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IsTumblrDown hit with a Cease & Desist
- antiterra 13y agoCould you link us to a copy of the C&D?
- etfb 13y agoIt's worth posting this to the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse at http://www.chillingeffects.org/ http://www.chillingeffects.org/ (go to http://www.chillingeffects.org/input.cgi http://www.chillingeffects.org/input.cgi to submit). They're run by the EFF, so they are indisputably The Good Guys.
- lightyrs 13y agoHow come the EFF are 'indisputably The Good Guys'? There are plenty of legitimate questions to be asked about the organization's and member's actual motives and/or agendas.
- etfb 13y agoMy standards for Good Guys are pretty low when it comes to this sort of thing. Compared to who else is out there, I wouldn't nitpick.
- jlgreco 13y agoWho's asking those questions?
- siddboots 13y agoAs it is, your comment is appealing to people's scepticism, but not offering an argument of any kind. It would help if you gave an example or two of these "legitimate questions".
- bobbydavid 13y agoNot to get too pedantic, but by inviting him to provide concrete evidence, are you not asking him to dispute it and thus proving his point?
- jlgreco 13y agoAsking him to prove his point is the correct thing to do. If he is correct, then I want to hear it. If he can't prove his point, I want it to be apparent that he is unwilling to attempt it.
- bobbydavid 13y agoBut his claim, that it is disputable, is quite weak and therefore trvially proves itself. By disputing it, he proves it can be disputed. You are seeking to resolve said dispute, which is also important but not exactly the same thing.
- nknighthb 13y agoI'm a member. What would you like to know about my motives and/or agendas?
- chris_wot 13y agoI'm interested what those questions are.
- ceejayoz 13y agoSuch as...
- rosser 13y agoConsidering the kinds of abuses of law, policy, and practice that the EFF is fighting, it requires little more than taking an active stance against those things to be "indisputably ... The Good Guys." (As opposed, say, to people who just bitch about those things on the internets.)
- jjsz 13y agoBefore you reply to any of these, skim through https://bookofbadarguments.com/?view=allpages https://bookofbadarguments.com/?view=allpages because a lot of people wouldn't want you to fall short on explaining yourself.
- maxmcd 13y agoThe site was more opinionated than your typical "isup.me" style site, so while I can't justify the C&D I can at least understand the motivation a little bit more.
- TallGuyShort 13y agoAlthough there's probably some Streisand Effect happening here. I hadn't heard all this about Tumblr - but now it's the most memorable thing I've heard about them. It's bad PR, but as others are pointing out, it's likely Trademark protection.
- zachinglis 13y agoTotally agreed. Just a "Can you be less snarky please? and I would have changed the language and redeployed.
- mdisraeli 13y agoHaving yet to see the C&D, the mostly likely reason for this would be utterly boring but entirely rational trademark enforcement/infringement. Odds are, a human only signed the letter without so much as reading it or asking anyone in management for a second opinion.
- NelsonMinar 13y agoI'm curious what legal justification someone would think they have for preventing a site like IsTumbrDown from operating.
- loceng 13y agoI wonder if this is a case of them requiring by law to defend their trademark, though then I wonder why they can't just license it for $1 per year for the exact use currently being used - so you can't then just go get a license and change everything to be different..
- CodeCube 13y agoLooks like this was a quick semi-joke website. If Tumblr didn't like what message it sent (which is understandable) ... they could have started with a simple email to the guy. Heck, they probably could have just asked him to change the messages so that it was slightly less snarky. If he didn't want to play ball, then sure ... C&D away. But what happened to plain old being nice?
- sarreph 13y agoWhat a shame... What are they doing?
- joeblau 13y agoProbably trying to protect their brand. You can always still hit: http://isitup.org/tumblr.com http://isitup.org/tumblr.com
- hawkharris 13y agoI sympathize with the author and his concerns about Tumblr's disregard for its users. Having said that, companies have a legal responsibility to take "all steps necessary" to protect their trademarks. Unfortunately, this responsibility sometimes requires them to engage in seemingly nit-picky litigation. An excerpt from chillingeffects.org [1]: If a trademark owner fails to police his or her mark, the owner may be deemed to have abandoned the mark or acquiesced in its misuse. A trademark is only protected while it serves to identify the source of goods or services. I'm not saying that IsTumblrDown had negative intentions or that it blatantly obscured Tumblr's brand; I never had a chance to use the site, so I didn't see how the name was incorporated into it. I'm just saying that firms like Tumblr are sometimes under external pressure to be aggressive in enforcing their trademarks. [1] http://chillingeffects.org/trademark/faq.cgi#QID418 http://chillingeffects.org/trademark/faq.cgi#QID418
- nitrogen 13y agoFair use applies to trademarks, too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use_%28U.S._trademark_law%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use_%28U.S._trademark_law... Specifically see this paragraph: A nonowner may also use a trademark nominatively—to refer to the actual trademarked product or its source. In addition to protecting product criticism and analysis, United States law actually encourages nominative usage by competitors in the form of comparative advertising.[citation needed]
- jfarmer 13y agoThis is likely an expensive argument to make and one that Tumblr would be glad to spend legal dollars to fight. Tactically, it would make more sense to be as contrite as you possibly can, play the naïve engineer who loves Tumblr to death, and ask them for permission to use the name in the domain in exchange for including a prominent banner + disclaimer at the top of the page or wherever Tumblr prefers.
