Zynga Farmville Clickbank vendors lawsuit

I just followed your link, this is taking down some pretty popular sites.

That is pretty crazy.

...those vendors had TONS of affiliates, too. I'm sure there are people who promoted them that are going to be plenty upset -- a lot of their income is going to stop with this.

Honestly, I've been wondering when they would be doing this. It was pretty obvious from the start that these guides are a case of copyright infringement. I had been thinking about promoting them myself, but that was the reason that stopped me: not knowing if it would last.

Leslie

The name for starters. The name is trademarked

No, but I wonder that having the name of the game in the urls and in the title would be what they are betting on.

Then again, I'm no lawyer and never studied anything related to law so I have no clue of the correct terms for everything

Yeah, the copyright name infringement in the URL is what's going to be the sticking ground imo.

It's trademark infringement not copyright infringement. There is a difference.

You can't just use somebody else's name to profit and expect nothing to happen. I suspect Zynga will win default judgements against those who do nothing and settle with those who speak up.

Thank you Sarafine, that was the term that I meant, trademark infringement.

Leslie

Trademark law is quite tricky. Burger King often uses the trademark of McDonalds in their advertising, Wendy's did it too for a long time (i.e. where's the beef).

Courts have often wavered from any set precedents on these matters, making the outcome of any trademark case very unpredictable.

There are tons of examples of using other people's trademarks with educational and advertising materials.

In many cases, companies like these just sue to get their way. They know that the average person can't stand up to well-paid corporate lawyers in court.

I was selling a Farmville guide for a while, when the numbers were still climbing. The numbers were just too large to ignore the easy money. However, the first site I put up got immediate attention from Zynga's attorneys. They beat around the bush when it came to nailing down an exact reason. Eventually though I figured out that it was the name in the URL that they are going after. So I just bought a domain without the Farmville name in it, and then they never bothered me again.

Zynga themselves are known for running their business in a highly unethical manner anyway. I wouldn't doubt if they are just trying to strong arm these people out of business.

I have not read the lawsuit, but it is filed in the federal court as a copyright case. That means the issue is the product(s) they are selling, not the domain names.

Funny ... Zynga is being sued also. Seems they are being accused of violating federal law.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news...-Facebook-Leak

Hmm, it seems to me all these game guides just help fuel people to actually play the game more which in turn benefits that game owners.

Whats the adage?

The main problems are:
1) trademark infringement in domain names
2) trademark infringement in use of logo and name on websites
3) trademark infringement in use of logo and screenshots in products.

Just writing a guide and using the name in the title is what is called Nominative Use.

The nominative use test essentially states that one party may use or refer to the trademark of another if:

1. The product or service cannot be readily identified without using the trademark (e.g. trademark is descriptive of a person, place, or product attribute)
2. The user only uses so much of the mark as is necessary for the identification (e.g. the words but not the font or symbol)
3. The user does nothing to suggest sponsorship or endorsement by the trademark holder. This applies even if the nominative use is commercial, and the same test applies for metatags.

Furthermore, if a use is found to be nominative, then by the definition of non-trademark uses, it can not dilute the trademark.

not only that they may have seen the money these vendors are making and are wanting take over their products, affiliates, domains etc.

regards

colleen

Ya know what's funny...regardless of the lawsuit,
my biggest question is,

ARE THOSE TESTIMONIALS FROM THOSE SITES REAL??
LOL

I just got contacted tonight by Zynga because I recently registered a domain with the word farmville in it and I haven't even used it yet and they are asking me to assure them I won't.

I am not an attorney and part of it I get but the other part I don't get is I am selling a product that is related to farmville and if I can't use the name to describe the product I don't know how people will know what it is. I'm not using their logos and I have in the terms of service of my site I am not affiliated with them nor do they sponsor anything on my site. I kinda don't get how they might be able to sue me if I need to use the name of farmville to describe my product but again I am not an attorney. I did just send them an email back asking them a few questions and seeing if they would like to work out an amicable agreement.

I'm startled because again I have not really used the domain yet so now I'm wondering if they just have people doing searches all day long-lol. Plus this is no excuse but I did look on google and when you type in the word farmville there are over 29 million matches and not all of them are Zynga sites. Are they just going to try to sue everyone?

From what I've read regarding Zynga and its CEO, they seem to be somewhat unethical in their business dealings and have made millions apparently employing some pretty deceptive practices in parting game players from their cash. They also seem to be pretty sue-happy when it comes to protecting their name and game trademarks, and I would not be surprised at all if they have an army of reputation management professionals scouring the internet for others using any of their trademarked names.

I'm curious to see what they say in response to my email I still really don't know what to think about it.