I wish........... I could understand your bad English.........I may not have any idea about IM but I know not to post stupid questions....
I don't understand why you closed the site down. It says that you are infringing there copyright in some sort of way. That doesn't mean it couldn't be resolved. For example, it could just be that you have there iphone app image in your header http://www.mafiawarsexposed.com/images/top.jpg And If it wasn't because of an image somewhere, it could only be the URL that was a problem. You could easily setup a mafiadomination.com or something, and redirect the current site. EDIT - To be honest, to me, it looks like a competitor sent you the email. As a proper law firm would state the EXACT infringement. ( Otherwise, how the hell would they demand you change something, without telling you what it is that needs changing)
They didn't ask him to change, they asked him to, in effect, cease and desist, which means in simple terms "close your site down NOW". I wouldn't comment on such specific details as whether a competitor sent the email or not, as the details have been kept very thin on the ground in this case. The vendor has received enough advice on this thread to warrant his future actions and although I do feel sorry for him, it's the case that many companies have big lawyers to protect their property. And if you do anything to harm that property, they will get their money's worth out of those lawyers. I fell foul of this before and it's very serious.
My point still stands though. A company can't just make/ask you to Cease up your product, without telling you WHY your infringing there trademark. I've been in this placement before... they state, and point out EVERY single bit of infringement you are doing. Otherwise I could make everyone C&D on the basis of a copyright infringement... and I wouldn't need to tell them what infringements they were making.
Oh yeah! I stand corrected completely Yes you do need to tell them what's up with it. My one was for trademark & good will infringement because the product looked very similar in branding to another.
either way Chri5123 is a fool... dominate mafia doesnt convert a 16th as well.. 160 hops 0 sales... yum with exposed... 20 hops and a sale... thats what a professional sales letter will do -.-
nope, but you write a good book and then make a professional looking page thats better than dominate mafia (like thats hard) maybe even include the price of the product on the screen (unlike dominate mafia) and send me an email cus i have 60 - 90 hops a day going to waste here -.- Id do it myself but im not ready to be a vendor yet nore spoon out a bunch of money to people i dont know to delegate designing etc
Hey Chris, I run a guide similar to yours at http://www.mafiawarsblackbook.com and just want to let you know there is hope for you I was contacted by Zynga's lawyers too about a month ago with pretty much the exact same letter (and they contacted my web host and had my site shut down immediately ). They didn't mention what content they wanted removed in the letter and never actually got back to me on the specifics but I presumed it was a video I had on the homepage showing my Mafia Wars account, so I replaced it with a powerpoint and put the site back online and haven't heard from them since. I looked up their TOS and it seems using the words Mafia Wars on the site is fine (so long as it doesn't look like their logo), its only screenshots from the game and videos from the game being used for a commercial purpose that they do not like. And you can't claim them under fair use because it's a commercial purpose. BTW If anyone wants a guide to promote while Chris's site is down mine is the "Mafia Wars Leveling Guide" on Clickbank and It's converting quite well + I'm constantly split testing and improving it to make it better and better. Plus I'm giving 75% commissions and ipods / laptops / TV's as instant prizes for affiliates (all the details are at http://www.mafiawarsblackbook.com/affiliates) Good luck Chris! Cheers, Tim EDIT: If anyone has ideas on how the Salespage can be even further improved please let me know through PM or email, as it'll benefit you as an affiliate too. Don't post in the thread though as I don't want to derail the thread.
Unfortunately according to the DMCA they can and it sucks because you are "Guilty until proven innocent" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act) Also on that page Google says more than a third of notices they receive were not valid copyright claims. Webhosts get safe harbor from being sued if they take the website down immediately but this leads to all sorts of problems where anyone can tell the web host that "this site is hosting copyrighted content" and the host has to take it offline and you have to dispute the claim if the have no case (which is a minimum of being offline for 10 - 14 days even if you do according to my webhost), remove the content they tell you to, or leave the site offline. Of course the attacker does open the door to being countersued for loss of income if they go around trying to shut down competitors sites with false accusations.
No. Stupid is mixing up "who" with "how". I'm surprised this doesn't happen more often, especially with WoW products. You are profiting directly from their trademark, which is a huge issue when it comes to intellectual property law.
Hey Guys, Thank you for everyone's support over the last few days! Well we have managed to sort something out at last! Check out Mafia Sniper Mafia Sniper is set to be even bigger as now we have added step by step videos as part of the product! You can be sure that this one will convert like hotcakes! Any questions, or any help needed send me a quick email. Also it is the same CB account so you should not need to change your hoplinks that previously went through to Mafia Wars Exposed. This is going to be BIG!!! To your success, Chris
I meant in the aspect of, that they don't have to state what Infringements you are making. Makes it easy for other people to abuse it. Such as webmasters trying to shut you down.