I own wiicheats.com and received a legal letter today stating I am violating its copyrights and trademarks, must immediately close the site down and transfer ownership to Nintendo. Can I fight this or am I screwed? I don't understand how there are 100s of nintendo sites out there and they are coming after me.
Yes, it is a trademark violation. You can fight anything if you have enough money - but I don't think you have a chance of winning and unless you have tens of thousands of dollars to start a defense, then I would turn over the domain as soon as you have verified the letter is legitimate. A trademark holder isn't obligated to go after every single site that is infringing upon their marks - and just because others are doing it, it doesn't get you off the hook. Don't use trademark terms in domains names in an attempt to ride the trademarks owners goodwill.
You're this week's target from the Nintendo lawyers. I get about 3-5 C&Ds a month for my clients. I personally think it's completely random who they go after sometimes. Got one last month for a girl scout troop that I host and their pictures they took on an outing to a train museum. They took pictures of an engine being restored. Got a C&D from the museum to have the pictures removed since the engine hasn't been announced publicly yet.
are you sure the mail is legimate? why would they want you to transfer the ownership to them, they should just ask you to close it, i think some one is screwing with you, if you live in usa and the mail is legitmate u r screwed if you live in iran or something like that screw with them lol
They always ask to have ownership transferred to them. That way, some dumbass doesn't come along and register it and then they have to deal with the same problem. Microsoft has acquired over 21,000 domains this way. The annual reg fee on all those domains combined is cheaper than a seeing a single TM infringement suit through the courts.