Hi, I'm selling a brand name and have a domain brandname-xxx.com. Just received the following notice, it's longer, but this is what they asked: XXX hereby demands that you (1) cease and desist from using the XXX name, trademarks and copyrighted material on your site, in any meta tags or in your web address, (2) transfer all rights in the domain name XXX-yyyy.com to XXX, (3) cease the sale of and remove all XXX products from your website, and (4) provide to XXX the name of the person or entity from whom you have been obtaining XXX products for resale, within 72 hours. Because XXX is able to obtain real-time evidence of your actions through the internet, it will check for your compliance 72 hours from now. If you do not comply with this demand, XXX reserves its rights to take any and all appropriate legal action to enforce its rights, including appropriate legal action for the unauthorized use of XXX’s trademarks and copyrighted materials and/or reporting of your sales of XXX products to appropriate agencies. 1) If I want to change my domain name, do they have the rights to ask me to remove the metatags, or using the names of the products I sell ? 2) In the products descriptions, I'm using some images and words, phrases from the products literature as description of the product itself. Am I violating their copyright if I use the same words or phrases ? I'm confused and spent so much time & money on my business and don't want to stop selling their products altogether. Any help appreciated. Thanks -- Anika
It sounds like they not only want your website but also want to know who supplies you with merchandise. Do you know if the merchandise you are selling is legit? If not you may have some real problems. If you are making a lot of money see an attorney.
Yes, the product is legit, no fake products .. however, they only sell to distributor ... Sort of like an Sony authorized dealers or others that sell certain specialized merchandise. I'm do not make a lot of money, just covering my cost and make a bit of profits, enough to cover my hourly work hour. I've put a lot of my time and effort into it. So I want to know if they have any legitimate claims. I can change the domain without problems, but not stopping to sell their products. Also, there're at least 4-5 site that use the same trademark in their domain name currently and have been using it for years, 6-7 years and they didn't do anything about it until now. I've been using my domain to sell their products for 3+ years and no problems until now. My questions is am I infringing on their copyright if I use the same description of the products on my site as in their promotional literature ? Like selling a Sony TV and using the descriptions from their site. Most of my competitors use the same descriptions, specs, etc in their products description. I didn't copy 100% from them, but around 80% due to the technical specs. etc. Thank you for any help.
Not clear where you are getting your product and if it is legal channel. If not, it does not matter if it is real item. So, if you have rights to sell, then you need to ask them what copy you can use. If you do not have the rights to buy and sell the item then I am not sure what you are asking - of course you will have to stop.
Is there a first sale doctrine ? All those people who sale authorized products on eBay and various sites are not violating any laws ? Since, I did not sign any agreements with the company itself, can they tell me not to sell their products? Like an Apple retailers or authorized dealers and zillions others who sell Apple products which are not authorized dealers and are continuing to sell it. I'm still confused ... I buy my items from eBay wholesalers and sell it back on my private site. Since I lost my job and it is my only source of income, I don't want to lose it. Thanks.
I am not saying your selling is illegal, but it makes your usage of their sales copy and tradenames very questionable.
Basically the company only sells to their authorized dealers. I get my products from them and sell it back. They want to control the price, I sell it a bit less than the MRSP. I do not only sell their products but some others on my site. I guess some competitors placed a complain and they go after me. I found out the use of the product description is legal: http://www.tabberone.com/Trademarks/CopyrightLaw/Copyrightability/ProductDescription.shtml If I take the process of the domain name to WIPO for arbitration, where I've a 99% chance of losing it, but in the mean time do a 301 redirect to the new domain name in between to keep my SEO juice, which I've spent years getting it up on google. The domain was registered with an entity outside of the US. How does that work out ? Is 72 hours a reasonable time in their cease & desist, I'll want to get a lawyer, but that doesn't give me much time to fight, I need some advices to have some extra time, so I can move my business to a new place. Thanks.
It's not worth fighting - they are right and will get your domain name one way or another. Chalk it up to making a big mistake in domaining by breaking the cardinal rule of registering a domain with a trademark in it.
If I return it to them ... will they be able to sue me later for the same domain if they wanted ? For prior infringement and get monetary compensation out of me ?
As they state in the letter, they must follow legal procedures. It does sound as if you are doing something that would get your site shut down. Especially using copyrighted images. That's a big mistake. They could easily get your host to turn it off. The site that is, not the domain. I don't know why people use images and think it's okay just to use them, even if they are selling products. Now, you want a tip on how you can use images legally? I don't know why people do not do this more often. I do. I have a celeb site and it's very cool. Become an affiliate with amazon. Now you can sell all the products legally and use the little icons to link to them. In fact, amazon encourages you to save the images to your server. That's right. Images with celebs, music, etc., legally saved and served from your server. Just link all images to the products, and voila! You have a site full of cool images. Just remember to only use images that they say could be used to sell the product. But these include a whole host of product images: buttons, t-shirts, music labels, books, the whole bit. Yes, you won't make as much money selling the items yourself. Just call them used or never been used and sell them on ebay. Make an ebay store. Then use an iframe to load it below your header. If your are a legit seller, no problem. Stephen C