SNES is an acronym used popularly to mean "Super Nintendo Entertainment System." I was wondering if domain names based on the term SNES might be at risk with trademark law. I know, there are sites such as snes9x.com zsnes.com, to which all of the following apply: The term SNES is a big part of their names The product they provide is a SNES emulator, which could be risky regardless of its name They bring in ad revenue with AdSense They have been going strong for years and years So this would lead me to believe that starting a big project on a SNES domain name is perfectly safe. Please advise me on this before I do something that would burden me with huge fines p; (P.S. I'm dirt poor and can't afford a lawyer)
AFAIK they won't fine you right away, just send you a C&D letter. If you comply quickly that'll be the end of it. As you've seen, though, sites like zsnes and snes9x are doing fine. I don't think Nintendo cares, just because SNES is so old. THEY don't want to spend money defending a product that's been dead for a while.