Well I own a Naruto Site where you can watch Naruto which is a Anime series and I just wanted to know if I could get in trouble for my domain name which is Narutoforfree.com I see like other sites with Naruto in there name and I don't know.
Yes, you will probably get introuble with the domain... Also, It is illegal to show copyrighted material (Shows) on your website... You are 0 for 2...
The chances are you would receive a cease and desist letter to your door and or email...And soon enough your host would be ordered to pull down your website (DMCA Request) it's OK to have the same domain name as something that is unrelated to what your website is about, but it sounds to me like you could be falling head first into a heap of hot steaming shit my friend! there are better ways to share your stuff for free and you wouldn't even need to build a website for it, whats more you won't get your ass kicked by copyright holders...let me know if you need any help
They could definitely send you a cease and desist, requiring you to shut down. Just an idea, how about e-mailing the company that produces the cartoon, and asking if there's a way to make the site legal. They might just ask to have ads on your site to make up for the revenue they could lose to your traffic.
Well okay thanks for the answers guys. And by any chance can my Legal Notice save me? It's at http://narutoforfree.com/legal-notice
Your legal notice makes things a little less cut and dry with respect to copyright infringement, but not because of the notice itself. A notice like this really can't help, what might help are the facts. If you have not copied the content onto servers yourself then you have not copied anything and it ought to be impossible for you to be found to be engaged in copyright infringement, which actually requires copying. There is some precedent in the US that linking to material known to be infringing is not OK, but my recollection is that there was shaddy activity going on in that case and it might have been more about violating the intent of a direct judicial order. If you are interested in this case it was in the Southern District of New York and related to computer code that was capable of circumventing copy protections. The name of the case escapes me at the moment. With respect to the domain name issue, if the creators have a trademark on Naruto then you are extremely likely to lose the domain name if they get around to coming after you. It is a fairly simple procedure really. They file a complaint with an ICANN approved arbitration provider, such as WIPO, and then you lose the domain name. Some trademark owners are more vigilant than others about going after folks, but if your site is successful I would anticipate losing it eventually. That being the case I would not advise you to spend a lot of time and/or money on the site or promoting it. -Gene
I agree that at best you are in a legal grey area and more likely to be found directly of infringement. That being said, there are laws and there is enforcement. What it will come down to is what content you are choosing to show. The reason that I say that is that Japanese animation studios (including the one that puts out Naruto) have a long history of ignoring copyright infringment under certain conditions. Those conditions include not showing or providing access to episodes that are commercially available in the area you are providing service, removing episodes once a contract is signed, and not directly profitting from the issue of said content. Because of the vast quantity of Japanese anime and the limited number of translators, the studios there have long been accepting of a practice known as fan-subbing. Fan-subs are videos where fans in different areas translate the works themselves and subtitle the videos. In the case of Naruto, most (if not all) of the episodes are now in a distribution agreement in the US. That means the studio is much less likely to ignore such a site. In addition, if you have the English audio versions that is way past fan-subs. Be aware that fan-subs are still generally illegal (the exception being the few that are specifically authorized), most studios just decide to let them go (as long as they don't have a distibution contract in that area). That does not mean they can't decide to go after somebody.
I was just wondering? Would he be allowed to use the name if he was selling products for that company? I don't know much about this stuff. In fact I only heard about this type of thing a few days ago. Looks like things have changed in the past few years. I seems to remember long ago that people could sell copycat domains for big sums of money. Looks like things have changed in the past few years.
I don’t think there are any legal issues to having a copyrighted name in your url whether you sell a company’s products or not. I think the only problem would be if you’re running a film file-sharing website and it’s called ww.rip-off-paramount.com and then when Paramount’s lawyers try to sue you saying “We have nothing to do with infringing Paramount’s copyright and don’t endorse it eitherâ€.
I don't think that is exactly correct because I was looking for more information about this and saw where people were people were being taken to court for domain squatting with a URL containing a name that was owned by someone else. Domain squatting isn't necessarily selling stolen videos and such. Some people just do it with the intent of later selling the domain. Others use it for adwords income.