5 ms·

I'm not seeing the problem here. There seems to be all sorts of allowed uses and as far as I can tell, the only restriction is that you can't claim to be Drupal

by billpg 17y ago

I'm not seeing the problem here. There seems to be all sorts of allowed uses and as far as I can tell, the only restriction is that you can't claim to be Drupal, just have to identify yourself as a supplier of Drupal. Please enlighten me.

cousin_it 17y ago
As far as I can see, registering the domain drupalsucks.com isn't "claiming to be Drupal", yet it's prohibited by the policy.
- mechanical_fish 17y ago
  To be a bit more precise: The policy states that you're not going to be granted permission by the trademark holder to use the trademark "Drupal" in the domain name "drupalsucks.com". Whether or not this "prohibits" you is a more complicated question. First, you can always ask: The trademark holder can always grant you an exception if you make your case eloquently enough. Failing that, you can use the trademark without permission. If you don't get sued, you'll be fine. If you do get sued but a court decides that a sentence embedded in a domain name is a form of fair use, you'll be fine. The policy goes so far as to explicitly clarify that you're allowed to write the phrase "Drupal sucks" in a blog post as often as you like, without having to ask permission. That's fair use. The law is clear on that. But domain names are special: A bit less like newspaper articles or diary entries, a bit more like signs in front of a business. Their trademark status is less clear -- whether a specific domain name infringes a trademark is a complicated matter, full of grey areas, questions of intent, and questions of interpretation, that must be adjudicated on a case-by-case basis. And this policy reserves the trademark holder's right to take that question to court in certain cases. -- DISCLAIMER CENTRAL: I am not a lawyer. I am employed by a company, Acquia, that was founded by Drupal's trademark holder. I do not speak for my company, or for Drupal, and my opinions are entirely my own -- and, where they touch upon the law, they're probably all wrong.
  - ZeroGravitas 17y ago
    Any comments on this bit: "This policy - as well as the accompanying website - may be changed at any time. You accept that all licenses accorded under this policy are non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sub-licensable, revocable at any time, and subject to changes in policy. Hence, changes in this policy may cause permissions to be revoked or made dependent on additional obligations."
- billpg 17y ago
  (I'm not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, blah blah blah.) Absent any agreement with X, is "Xsucks.com" a trademark violation? I don't know. If it isn't, then no worries. If its not a trademark violation then X have no hold over you. If it is, then what is the complaint against X? That they they are not helping people attack them by witholding permission to use thier trademark? Say I owned the trademark "billpg" and someone was asking my permission to register "billpgIsAPatheticVirgin.com". Is it morally wrong of me to tell that person to go do something unpleasant?
  - mechanical_fish 17y ago
    Absent any agreement with X, is "Xsucks.com" a trademark violation? I don't know. I'm not sure anybody knows, and I'm particularly unsure that anybody can know in advance. That's why this particular legal agreement doesn't concede the point up front. The question of whether "billpgIsAPatheticVirgin.com" infringes on the "billpg" trademark involves questions like: Are customers being confused? These are not questions that you can answer in the abstract. If I merely register the domain but it doesn't get indexed by Google and I never show it to anyone, the answer is probably "no". If I put up a site at the domain that looks exactly like the official "billpg" site and then drive traffic to it, the answer moves towards "yes". If I deploy enough SEO tricks to drive billpgIsAPatheticVirgin.com to the top of a Google search page for "billpg", the answer is even more likely to be "yes". It's got to be hashed out in court, if it comes to that.
    - cousin_it 17y ago
      We (me and jacquesm) just made this: http://drupaltrademarkpolicysucks.com/ http://drupaltrademarkpolicysucks.com/ . Let's see how things develop.

by billpg 17y ago

cousin_it 17y ago

As far as I can see, registering the domain drupalsucks.com isn't "claiming to be Drupal", yet it's prohibited by the policy.

mechanical_fish 17y ago
To be a bit more precise: The policy states that you're not going to be granted permission by the trademark holder to use the trademark "Drupal" in the domain name "drupalsucks.com". Whether or not this "prohibits" you is a more complicated question. First, you can always ask: The trademark holder can always grant you an exception if you make your case eloquently enough. Failing that, you can use the trademark without permission. If you don't get sued, you'll be fine. If you do get sued but a court decides that a sentence embedded in a domain name is a form of fair use, you'll be fine. The policy goes so far as to explicitly clarify that you're allowed to write the phrase "Drupal sucks" in a blog post as often as you like, without having to ask permission. That's fair use. The law is clear on that. But domain names are special: A bit less like newspaper articles or diary entries, a bit more like signs in front of a business. Their trademark status is less clear -- whether a specific domain name infringes a trademark is a complicated matter, full of grey areas, questions of intent, and questions of interpretation, that must be adjudicated on a case-by-case basis. And this policy reserves the trademark holder's right to take that question to court in certain cases. -- DISCLAIMER CENTRAL: I am not a lawyer. I am employed by a company, Acquia, that was founded by Drupal's trademark holder. I do not speak for my company, or for Drupal, and my opinions are entirely my own -- and, where they touch upon the law, they're probably all wrong.
- ZeroGravitas 17y ago
  Any comments on this bit: "This policy - as well as the accompanying website - may be changed at any time. You accept that all licenses accorded under this policy are non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sub-licensable, revocable at any time, and subject to changes in policy. Hence, changes in this policy may cause permissions to be revoked or made dependent on additional obligations."
billpg 17y ago
(I'm not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, blah blah blah.) Absent any agreement with X, is "Xsucks.com" a trademark violation? I don't know. If it isn't, then no worries. If its not a trademark violation then X have no hold over you. If it is, then what is the complaint against X? That they they are not helping people attack them by witholding permission to use thier trademark? Say I owned the trademark "billpg" and someone was asking my permission to register "billpgIsAPatheticVirgin.com". Is it morally wrong of me to tell that person to go do something unpleasant?
- mechanical_fish 17y ago
  Absent any agreement with X, is "Xsucks.com" a trademark violation? I don't know. I'm not sure anybody knows, and I'm particularly unsure that anybody can know in advance. That's why this particular legal agreement doesn't concede the point up front. The question of whether "billpgIsAPatheticVirgin.com" infringes on the "billpg" trademark involves questions like: Are customers being confused? These are not questions that you can answer in the abstract. If I merely register the domain but it doesn't get indexed by Google and I never show it to anyone, the answer is probably "no". If I put up a site at the domain that looks exactly like the official "billpg" site and then drive traffic to it, the answer moves towards "yes". If I deploy enough SEO tricks to drive billpgIsAPatheticVirgin.com to the top of a Google search page for "billpg", the answer is even more likely to be "yes". It's got to be hashed out in court, if it comes to that.
  - cousin_it 17y ago
    We (me and jacquesm) just made this: http://drupaltrademarkpolicysucks.com/ http://drupaltrademarkpolicysucks.com/ . Let's see how things develop.