6 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}
6 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}

Need Advice About Domain Pirating...

by pizzatherapy
4 replies
I have had my website for 9 years.

It is fairly unique and done well. The site ranks high for several key words. On all of my pages I have a copyright code.

Here is my issue: (moderators, please delete site references if you must..this is not for self-promotion)...

My website is: pizzatherapy.com

I recently noticed someone registered the name: pizzatherapy.com.au

They took my entire website domain and just added an au extension on it!

I did a who is look up and found the person's name, contact information etc.

Is this legal? Do I have any recourse?

I feel this is blatant copyright infringement. But I live in the United States. Is there any kind of reciprocity law that anyone knows of with Austailia?

Do I have any legal recourse?

Does this mean I can go out and register: yahoo.com.au

or google.com.au or even microsoft.com.au?

It seems there should be a violation here of some kind.

FYI: I have been contacted numeous times over the years about liscening my website's name. I have turned down all offers.

Any advice from the Warriors is greatly appreciated.


Here is the question: what would you do if this happened to you?
#advice #domain #domain registration #pirating
  • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
    It's not a copyright issue. It's a possible trademark issue.

    Your best bet is probably to contact an IP attorney familiar with international trademark laws.

    And you may or may not have a case. It looks like you have books and they have a restaurant. Still both are pizza, so whether it's confusingly similar might be an issue. Again, though, the best bet is to ask an attorney.
    Signature

    Dan's content is irregularly read by handfuls of people. Join the elite few by reading his blog: dcrBlogs.com, following him on Twitter: dcrTweets.com or reading his fiction: dcrWrites.com but NOT by Clicking Here!

    Dan also writes content for hire, but you can't afford him anyway.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[368133].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author Ricky Ticky Toc
      Well im sure sure if you can do anything about this but no you can't go out and buy google.com.au, because they will already have brought it, one way most people stop this from happening is to buy the domains themselves.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[368178].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author GuruGazette
    For the record, that's not domain name pirating. Domain pirating is when someone illegally and/or fraudulently takes your domain out from under you by getting the registration changed WITHOUT it having expired legitimately.

    As for your question: I'm not a lawyer but generally the only time you have recourse is if you have some type of patent or trademark registration on the name. Google, yahoo and others have registered trademarks, thus they could cause a lot of trouble for anyone who tried to register variations of their domain name.

    If your domain/business name is not trademarked then there's not usually anything you can do about it other than maybe offer to buy it, then register every other variation you can think of for it.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[368320].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author pizzatherapy
    Thanks so much for all for your advice.

    So basically, the advice here, is there is not much I can do about this. Short of contacting an International Lawyer, I'm kind of stuck

    I have already contacted the offending site, and asked if I could interview them about their business for my ezine.

    I also asked the them to send me a t-shirt.

    Thanks jimirpips, Gurugazette, Ricky Ticky Tock and Dan C Rinnert.

    I need to do a paradigm shift and look outside the box:

    when they are advertising their site, they are really advertising my site....

    I never thought of that. Free publicity.

    Problem resovled. It's all how you look at it.

    It all looks fine in 2009!

    stay well,
    Warrioirs
    Signature
    Help Support Pizza! Pizza T-Shirts for Pizza Lovers! : Find Pizza On Earth!
    I am a PowToon Ambassador
    Discover Simple Easy Video Creation Tool
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[368599].message }}

Trending Topics