Posted on 07/25/2007 8:30:15 PM PDT by hedgetrimmer
But you don't have exclusive right of control over your feelings. The actions of other people affect your feelings beyond your control. If someone jumps out at you and yells "Boo!" you feel scared. This is an involuntary reaction beyond your control--and in the control of another party.
On the other hand, something that you create, though deliberate thought and action, like a song, for instance, IS within your exclusive control.
Would you like to try again? There is no reason that property must be measurable. It is something over which you have exclusive right of control. It belongs to you and no one else.
Fox established limited ownership of thesimpsonsmovie.com by creating the Simpsons and registering the related material as copyrights and trademarks. By doing so, it has a right of action against people who cybersquat by using Fox's intellectual property--in this case, the Simpons--without its permission. This is really not a tough concept.
Indeed, and that would not have been cybersquatting. But the fact remains that this joker didn't create a different movie. Instead, he was a cybersquatter and he was evicted.
No, you do.
I’ll repeat it for you. No one owned the domain name thesimpsonsmovie.com. Someone bought it with legal tender. He did not buy it on the black market. He did not buy it with counterfeit dollars. A big giant baby transnational corporation wanted it so they could put up screen shots of naked boys from their movie. It held a tizzy fit in some guy’s office who was annointed by internationalist crooks to take the side of FOX and usurp the constitutional guarantee of a citizen’s right to representative government. He was aided and abetted by Al Gore’s reinvention of government and Bill Clinton’s forced removal of the internet domains from US control.
LOL The company YOU keep. You should be ashamed!
Again, you are wrong. US Law gives 20th Century Fox a conditional ownership interest in this name, regardless of whether it has or hasn't registered it.
Look, I'm not interested in discussing this any longer. The law is the law. If you don't like it, ask your Congressman to repeal the anticybersquatting act. Otherwise, deal. Whine and moan all you want, but this is how it is.
Indeed. It’s not as though the Fox cartoon created the name Simpson from scratch. It would have been perfectly feasible for someone to make some different movie called “Simpsons” or whatever — just like there was a movie called “Meet the Robinsons”, which had nothing to do with “Swiss Family Robinson”, which had nothing to do with the Simon & Garfunkel song “Mrs. Robinson”.
In the IP world those are all separate things. When you register a trademark it goes into a very specific class. When Fox registered The Simpsons, went into the relevant classes. When Disney applied for the TM for Meet the Robinsons, they covered themselves by putting in several classes that would also include merchandise, Mrs. Robinson is solely in the category for music, and Swiss Family Robinson is not even trade marked. If you ever get bored you can go to the TESS site that shows all the US trademarks and see just how many trade marks can exist for the same name.
there was no trademark for thesimpsonsmovie.com nor was there a copyright. That’s why the domain registrar sold it.
Gee hedgetrimmer, you sure seem like you know a lot about the process. LOL Those who pose the complaints go through a LOT of effort to present their case to prove why the owner should not have rights to the name. That information goes to a panel. The panel then sends the information to the owner who can send a rebuttal back without even having to get a lawyer. Then the panel who has absolutely no interest in either party makes a decision. They have no reason to go one way or the other except by looking at the facts. They don’t get extra money from corporations. No one is going to take their business elsewhere. They simply make a judgment based on what they’ve been given and what the rules say. If the owner does not agree with the decision he can appeal it. He has every right to take it to a US court of law, but of course, you like to ignore this fact. Really it is easier on the owner to go through the UDRP than to have it taken directly to court. At least through a UDRP he can defend himself without getting a high priced lawyer and spending thousands of dollars. And even if he loses, he loses just that name but does not have to pay whatever settlement amount the judge orders for damages.
there was no trademark for thesimpsonsmovie.com nor was there a copyright. That’s why the domain registrar sold it.
That is most certainly not why they sold it to him. It is not their responsibility to check each and every name that is requested to be sure that it doesn’t violate a trade mark. It is the registrant’s responsibility and that is spelled out in the user agreement that he has to agree to to register the name. If they were going to go that far then they would have to request a full detail of what the intent is for the name, because as we’ve talked about before it’s really what he does with it that makes it legal or illegal. If he was using it for a perfectly legitimate reason that had nothing to do with The Simpsons they would have had to pony up whatever money he was asking for.
You are too funny. You keep on comparing apples and oranges here. Maybe the idea of intellectually property is too deep for you. He had the right to register the name, he did not have the right to use Fox’s IP for his own profit. As I’ve said a million times before it was his USE of the name that was ILLEGAL. A US court of law would conclude the same thing. I have the right to create a song about Mrs. Robinson, but I don’t have the right to take the original song and make it my own. Even American Idol has to get permission from the artists to have their songs used on the show.
I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t call me sir. ;)
Under a constitutional government the name would STILL belong to Fox and does. Our government is set up where we have the opportunity to protect our thoughts, ideas, and creativity. We have to exercise those rights by patents, trademarks, and copyrights. Any Joe Blow off the street can get these. For the fun of it I checked and it’s only a few hundred for a trademark. Fox exercised their right to protect The Simpsons in relationship to their cartoon characters. They have multiple trademarks in various categories. If Keith did something more tangible like create Simpsons dolls with his website name on it, he could have been sued in a US court of law. He has to ask permission to use something that is trademarked or copyrighted by the owner. This is US law.
They don't. If your favorite porn pushing thief had bought "TheOJSimpsonmovie.com", Fox wouldn't have sued him. Fox wouldn't have cared about "TheJessicaSimpsonmovie.com" either.
How so? How can you say that Fox automatically owns all permutations and extensions of the name Simpson that exist now and any that may be thought in the future? That is not constitutional— but it is totalitarian.
I’m not saying that at all. I am saying that because he was using it to make money off their brand, then he was using it illegally and in a US court of law not only would Fox be awarded the name but damages as well. Would you have felt better if Fox out right sued him, he lost the name plus had to pay thousands of dollars in lawyers fees and damages to Fox?
You know the sad thing is, if Fox had taken the route to sue for the name and damages, then people would be complaining how cruel they are when there was a process in place where they could simply get the name back without dragging Keith’s hiney through court.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.