Give it up unless you want many unhappy years and much expense. The best you could hope for would be reg fee. You have zero chance of keeping this domain. I refer to the following from your blog: Hmmm.
Dude... you are linking to AOL services... You think they wont notice that? That website is just waiting for legal action.
AOL definetly has you in a tough position. As mad4 said, it may be worthwhile for you to sell it to them. Either way, avoid legal action at all costs. It is not worth fighting AOL for.
Not a hope. They have a permanent army of lawyers on the payroll. No need for AOL to rack up lawyer fees and with the site's use of AOL graphics, the admission the domain was bought purely because AOL launched AOL Uncut and the overall infringement of the AOL trademark, the domain is as good as theirs anyway. Personally, I'd be happy to get my registration fee back but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it.
Well, I mailed the guy, and explained him in detail and what do you think his offer might be ? $25 USD for the domain transfer and I have decided not to provide the domain for now, but I have terminated the files from the website and parked it at SEDO as suggestedd by one my friend. Let's see what goes soon. All domain names having "AOL" are not their domains ? Am I right ? Cheers, Dreamchaser
Also, looking at every reply here, i am still wondering for a perfect reply, can someone suggest me as what exactly needs to be done ? I have terminated the website of now, and the contents and graphics have been deleted and parked the domain at SEDO, what do you think I should do ? I contacted them via e-mail and this is what I got from them: Well... ?
Well iCAN (I think) have the right to seize your domain if they feel you bought it to profit or trade off the name of AOL in any capacity. It happened a lot in the 90s when people where buying up www.ibm.co.uk (silly example) and trying to sell it back to them for $$$$$. The regstrar service basically said you can't do this. My advice is to hand over the domain, ask for $50 and call it a day. Oh yeah perhaps you can frame the cheque and post it like Shoemoney has
I strongly urge you to accept the transfer fee and give them the domain! That covers your costs. From here on in things can get very messy and unpleasant for you in a legal way. Quit while you are ahead.
If you were to study legal case histories of trademarks in domain names you would find that mcfox is giving very sound advice - yes, quit while you are ahead.
Just landed @ http://legal.web.aol.com/decisions/dljunk/webcommc.html scroll down to see the domain listed there Things getting tougher ? Cheers, Dreamchaser
Not yet. That's a complaint from 1998 but it gives you an idea of what you might be up against if you don't get a move on with transferring the domain.
Best thing to do is to ignore them until you have enough research to present to your lawyer. Then, let him or her (your lawyer) finish the job. All-and-all, it should be a fun legal battle. I've had a similar problem with international trademarking.
where did you register you domain? i had a domain www.circuitcitydiscount.com (circuit city is a chain electronic store in US)... one day my register (1and1) call me saying the recieve a complain from circuit city about my domain. They told me my domain's DNS record will be wipe so that i can't point it to anywhere. and if i don't cancel the name within three day my account will be freeze(i have 150+ name with that account)...so i have no choice and give my name up
A. Give up the domain and take the $25. Plan B: Sell the domain real quick to someone else, then tell AOL they must be mistaken, someone else owns the domain...
I wouldn't be so quick to just "give it up" if the domain has any value to you. If the domain name was aol-uncut, I might be more worried. I would look at it as simply an acronym for something. Make something up, and even if it doesn't make much since, say that is what it is. Been through this before by people trying to get me to change the wording on the features of one of my sites. Got the big imporant letter in the mail along with the threats by the lawyer. If this is a "trademark" issue, then you have nothing to worry about. A "trademark" doesn't prevent the term AOL from being used unless it is something in competition with the company where people could be confusing you as part of AOL. If your site doesnt appear to be doing anything like that, dont worry about it. I have even went as far in the past as to create my own fancy letter and responded back with a threat that if they continued to harass me, I would files a lawsuit on them. Havent looked at the website you are running this on, but if it is in no way being used to compete with AOL, or be confused with AOL, then I don't see a trademark violation happening here.
Talk about wasting my time posting. Decided to take a look at your domain. You are clearly trying to profit off of AOL in my eyes when I look at that. Nothing but a landing page trying to sell the domain name. I take back everything I said, you dont have a leg to stand on here.
I'm no copyright expert, but if you were dumb enough to use AOL in your domain name and sell or use any AOL products / services on your domain then you should expect everything that comes to you. If your domain just as the letters AOL within it and is nothing to do with AOL or any of the services or products it features then what can they do about it? I mean AOL are just letters when it comes down to it. It's like someone having IBM.co.uk but offering are offering a service as International Bible Makers - what can IBM do? If you were a dumbarse then get the domain transferred and don't waste time.
If he was a dumbarse why should they buy it back from him? Sounds like he bought the domain name fully knowing that it was against copyright and patent laws.
I think you should just take their offer of $25. Things could get really messy and they would probably win. You should have made up something like: Any One Loves Us n (for and) Crazy Universal Trillogies Then made a site about love and crazyness and claim to have nothing to do with AOL. In fact, you "never even thought it sounded like AOL" But I guess it's too late now. I wish you the best of luck with this, just don't get into lots of legal troubles. Is it really worth the money and time? Mark