Wonder how long it takes to be shut down?

[deronsizemore]

I am a member at another forum (non web forum), we'll call it www.mydomain.com and the owner of the forum is NEVER around. He renews the hosting bill and that's it and lets the mods run everything but none of the mod's have admin rights so they really can't do a lot of the things that need to be done to keep the forum running (banning spammers, etc). So, most of the mods came up with the idea to start their own forum and call it www.mydomaintoo.com. I told them that they could be looking at some copyright violations, etc, but they didn't listen and went ahead with the site anyway. They didn't really see it as a copyright because the domain name had not be taken yet, but I explained to them that's not the way it works but they didn't listen and now the new site is up and going and they are trying to get people to move to the new site from the old.

Anyway, supposing the owner of the old site is lurking, how long do you think it'd take him to get the new site shut down?

[Todd W]

A long long time to never... is the term trademarked? Probably not.

[KLB]

The only copyright issues would be if the new forum stole content from the old forum. Domain names can not be copyrighted nor trademarked. Domain names can be generated from trademarked names (e.g. intel.com)

[deronsizemore]

Probably not, but I always was under the impression that anything original you publish online was your intellectual property. Maybe he does, but I doubt Chris has a trademark on "websitepublisher" but that doesn't mean I would be okay going out and buying the domain "websitepublishertoo" and starting a near exact replica of this forum.

[deronsizemore]

The only copyright issues would be if the new forum stole content from the old forum. Domain names can not be copyrighted nor trademarked. Domain names can be generated from trademarked names (e.g. intel.com)

So if a domain name is generated from a trademarked name then it's not okay, but simply because the domain name is not generated from a trademarked name, you can use it in your own domain name with zero repercussions?

[KLB]

So if a domain name is generated from a trademarked name then it's not okay, but simply because the domain name is not generated from a trademarked name, you can use it in your own domain name with zero repercussions?
Yep, that's about it.

Just because you own bluewidgets.com doesn't mean that someone else can't create a similarly themed site titled ourbluewidgets.com.

Why do you think all of those domain parkers get away with subtle misspellings of popular websites (I have a squatter sitting on a one letter misspelling of my domain and there isn't much I can do about it).

[deronsizemore]

Yep, that's about it.

Just because you own bluewidgets.com doesn't mean that someone else can't create a similarly themed site titled ourbluewidgets.com.

Why do you think all of those domain parkers get away with subtle misspellings of popular websites (I have a squatter sitting on a one letter misspelling of my domain and there isn't much I can do about it).

Yeah I knew that a lot of the squatters buy names with the one letter misspellings and there isnt' anything you can do, I just assumed this was different I guess as that copy site has the originals name in the domain and it's the same forum software, same layout, same colors, same topics, etc...although the actual threads are different, they didn't actually use content from the other site.

[KLB]

The forum software, is owned by a different entity and both sites can use it under license. Colors, layout, etc. are normally part of the forum software or third party skin so the original forum's owner doesn't own that either. Can't really copyright topics. So in the end if the threads are unique there isn't much that can be done by the original forum's owner.

The reality is the original forum's owner caused the problem by abandoning his forum.

[deronsizemore]

Fair enough.

I stand corrected. :)