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4chan demands 4chan.com domain name
- binarymax 13y agoIs the name 4chan trademarked? It doesn't seem to be. Would it be easier to secure the .com if they trademarked the name first, then went after oversee?
- ActVen 13y agoYes it is. http://www.trademarkia.com/4chan-85867485.html http://www.trademarkia.com/4chan-85867485.html
- binarymax 13y agoLooks fairly recent. Maybe that's exactly what they were waiting for.
- chimeracoder 13y agoTrademarks in the US don't need to be registered to be protected, like copyright (but unlike patents). If you have established use of a mark before the registration (or use) of a competing/conflicting mark, you can defend it. In fact, registration arguably provides no protection other than the fact that it makes it easier to search for your mark in the USPTO registry.
- binarymax 13y agoNo they do not, but it makes for a much easier defense. That is the whole point.
- wdewind 13y ago> In fact, registration arguably provides no protection other than the fact that it makes it easier to search for your mark in the USPTO registry. Isn't the trademark legally yours if you register and no one challenges for some period of time (I want to say 7 years)?
- Perdition 13y agoIt is also legally yours if you use it and no one challenges for a long period of time. Trademarks are based on use. Massive corporate behemoths have lost local TM use because some mom-and-pop store was using a trademark first.
- theOnliest 13y agoMy favorite example of this is the Waffle House (24-hour dive). In Indiana, "Waffle House" was already taken, so the national chain had to use "Waffle & Steak" instead. Of course, since we used to call the Waffle House "WaHo," this leads to the MUCH better name "WaSte"! [0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffle_house#Waffle_.26_Steak http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffle_house#Waffle_.26_Steak
- jamestnz 13y agoAnother interesting example is the fact that Burger King is known ubiquitously as "Hungry Jack's" within Australia (but here in New Zealand we get the real BK branding). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungry_Jack's#History_of_.22Burger_King.22_in_Australia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungry_Jack's#History_of_.22Bur... "When Burger King moved to expand its operations into Australia, it found that its business name was already trademarked by a takeaway food shop in Adelaide. As a result, Burger King provided the Australian franchisee, Jack Cowin, with a list of possible alternative names derived from pre-existing trademarks already registered by Burger King and its then corporate parent Pillsbury that could be used to name the Australian restaurants. Cowin selected the "Hungry Jack" brand name, one of Pillsbury's U.S. pancake mixture products..."
- huxley 13y agoAn important US trademark case (Burger King of Florida, Inc. v. Hoots (1968)) also involved Burger King: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burger_King_(Mattoon,_Illinois) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burger_King_(Mattoon,_Illinois) The court ruled that federal trademark registration had priority over state law, and that the big chain Burger King had rights to the “Burger King” name everywhere except in Mattoon, Illinois. Since the Hoots family had prior actual use there, they retained the name for the Mattoon area.
- rplnt 13y agoI think it's really stupid to get domain like this, whether the name is trademarked or not. They didn't steal the domain, they just registered it (or bought it) because it was available. 4chan.org has absolutely no right to it. But since .com TLD is not really international, who knows what will happen.
- iLoch 13y agoTLDs are not distributed by ICANN on a first come, first serve basis. Those with rights to the name (ie. a trademark) have priority access to the TLD.
- walshemj 13y agoHow is .com not international it's a TLD? by definition TLD's are not tied to a geography in the same way that country domains are.
- rplnt 13y agoThe .com is essentially US domain. So as, for example, .be is controlled by some Belgian organization, .com is controlled by US one. And it's not ICANN, so it doesn't aim to be international either.
- walshemj 13y agoNO all the gtld's like .com .org .net are not specific to coutrys - where the registry is located has no bearing on Back in the day I used to be one of the owners of .coop which was run out of the UK that didn't mean that it wasn't for all co-ops world wide. What domain does the Manchester Guardian a UK based newspaper use - it uses a .com.
- rplnt 13y agoIt doesn't matter how it should be. It is controled by US company, that falls under US jurisdiction, thus US does control the .com namespace. example: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/01/bodog_shut_via_verisign/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/01/bodog_shut_via_veris...
- bduerst 13y agoIt is trademarked, though it's to an LLC called 4chan.
- SworDsy 13y agoI bet all the traffic to 4chan.com is from people mistaking it for 4chan.org as all it says is 'inquire about this domain'
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- skrebbel 13y agoIs this just to troll? Even if someone looking for 4chan.org enteres 4chan.com first, isn't close to 100% of the target audience able to figure out what went wrong and fix it within seconds? (either by trying .org and co, or by dropping the tld altogether to trigger a web search).
- iSnow 13y agoIf I were to guess then I'd say that the chance to file a WIPO complaint is just too juicy to let it pass. For the lulz and all that.
- weems 13y agoI see LOBC coming soon
- thrillgore 13y agoDelete system32
- DanBC 13y agoGiven the amount of "open this image in notepad" malware I'm guessing 4chon wants to reduce possible attack vectors as much as possible. I wonder what the ad revenue would be from that domain? And would m00t be able to put ads on 4chan.com?
