be taken.... I am a affiliate of the ebay partner network ,and I am directing traffic to a product thats on ebay,and in my posting on my site i show the product with of course its trademark as well,I only do so as a refernence for my audience to know exactly what I am talking about,an image speaking thousand times lounder than words,and I need that image for obvious marketing reasons, I do not claim any ownership of this trademark,I only share the information on my site that this product is available and obtainable on ebay...and I find myself getting this comment today left at my blog... Is this legal???
Well, Do You have the RIghts to use those Pictures?? Well May Be Those Pic Shouldnt be spread like that..! Not sure of what the problem actually Is. Anyway Obey Them Or you will be screwed..!
I highly doubt an attorney for a large company is going to leave a comment on your blog. While they could sue you without any notice, they would use a letter or email to issue a warning and include contact information which you could you to verify their authenticity. Having said that, if you are using an image that isn't yours, you could be subject to a copyright infringement claim. You could also have trademark issues if your domain contains the trademark term, or if there is confusion being caused by the use of their trademark (i.e. if you are using the trademark in a way that could cause people to think you are associated with the company).
Thanks for your feedback,my url is myurlname.com/trademark-product my url name does not consist of any trademark names,but it after the third url which I read was legal.and Its as if a blog is talking about a ps3,and then sony told that blog they couldnt use the ps3 image,and the url was cheapsystems.com/ps3 would that person have to take down the image of the ps3 from their blog?
It really depends in what context the image was used - using it to sell a product is different than an editorial piece. Alsor realize that the copyright of the image may not belong to the trademark product holder - many people take their own photos or even when a company buys a photo, it may have certain usage restrictions placed by the photographer who retains copyright control. Even if the trademark product holder doesn't mind, the photographer may sue you or file a DMCA for infringement. Even if you have a good fair use claim, it can cost huge sums in legal fees to argue your position. If the notice was genuine, I would take down the image. A deep pocket company thinks nothing of dropping a few hundred thousand to make a point if they do not approve of your usage.
Thanks again for your very useful input,I have been doing some research and found the following SOURCE:http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/metaschool/fisher/domain/tm.htm This seems to be my exact position,the photo is a picture of the brand,I have sent an email to the email that was given to me in the blog post,I will find out if its legitimate email if an email is sent to me with the extension of the owner of the trademarked image I am using for only identifying purposes. Is it the same as selling? if all I am doing is providing information of the availability of this product?I will earn commission if the item is purchased..but I am not the one directly selling this product on ebay,. Any thoughts or changed perspectives?
Your usage is commercial - you are using the image in an attempt to profit off of commission. This is different than doing an editorial review on a product. As I stated, if they don't want you using it, you don't want to spend tens of thousands of dollars or more in court trying to argue your usage is allowed. Verify the notice, then decide if you are willing to take the risk of a lawsuit.
I see your point mjewel, would you recommend then perhaps removing there logo,but only identifying the product with text should be acceptable?
I wouldn't do anything until I verified the email. You can also look for litigation by the company. Some companies are extremely aggressive - like playboy, which has sued for use of their mark in meta tags which aren't even visible on the page. There are also companies who have sued ebay because they don't want their products or counterfeits sold on the site - and if this is one of those, then they probably aren't going to be happy with pretty much anything you do.
That makes a lot of sense to me. Get it clarified before you take any action. The good thing is that courts tend not to like their time being wasted, so there would probably be an initial ruling to attempt to sort out the issues between you before any action is taken. By you taking positive steps to clarify the validity of that post you are showing good sense a willingness to comply if it is real. Hope it all works out.
That message doesn't make any sense - unless possibly the product on eBay is a fake or knockoff. This also doesn't appear to be a trademark issue. Perhaps there is more to this than is mentioned in the post. I am not agreeing to take you as a client, or that there is any legal representation, but I can take a look at this if you want to email me the comment and url in question. My contact information is on my home page at http://kindsvater.com
I emailed the email address,which does have the extension from the trademarks domain name example The email in which was sent to me said the following. Can anyone recommend any decent price place where I can pay for professional advise for doing internet marketing..As I am willling to pay to know exactly my legal rights on re guarding the posting of trademark products, All I am doing is talking about a product on ebay,that is not illegal in my sense,the product is something that is sold commonly on ebay.com
Thanks narutorocker for your PM and email. I have sent a response. There is some confusion about what the company was complaining about - and a good lesson here. It was not about a simple use of their name and product image with a link to an eBay listing. Instead, as a result of creative marketing there was something generating what someone might believe is a coupon that could be taken to a store and used. In brief, a fake coupon. That is what the company was concerned about - some idiot thinking they had a coupon they could print and take to a store. Which of course would create all sorts of problems. The clerk would refuse it. The customer would be mad. Guns would be pulled (ok, maybe not that one), etc. Governments tend to get mad about fake money. Companies tend to get upset about fake coupons.