after people who infringe. Some companies won't bother with a little site, some will sue everyone (Matell, IBM, etc.) but it's a risk you assume. I wouldn't want to spend a lot of time branding a site only to have the domain taken four years down the road.
Its annoying though when I type articlegems into the URL, Search engines, etc I thought I was in the clear. Just goes to show your never as original as you think
Hello, how about youtube domains but on other extensions? is it legal to develob a youtube.xx domain?
mm so bad news for me...i can not do enything with the domain? can i park it? what about miniclip i saw a lot of miniclip.xx domains
Registering a domain name because you heard of someone else's business (youtube) is likely asking for problems. You can't try and get in on someone else's success by using their name in a domain registration. Miniclip is a trademark for games, short animated & movie clips. If you want to register a domain to sell something like small cat fur hair clips, then you might be fine. If you want to put games or video clips on the site, it is going to be trademark infringement. Bottom line: Don't try in get in on someone else's (or similar) idea buy using their name in a domain.
yes ,i understand that and you are right, but when i have registered this domains i was thinking that i want to make of it a 'small brother" of youtube in my country, develop it in a way to send more visitors on their site, i dont need financial suport anly asking for thier agreement,and i am sure that youtube will not be interested in this domains sinse the extension is very "small" as importance on the market I have contacted youtube and ask from their permission but it is very hard to contact the right department there are a lots and no response yet. And, of course if youtube will ask for this domains i will drop it,but till then i would like to find out a way to develop it and send more visitors on youtube.com any ideas? ps: as i understand from what you have said ,i could develop it but not with embeded videos? sorry for bad english
youtube is a fairly unique name and a different usage would likely be much harder than miniclip. Youtube would argue you heard about their site and then went out and registered a domain to ride their goodwill. I think any attempt at developing the site, in any way, would likely cause legal problems. Personally, I would just forget about using the domain. As you have already contacted them, you can wait to hear what they say, but I think there absolutely no chance they will authorize you to use their name.
companies often sue because of trademark infringement, when you use their name in a domain so be really careful about what you do.
My new site is Articlerevival and I throughly check out they no one had it this time. The real joke is the other article gems.com has ceased trading as well.