YouTube Being Sued

[Elton]

Just been reading this:

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6108502.stm

 

It was inevitable that lawyers would suddenly become 'interested' in YouTube, since it's now owned by Google, but this has got to be one of the most lame attempts at getting money for nothing I've ever seen!

 

I really do hope that they don't succeed, as having a precedent that you can't even have a domain that "sounds a bit like another one" is just ridiculous.

[DavyR]

I really do hope that they don't succeed, as having a precedent that you can't even have a domain that "sounds a bit like another one" is just ridiculous.

 

Especially as there are already no end of urls that are deliberately almost identical to those for popular websites - usually intended to lure the unwary onto porn sites.

[poledark]

They do seem to have a point though.....been in business 10 years.

 

Might be a gesture of goodwill if Youtube were to try to come to some arrangement with U tube.

 

I hope U tube are big enough to make a real fight of it.....wonder what would happen if someone started a site called Yootube

 

Den

[Sportsman]

Does this mean that my new auction site called Eebay is a non starter

[Waterman]

I expect Mike Rosoft will be cashing in.

[merlino bill]

Does this mean that my new auction site called Eebay is a non starter

 

OI OI,

sad to say you can't use eebay but what about any yorkshire men could you use

E,BY GUM BAY MMMmm might be worth a go.

 

[UK-Fishing-Tackle.co.uk]

Hmm - no precedent I'm afraid. This has happened already numerous times with websites. Essentially if you own a trademarked term and someone makes money through deliberately misrepresenting themselves based on that term then you have a case. You'd struggle to stake any legal ownership of eeBay, ebaay, gooogle etc....even if you bought the domain it would certainly be overturned once the holder of the TM had appealed.

 

U-Tubes claim, that Youtube traffic is knackering their site because people think youtube is spelt utube, is perfectly valid, and should it be proved that utube was there first then most likely UTube will be roughly entitled to some element of compensation and if held in an American court quite likely damages outweighing the true cost of the issue (the american legal system - got to love it). In truth it will probably become a 'google settle and acquire the utube domain name' affair, which is obviously not a bad resolution for either party.

 

Remember, law is generally based around 'profiting' from misrepresentation. Clearly youtube wasn't profitting previously (in fact, losing money hand over fist), but now it will feature adwords clearly youtube will start to make money, probably rather successfully. This naturally makes them more of a target for litigation, but thats just obvious.

[Newt]

and if held in an American court quite likely damages outweighing the true cost of the issue (the american legal system - got to love it).

 

Gee whiz Ian - we gotta have a bit extra for 'pain & suffering' added to the damages.