Hi, I got a letter in the mail today from a company telling me I have to remove information about them online. For example, I list coupons online and this company says since they don't offer coupons I am violating their trademark, ect. I checked other sites (big ones) and they have the same stuff I do. Does the company have any right to make me remove the info?
Did they send you a copyright infringement notice ? Send it over so I can give you an advice, if you're still in need of one. Greets
If I understand your arrangement a 3rd party (assume affiliate) of another company offers discounts (coupons) through you. If so the affiliate of the company is violating their affiliates agreement. If the company terminates their affiliate that solves the coupon issue. As for "rights"... they can do what they wish... if they wish to press the issue they could spend a great deal and haul you into court - but I would think they wouldn't have an easy time proving their case... unless you are the actual person generating the coupon. If anything -the affiliate is violating their agreement with their supplier and assuming they are a legitimate affiliate - that's the party causing the supplier problems.
Are you showing text, images, or what? You can say there name as much as you want, you can even use there logo if you are talking about them but are not claiming to be them, and you give credit to the logo. I've seen this done on sites that rank for branded keywords, you can take the Cash4Gold review that Cash4Gold was begging for them to take down. There is nothing they can do, you can talk about anybody you want you can even say how much they suck and it wouldn't matter. We are protected by our 1st Amendment -- freedom of speech. As long as you aren't making up stuff its no problem. Especially with coupons -- that doesn't make any sense. Brush it off, they are just trying to make you nervous no copyright has been broken.
Well just a thought... "Who honors the coupon"? A bogus coupon is in fact - false advertisement... so the arrangement on how the coupon arrived on your domain is very important... If you "borrowed it" from another website and no one authorized you to display the coupon you could legally be accountable for damages. e.g. If someone (or many) downloads the coupon and attempt to use for for whatever monetary value and you are not the supplier of the goods - and someone else must honor it in good faith or gain a bad faith reputation... that can be considered "actual damages". So it's important for you to consider your lawful rights to displaying the coupon... whom provided permission and what documentation do you have which reflects that.
Yes, let them send you send you a copyright infringement notice first and prove that you violated the law..
You were not very clear in how you are using their name on your site or what you are saying about them. What do you mean by they have the "same stuff" that you do? Did you copy and paste text from their site onto yours?
The comments in this thread referring to copyright infringement are way off base. Simply using the name or logo of a company is not going to be copyright infringement. On the other hand, if you are using a company's name or logo, you MAY be violating their trademark rights. Just because someone else may also be misusing the mark does not give you the right to do so. The company could be pursuing them as well, or may have even granted them a license that would entitle them to use the mark. Unless the inclusion of the company is particularly important to you for some reason, I would suggest you remove the information. Is it worth getting in a battle over, even if you win?