Trading Post taking action against my forum

[hemi770]

I mentioned this in passing to a lawyer tonight. Their suggestion was to change the name to, say, "Bob's Trading Post" or I guess "Twincam Trading Post".

There ya go.

[thechuckster]

unless you get an actual court order in the mail or a geserved a copy of a writ lodged in the supreme court of the state you live in - ignore it.

You could take a leaf out of thepiratebay.org and post the letters (along with offensive replies) to the legal fukwits stupid enough to pen quasi-extortion letters.

Anyway, any drunken lawyer will tell them that:
-trading post is a registered trademark and name for a print and online business
-your web site is an online discussion forum not a business
-your web site doesn't profit from the trading post section of the site
-they've known about the site for years but have taken no action - that in itself probably renders any action void
-they can go and get fucked.

btw: hosting overseas is no protection - it's the legal entity that owns and manages the site.

btw 2: if your local member is opposed to telstra being privatised, send them a copy of the letter along with a long list of your complaints and concerns about telstra. They like to have things to throw at Captain Sol.

[Vicko]

Last time I checked hosting overseas IS protection - that's where its effectively being published. As such it falls under that countries law.

[tandy ass]

If you have to change it, change it to something like:

Trading Area
Post anything you want to buy our sell here

[slo360]

How about "twincam trading post"

id change it by keeping "trading post" but putting the sites name in front, they cant touch you then.

But on the subject, years ago Chrysler USA took offence to anyone using "MOPAR" in thier business letter heads and such unless they where Chrysler car dealers, some repairers and one panel shop that i heard of here in Oz were persued for breaches , odd part was that the guys using it were fans of the company, and built trade up around the companies products, albeit mainly older product(as chrysler pulled out of Oz in the 80s), but it still seems pretty anal for them to give that much of a shit to care about here as they werent even operating in the country.

cheers

[Jim]

Volkswagen also did the same thing. you can imagine how many VW clubs and gatherings there are world wide, and all of a sudden they were threatened if they used the words "VW", "Volkswagen", "Bug", "Beetle", and even "Buggy" and "Baja", nevermind buggies and bajas were never a volkswagen product.

I propose all correspondance has this on the letterhead:

[Charlatan]

I dont think dragging it out is really going to have much impact on Telstras annual legal bill. They have one of the largest largest external legal spend budgets in the country.

I'd say the reason they are doing it is to reduce the use of it as a generic term. They want people to think THE trading post, not any old trading post when they hear that term.

[Billzilla]

Stuff 'em.

I say we change one of the forums here and TELL the spankers we have.

[Stix Zadinia]

host it overseas then change everything to have the word 'trading' and/or 'post' in it... oh and mention telstra and sensis alot too

[JabberWocky]

Well it's in the dictionary, didn't realise you could copyright dictionary words..

Essentially every word is in the dictionary :D

A local business was forced to shut down as they sold surf wear under the name of Absolut Beach. The Russians(??) weren't very fond of this and evidently shut them down under breach of copyright. Filed from overseas too, not locally. Democracy anyone ??? ....

[Stix Zadinia]

Volkswagen also did the same thing. you can imagine how many VW clubs and gatherings there are world wide, and all of a sudden they were threatened if they used the words "VW", "Volkswagen", "Bug", "Beetle", and even "Buggy" and "Baja", nevermind buggies and bajas were never a volkswagen product.

I propose all correspondance has this on the letterhead:

I'm pretty sure someone in melbourne copyrighted the wolfsburg crest though and forced VW to stop using it, getting some of their own back.

isn't absolut a swedish or something brand?

[MR2Vaeth]

Where the site is hosted is a non-issue. If you are using someone's trade mark, and that trade mark is displayed in Australia, then you are infringing someone's trade mark. So, since the board is being displayed in Australia, the use of "Trading Post" may be construed as infringement. There is only protection if the owner of the board is also overseas, since obviously in such a case, though the owner is still guilty of infringement, there's nothing Telstra can do about it...

Next, as Jamx6 said, if you are using the word "Trading Post" in an infringing manner, changing it to "7r@d1ng P057", Tray Ding Post, Traydun post, or similar probably won't help much, if at all since it would still be similar to their mark. It would also look bad on you since it could be seen as a show of bad faith.

Whether or not your use of "Trading Post" is an infringement of their mark depends on how you are using it. If you are using it as a trade mark then you are infringinging their trade mark. On the other hand, if you are using it in a descriptive manner, or to refer to the actual Trading Post, then you may have a defence under descriptive use, and fair use.

Your safest bet is to walk away, but if you really want to keep the name "Trading Post" for your For Sale forum, then you will have to turn it into a descriptive use of the word "Trading Post" like how a lot of people above have suggested. e.g. "Twincam.org's trading post", "Car parts trading post", etc. Although, I personally feel that the term "trading post" itself is already descriptive, in the same manner as the terms "post office", "hospital", "garage", "gas station" etc.

At the end of the day though, only the lawyers win as they say...

[Paddington]

Im up for renaming it, but throwing in a line about how fucking lame lawyers are and the shit job Telstra is doing.

[jizmstr0]

on a possibly unrelated note, how DO you sign up for spam? Is there like somewhere you can put your email address in and say "Send me lots of lovely spam, for with spam I receive worthy attention"?

Depending on what type of spam. Google mugu + guyman and whack your address in some guest books :D

[XAC15T]

Telstra send a letter to my house, disrespect my forum....