I have a www.youtube.com.xx domain and looking for a legal advice: can i develop it?

Youtube is a registered Trademark in all relevant classes of goods and services related to the Internet and to the media. So the use in a domain name would be risky for you. And as always - don't follow any legal advice given in a forum since they are opinions only.

Timo

 

Nice idea but i would'nt, if you have one or more i would sell it quick, youtube are getting sued at the moment so its likely they are far from the best mood.

 

No, they aren't. They have filed for trademarks in only 5 classifications relating to the distribution of electronic media. Their marks won't even reached "uncontestable" status for years. You can't file for a trademark for a usage you are not already using (advance filing). Say if someone had a business selling inner tubes for river rafting, it wouldn't be a direct violation of their usage. Using the mark that in any way competes with the youtubes business is what would be direct infringement - which isn't to say youtube wouldn't file against any type of usage - but that doesn't mean they would win.

In order to have broad protection cast in stone, you would file in all or almost all 40 classifications - like IBM did. They created a jewelry line just to be able to file in that classification, not because they really wanted to get into the jewelry business.

There are famous trademarks like "MySpace" which have multiple owners - each having different usage rights.

 

It is very risky though, you can try to build some content on the website and write to them about this scenario. If they reply you within the specific period of time, than follow your procedure accordingly. If they didn't reply, than you can do any thing with that. .... (this is my suggestions )