Should You Get a Domain Name With a Trademark In It?
In the business forums I frequent, far too many times the question comes up:
Can I get a domain name with Company X’s trademark in it?
The Short Answer: yes.
The Long Answer: no – you’ll hate yourself if you do.
Frankly, there’s nothing stopping you from taking a name like eBay or WordPress and creating a domain around it – many people do, and registrars like Godaddy and NameCheap will happily sell you one.
But just because someone isn’t currently stopping you doesn’t mean they won’t someday – and it’s at that time when you could lose everything!
To show you how it could work, a little story:
Back in the old days of the Internet (2000), I decided, like many programmers out there, to write my own MP3 player. It was easy to use, skinnable, and eventually had on the fly audio adjustment, XML files for configuration, and a flexible Unicode database (for all those songs you have in Mandarin).
Since I planned to sell it, I contacted the appropriate folks about licensing the MP3 format – and waited.
After a month or two, I thought this meant I was home free, and went ahead to release it.
(of course, you can see where this is going)
The week I went live I received a pleasant email from their legal team.
The end result? Either pay or stop marketing. I chose the latter.
Dave, I think I am qualified to comment on this one because I am a lawyer!
The point is that we are paid to protect our client’s interests and if that means enforcing their legal rights so be it. You would probably be surprised at how many times these rights are not enforced because the client takes a commercial/economic approach. However, there are some big name corporates that will enforce no matter how minor.
Remember, we don’t make the law (if only!) and we cannot (unfortunately) tell our clients want to do – we can only advise our client of its rights within the law and how to protect those rights and enforce their rights if they have been infringed.
Taking someone elses brand is against the law for a pretty simple reason – a brand/domain etc has goodwill attached to it just like any worthwhile business. When you use that name or part of it without consent you are stealing business from someone who has spent time building that name. Not only that, it can appear to the average visitor that the content is endorsed by the brand name – which may be the wrong impression that the brand wants to project.
There are lots more reasons but these are the main ones. The best thing to do rather than cybersquatting on someone elses hard work is to create something yourself.
Leanne
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