- teemo_cute 13y agoQuick 'hackernewschan.com' is still available. Someone here please buy it (seriously). It would be a troll-site for highly intelligent people that will bring forth a new age in humanity. Before you down-vote my comment brother... please consider the possibilities... they once thought that flying in the air impossible... what could be next?
- spiritplumber 13y agoDomain squatting is so 1999 anyway.
- Camillo 13y agoGuys, this is serious. .org is for non-profit organizations. .com is for commercial purposes. This is why moot had to beg for donations for years while helplessly watching everyone and their cat monetize "his" "content" on a .com domain.
- walshemj 13y agoNope .org is for things that didn't fit into the big 5 one of the other bidders for .org tried to run this line and restrict .org to US style non profits freezing out charities an NGOs like Oxfam and the Red Cross - they got shot down in flames. You going to tell JWZ (one of the early netscape developers) that hes going to have to give up jwz.org good luck with that .
- izzydata 13y agoThe word "demands" is probably very unfitting. Moot doesn't seem like the person who would "demand" something. He would just do it and not take it very seriously and hope for the best. There is no reason to not at least try to obtain the name.
- ds9 13y agoIt would be a very bad precedent if an owner of a domain name can gain rights to the same name in another tld just by his own site becoming popular. US trademark law is limited to (a) commercial context and (b) possibility of confusion. If you aren't selling anything, or even if you are commercial but are in a different line of business, you should never be troubled by any trademark claims. This is how the old Beatles record label and the computer company can coexist with the 'Apple' name. Probably many of us here are in similar situations - I have a domain name for example in .net and .org, but someone else has the .com. I don't want to take the .com from whoever it is (not without their consent, that is), and I shouldn't to have to pay for lawyers to fight them off if they make the name better known for their unrelated site.
- _puk 13y agoOn the flip side, I had a .com domain on backorder (I have the .co.uk), which was actually released. I didn't get it (regardless of the back-order), but it got bought up by a domain squatting company who now want about $4K for it. It is currently parked with a horrendous page that doesn't even render correctly. Now if my my .co.uk site were to get popular (hah!), I fully expect that price tag to increase. It's a bizarre system.
- _puk 13y agoOh, and I had the trademark for said site..
- noonespecial 13y agoIf you have a trademark, file a complaint with ICANN. It will almost certainly be handed to you. Usually without even hearing from the other party. I've both lost and gained domains in this fashion.
- _puk 13y agoDoes the trademark have to contain .com? i.e. I have theword trademarked, but not theword.com
- Shinkei 13y agoLet's say I run a town with shopping centers. Both are called Main Street Shopping but one is located on Main St and 1st and the other is located at Main St and 120th. When you show up at Main St and 1st, is it a bussling shopping center filled with stores of all kinds. When you GPS Main Street Shopping Center and accidentally arrive at the other location, you just find a parking lot with an empty field with a "coming soon" sign that's been up for 5 years. The site is undeveloped, commercially zoned and represents essentially a burden for the community from both the unrealized tax revenue as well as eye sore and lower local property values. Plus the brand confusion, misdirected out-of-towners, etc. So take this analogy to the internet, admittedly the 'real' costs may be lower--transmitting a few billion bytes is cheaper than road maintenance, fire and police protection to the unused property--but the societal cost is the same. The property should be fully realized and transfered to someone who will use it. This is the whole 'eminent domain' debate in a nutshell. Just because you own something DOESN'T give you impunity to 'waste' it as you see fit. There is a public interest that is ethically sound. But at its heart, the people who cybersquat are a nuisance. They have no bona fide interest in the domain name and likely acquired it just to 'own' a property that they think they'll be able to flip one day.... it's the same sh*t as the real estate bubble, heck... bubble of ANY KIND. Fact is, I am glad this system of arbitration is in place because if I was Bill Gates and some guy named Joe Smith bought my name.com and didn't have a fan page or other relevant property, but just intended to sell it to me for a 10,000% return on his 'investment,' I would be pretty pissed off. I really don't see the other side of this debate. These are greedy people just speculatively buying stuff without any real interest. It has created all kinds of negative effects like shotgun domain bidding, poaching, pricing bubble, artificial scarcity, ID theft, the 4chan.org issues mentioned in this article.... need I go on?
- chrismonsanto 13y ago> This is the whole 'eminent domain' debate in a nutshell. Not quite--eminent domain is also used to take property from people who ARE using it. And I think that is where that debate gets very thorny, because the compensation is not always worth the costs of uprooting someone from their home.
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- Havoc 13y agoI wouldn't want to be on the receiving side of this request. If its approved then it creates a bad precedent (as ds9 indicated). If its rejected then the person rejecting it is likely to piss of the 4chan crowd - and unlike many other 4chan attacks this is a cause the entire 4chan user base can get behind.
- ChuckMcM 13y agoInteresting, I've never met a domain squatter that didn't have a price, but setting that aside for now, is the word '4chan' trademarked? Ahh I see it is [1] as of March 5th of this year. This will be interesting to see how it plays out. [1] http://trademarks.justia.com/858/67/4chan-85867485.html http://trademarks.justia.com/858/67/4chan-85867485.html
- jitendrac 13y agoif 4chan.com is not cheating or bluffing with 4chan.org, it should not be handed over to 4chan.org.