Terrence writes; Is E-bay's legal department going too far? join in the discussion at e-bays soapbox register here http://forums.ebay.com/dwb?14@999487002107@.ee7ba0c artnatural =-) T [EMAIL PROTECTED] vs artists terrence- (0) (view author's auctions) 8:14pm September 2, 2001 does e-bay have a sense of culture or is it only interested in exclusive community creation to support a corporate drive for profit and e-power at the cost of culture? Subject: FLUXLIST: eBay wants www.ebayart.com Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 14:09:11 -0400 From: allen bukoff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] CC: "Susan K." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> I registered ebayart.com a couple of years ago thinking that it would make a nice home for a website that would document the various "art" projects that we've been seeing on eBay.com for several years now (some of which I think have been really clever, some of which I think have been really interesting). Despite my best intentions I haven't had the time to create this site...one of many projects on a back burner. eBay-the-company has finally caught up with me, though. I don't think this is really a big deal or worthy of a fight--doing a website cataloging art projects using eBay.com can still be done (and maybe already has...anyone know of any such websites?)...without using a domain name that eBay the company finds infringing. I've been noticing in the press recently how eBay-the-company is getting a bad reputation as a corporate bully. It's ironic, of course, that eBay's very meaning and existence depends on a very democratic person-to-person process. Some people/companies just don't understand what they have or what they are. - Allen B From: PF-Enforcement <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "'[EMAIL PROTECTED]'" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Domain Name Registration - EBAYART.COM Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 13:45:46 -0700 Dear Domain Name Registrant: It recently has come to our attention that you have registered one or more domain names that include the eBay name and trademark, and that you may also be operating a Web site incorporating the eBay name. As you know, eBay is a leader in person-to-person online trading and maintains the www.ebay.com Web site. eBay owns exclusive trademark rights to the eBay name in the United States and internationally. eBay has made a substantial investment in developing and providing its services and has acquired a tremendous amount of goodwill and brand equity in the eBay name. As we hope you can appreciate, eBay is concerned that your unauthorized use of the eBay name may cause confusion as to whether you or your company's activities are authorized, endorsed or sponsored by eBay when, in fact, they are not. Federal and state laws, including the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act of 1999, recently passed by Congress, provide for serious penalties (up to $100,000) against persons who, without authorization, use, sell, or offer for sale a domain name that infringes another's trademark. Infringers who have been notified of such infringing activity, but do not cease their infringements, may also be considered "willful" and could be subject to additional money damages. Having received this e-mail, you are on such notice . For your information, the text of the Anticybersquatting Act may be found at http://www.submerged-ideas.com/litigation/anticybersquat.htm More information on trademark law may be found at http://www.fplc.edu/tfield/aVoid.htm. While eBay respects your rights of expression and desire to do business on the World Wide Web, eBay must enforce its own rights in order to protect its valuable and famous name. We appreciate that you may have registered the above-mentioned domains with the best of intentions and without full knowledge of the law in this area. Nonetheless, under the circumstances, we must insist that you: (1) stop using the eBay name in your domain name; (2) do not use such domain name(s) on an active web site; (3) do not renew such domain names To post a message, compose your text in the box below, then click on Post My Message (below) to send the message. T Eryk Salvaggio wrote: > Allen Bukoff, over at Fluxlist, registered "ebayart.com" > with the intention of linking to ebay-based conceptual art, > and, even though he hadn't put anything on it, ebay sent > a cease and desist letter to him for using their name. > > So, eh, be careful. :) > > -e. > > Greg Sidal wrote: > > > > I didn't know that ebay had canceled Daines' auction > > as well. When I browsed to his page a couple of > > months ago, the auction appeared to be running > > (Micheal doesn't seem to remember what actually > > happened back when it started according to his posts). > > > > I've been mulling over creating a ConceptBay.org site > > for a couple of months now. You would be able to > > carry these auctions through, but you wouldn't own the > > concept, you'd own (i.e. have social control over) the > > database records associated with the auction. You > > could then decide whether to let people browse the > > records or portions of them, and whether to resell at > > a later time. There might also be a meta-currency > > that would exist only for the site, whose exchange > > rates would fluctuate in relation to the "real" > > currencies controlled by the nation states. > > > > Haven't decided yet whether it's worth doing though. > > > > -greg > > http://www.geocities.com/gregsidal > > > > __________________________________________________ > >
