Is it Copyright Infringement to own misspellings of a domain name? I have purchased misspellings of a website doing a lot of radio and TV advertising. Has anyone had any experience or have an answer to whether or not this is copyright infringement to redirect these URL's to my website? I appreciate your input…thanks.
I bought a mispelling of a large site and they sent me a letter saying they'd start legal proceedings if I didn't transfer it to them. I've decided that maybe I could win in court, but it's not worth it. I say stay away from it.
yeh, stay away, it's not worth getting taken to court for a domain, unless its worth loads and your garented to win!
That would work, but the hassle is not worth the few bucks you'll make. If you make less than $8 before they notice, then you lose money, plus time sending them the domain and all. If you make a few bucks more, was it really worth coming up with a good misspelling, registering it, parking it somewhere, and then transferring it to them? I don't think so.... It's not a good way to earn any reasonable amount of money.
Check cases about it. They are there. It's not a good thing to do. Yes, go make your $8 per day until they find out. Then when they actually take you to court for damages + legal fees and win, you can use that $8 to pay a small percentage of the judgement. Or you could have used it to pay a small part of your own legal expenses. ---this is not legal advice. I'm just chatting and I am not a laywer. Do your own due diligence.
It's not copyright, but trademark/servicemark infringement, and it usually comes down to intent and usage of the domain. Redirecting a misspelled domain to another completely unrelated domain makes it pretty hard to argue that you weren't trying to ride the goodwill of anothers trademark (I'm assuming the name is not generic i.e. www.apples.com) No one can predict what action, if any, a trademark holder will take - but I personally wouldn't do it.
I think you *might* get away with it depending on the content of your site...but if you are just re-directing traffic, then I doubt it.