- nitrogen 13y agoSounds like yet another flaw in our current legal system.
- tazzy531 13y agoNow's my chance to start http://isIsTumblerDownDown.com http://isIsTumblerDownDown.com
- IbJacked 13y agoHah, that's great. I shouldn't have been surprised that it exists. My question is: did you register that or is there a bot out there registering domains that appear in comments?
- wpietri 13y agoWhoa. To me, this looks like domain squatters. The whois info: Domain Name: ISISTUMBLERDOWNDOWN.COM Registrar: HEBEI GUOJI MAOYI (SHANGHAI) LTD DBA HEBEIDOMAINS.COM Whois Server: whois.hebeidomains.com Referral URL: http://www.hebeidomains.com Name Server: NS1.LOCALHOSTY.COM Name Server: NS2.LOCALHOSTY.COM Status: ok Updated Date: 30-aug-2013 Creation Date: 30-aug-2013 Expiration Date: 30-aug-2014 And the IP resolves to: NetRange: 69.43.128.0 - 69.43.207.255 CIDR: 69.43.192.0/20, 69.43.128.0/18 NetName: ARIN-CASTLE-ALLOC Ref: http://whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET-69-43-128-0-1 OrgName: Castle Access Inc Address: 9606 Aero Drive City: San Diego StateProv: CA And some of this traces back to trellian.com, "SEO and Website Marketing Solutions."
- tazzy531 13y agoNo, I didn't register it. Actually, it was still available when I posted that comment.
- jfarmer 13y agoIANAL, only an entrepreneur, but this should surprise no one even passingly familiar with trademark law. Failure to enforce your trademark's registration can expose you to claims that your mark is no longer "in use." Sure, this guy might be 100% innocent, but it won't matter when someone less innocent comes along and uses the fact Tumblr didn't enforce their trademark against this other guy to be annoying. It's easier to just shoot an email to your attorneys and have send a C&D than it is to enter into a more protracted, ad hoc conversation. It costs virtually nothing to do this. Some associate at the firm types it up using one of a bajillion templates, sends it out with a partner's name attached, and bills the client for <30 minutes worth of time. You, too, can hire an attorney and pay them a few hundred dollars to reply! Or you can try replying yourself. C&Ds are not legally binding, of course, and the recipient can choose to comply, respond, or ignore as they see fit. Because of how trademark law works I wouldn't recommend "ignoring" since the complaining party is pretty much obligated to escalate matters. For example, a friend of mine created a parody website of a world-famous newspaper and predictably received a C&D. This was more than just the trademark: it repurposed content, used the same typefaces, mimicked the same layout, etc. They agreed to let him use it after he replied and agreed to include a prominent disclaimer up top stating that "<Newspaper> trademarks used with permission of <Newspaper Corporation>" and explaining that this was a parody. I don't know if the OP tried to do this, but I will say turning to the "court of public opinion" as a first course of action makes this outcome somewhere between incredibly unlikely to impossible. Tumblr isn't trying to be evil -- you're using their name, after all -- they're just trying to take care of it in the most time-efficient manner possible. The #1 most time-efficient manner is sending a C&D. For folks whose infringements are minor and inconsequential, it's likely that the #2 most time-efficient manner is to let them use the name in the domain with a prominent disclaimer and an explicit, albeit revokable, license.
- lisper 13y ago> Failure to enforce your trademark's registration can expose you to claims that your mark is no longer "in use." That's true, but C&Ds are not the only way to enforce a trademark. Tumblr could have granted him a license to use the trademark in exchange for a dollar a year. But they chose to be dicks instead.
- ballard 13y agoAlternatives: http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/tumblr.com http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/tumblr.com http://downrightnow.com/tumblr http://downrightnow.com/tumblr
- sluu99 13y ago"its," not "it's"
- elliottcarlson 13y agoMissing E's warning is to indicate that using a third party plugin to alter the sites behavior - which is constantly being improved and worked on - could have negative effects. If something breaks due to Missing E not working with an update that gets pushed out, then disable Missing E. Check the first page of the Missing E blog, and almost every post is regarding an update due to Missing E breaking in some way due to incompatibility. Seems pretty straight forward to me?
- zachinglis 13y agoTumblr itself was highly fragile, so this could be the case. But the Tumblr users were used to things breaking a lot and understood. I think the biggest thing was the fact they spent all the time removing Missing E rather than adding a few features people wanted.
- pbreit 13y ago> Failure to enforce your trademark's registration can expose you to claims that your mark is no longer "in use." Is that actually true? Has such a thing ever really happened in a situation like this?
- msh 13y agoMaybe time to register isTumblrEvil.com I now need to consider where to move my tumblr blog.
- zachinglis 13y agoUpdated with the letter as people requested.
- atoponce 13y agoAlternative: run your own Smokeping server, as I am here (give it some time to populate the data): http://zen.ae7.st/smokeping/?target=Internet.Tumblr http://zen.ae7.st/smokeping/?target=Internet.Tumblr
- zachinglis 13y agoThey've sent a retraction: http://istumblrdown.com/retraction/ http://istumblrdown.com/retraction/