I was thinking of opening a good quality forum on youtube. This aint gonna be no spam stuff, we are talking Vbulletin software running on a dedicated server and with a nice custom theme. The domain name was bought this morning, it contains the word youtube and the word forum. The time line is to have the forum up and running sometime in the first week of October. The tag line / or site title would be something like "The unofficial youtube forums". The plan is to build a social networking forum for youtube publishers. Where people can post their questions, give tips on youtube videos, discuss video editing software, and post their videos. There is an automatic embedding modification for vbulletin I would install. When someone post a link to their video, the site would embed the video into the forum. Any possible legal problems with this plan?
Yes. Youtube has gone after sites previously which have used their trademark within their domain. You can try it if you want. Do realize that the trademark may be an issue. Also they do have their own support forums: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/youtube?hl=en
Yea,, this is kind of a shady area. Google owns the youtube name, but GMC owns the chevrolet name, and there are a lot of forums about chevy cars and trucks. Just do a google search for "ford mustang forum" and see how many results you get. Its forum after forum of mustang, ford, stang,,,, The support forum you linked to are a lot different then the kind I have in mind. I read some cases where youtube sued sites that used their name to create video sharing sites. They were youtube clones and used the youtube name. But have they gone after anyone for creating a youtube fan site that is not a clone? And that is what I'am after. I want to create an unofficial youtube fan forum.
You shouldn't include the youtube mark in your domain name. It's trademark infringement and subjects to legal liability - and youtube can take the site anytime it wants with a WIPO filing. Each trademark holder is unique, and just because someone else is doing something, it doesn't give you a legal right to also do it. No one wants to put a lot of work into a site only to have it taken anytime the trademark holder feels like it.
That's two different things. There's no problem with doing a forum based on Youtube, GMC, etc. You get into a legal gray area when you use such a trademark within the domain of the site in question. It also depends on the trademark holder. For example, Wordpress is held as a trademark and they discourage it's use within a domain name. Sit on your hands and be a good boy and chances are you'll never heard a word from them. Make one mention of Matt being wrong about something or call one of their ethics into question, Toni will send their attorneys and ICANN after you.
I'am glad you went ahead and brought that out. There are a lot of people out there that dislike youtube and for a lot of reasons. Example - youtube is removing hunting videos because of pressure from animal rights groups. I personally think its wrong to give in to small, special interest groups. Sooner or later topics like that will come up in a forum. It might bring to light certain issues that the big wigs at youtube do not want discussed in the public eye. Even though people are supposed to have the right to use a copyright protected or trademarked name if they offer a service - such as selling a tire for a Ford car. It would be difficult to sell a tire for a ford car if you could not say the word "ford" or use a picture of a ford mustang. I'am thinking about buying another domain name, one without "youtube" in the name, but still building a forum "about" youtube. thank everyone