So about six weeks ago my mum got a letter sent to my home address in Canada that I had half been expecting but also dreading. It’s from Internet Intellectual Property Management firm called Demys and they don’t appear to be too happy about my domain name: London-2012-Games.com. Oops!
I guess I came onto their radar when I started ranking on page one of Google. Stupid Google, blowing my cover like that. That’s the only time getting to the first page would ever be a bad thing. I guess there’s been some precident set with another domain name MyLondon2012.com which now redirects to an official Olympics site because then won the battle The decision in that case can all be seen here.
It seems like I could be screwed. My domain has London and 2012 in it which are both, annoyingly and seemingly impossibly, registered trademarks. I’m not sure there’s any way around it and I’ve been debating what to do since the letter came. My approach of not doing anything will probably bite me in the arse at some point in the future. I don’t think my usual strategy of avoiding the issue will help in this case!
So I’m thinking I’ll need to come up with some new domain name. But these people can’t be contacted for specific issues (or at least that’s what their letter says) and I’m afraid that even if I cut ‘London’ and ’2012′ out of the domain name, they’ll come after me if I use those words on my site at all under the stance that it causes confusion, which seems to be their platform for these crackdowns.
This untimely letter has screwed my link-building efforts. I’ve already put a tonne of work into building links to my Olympics site which, I suppose, is why it’s doing so will with Google. I hate the thought at losing all of that work I’ve put in (I can changed the links in many of my articles but not in all, plus finding all the links in this blog and changing them and contacting others sites I’ve done link swaps with… ARG!) and essentially having to start from scratch without the extra added boost of having the keywords in the domain name (which I think is huge for ranking well).
So I’m at a loss for what to do here. Keep going as though nothing has happened and hope they forget about me? Or create a new domain name, build new links, change old links and hope they don’t come after me again? I feel like I’ve been writing an email for a year and then it accidentally got deleted before it sent and now I have to write it all again. It’s a bit soul destroying!
Any suggestions? Words of support? I think I need a hug.
Hey Kirsty,
Bad news, go back to them and ask them if they would like to buy the site off you…. thats what I would do. But I am cheeky
steve
Sorry to hear your news Kirsty. Bad luck. As a fix – how about a name like Olympic Advice (but obviously better than that!) loaded with info for the host city, which you can reuse for future Olympics?
Wow. Guess I didn’t realize you could register trademark a year number. Who owns that trademark? That is bizarre.
What a frustrating situation—feels like David and Goliath. (I really dislike bullies). I wish I knew more about this type of issue and could help. I like Steve’s idea to sell them the site.
What’s the worst case scenario if you leave it up and act like you never received the letter? Did they send the letter certified? Do they have proof you received the information?
If you have the energy I wouldn’t give in without a fight.
(((Hugs)))
I’m sorry to hear this. It really sucks that something like this would happen after all the hard work that you put into it. I never thought about trademark problems when it came to domains. I agree with Nigel. I think you should make it a general website providing information about the Olympics.
Really sorry to hear about this, I know you’ve put a lot of work into producing the website.
You might like to try contacting the owner of “londonolympics2012 dot com” and finding out if there has been a similar complaint. He does have a link pointing site visitors to the real London 2010 site. Maybe that would be enough for you to keep your domain.
I don’t know much about international copyright law. That being said it appears that for matters concerning trademark and copyright, WIPO works under the Madrid System. This allows trademark and copyright registration in multiple member states. While the UK is a part of the agreement, Canada is not. However, this does not necessarily mean that the trademark is not registered in Canada in another way. Member states can be found here at the wipo madrid page
I found this information all on wipo.int so the information should be sound, but it was just a cursory search to get the information coming in. Whether you decide to relinquish the domain or not, keep us posted. Don’t stress and good luck!
Really strange that they could trademark those words, maybe you should ask some advise at one of the legal forums around the internets?
Maybe you could propose to add a few elements to your site, like a disclaimer that you are not the official site and maybe a link to them?
Perhaps changing the domain to “olympics-twenty-twelve” or some such would get around the London 2012 trademark? I mean, can they possibly have trademarked the word “olympics” and “twenty” and twelve”???
BUMMER!
I like Martijn’s advice, to add a few elements and a disclaimer and see if that will satisfy them. We had an organization infringe on one of our trademarks and that was the compromise that we reached. Of course, they’re a do-good non-profit and we’re nice people, but unfortunately not everyone is. I think I would suggest starting there though, and see if that’s enough.
But if not, unfortunately trademark law is on their side. I’m so sorry.
I’d be aggressive and contact some legal help. I do not see how they have trademarked a number and city name. Why don’t they go after Lonely Planet for their London city guide?
I’d offer a disclaimer and link as Martijn and Rene suggested. Point out that the domain name was available for purchase and you legally registered the name. If they demand that the site disappear, I’d agree on the condition that they pay you for your hard work.
Make an invoice and value your work high. The only reason they have an issue with your site is that you are ranking high. That is worth lots, so make an hourly wage or rate per link or some such number and make them pay through the nose…
Unfortunately, it’s the combination of London and 2012 that are the issue here. (And possibly the use of the word Olympics on your site)
You could probably get away with it with either or… but “London 2012″ seems like a no-no.
You may have to iterate a bit to get to where you want. I’d put a 301 permanent redirect on everything from that domain to your new one (to not lose the work you’ve done so far) and remove ‘Olympics’ from the title and heading.
That should be enough I’d have though?
Kirsty, that’s too bad after you’ve put so much work into that site. I don’t think ignoring them is a good idea, though. I suggest finding out as much as you can about the issue on the Internet; maybe you can find a citizens’ group that helps with trademark issues? It may be possible to fight them, but it would cost you a lot of time and money.
Now that I think about it, Kirsty, they may not be able to enforce a ban like that on a blog, since publications (and a blog certainly is a publication) are protected by free speech laws. So it may be just the domain name that’s at issue. As I said before, check it out as much as you can, maybe even drop a couple hundred on a consultation with a trademark lawyer, and good luck!
Sorry to say it Kirsty, but I think your domain is as good as gone. Some companies are not too strict about copyright/trademark violations. Unfortunately the Olympics committee is quite strict about this kind of thing. I live in Vancouver and when the Olympics came here they were protecting their trademarks with an iron fist. They were forcing businesses to remove olympic ring graphics from their buildings and I’m pretty sure they took over numerous domains. You can always do some searches for Vancouver olympics keywords and see if any of their domains survived. It got so bad that one company had a special sale that was basically a long winded way to talk about the olympics without actually using the trademarks. It was something like ‘big winter event set to take place in Vancouver sale’.
By the way, I don’t think they’ll let you simply redirect that domain somewhere else. In their eyes that redirect from a trademark violation domain is still misleading. They’ll likely force you to redirect to the official olympics website with no compensation. They wouldn’t even consider buying the domains as they wouldn’t want people to profit from the trademark violation. Why buy something that they can simply force you to hand over for free?
IANAL but I read lawyer pretty well. I’d deff. hunt down a lawyer with knowledgy-ness about international trademark law, even just for an opinion. I know things get weird with the whole commonwealth thing. Lawyers may not be fun but they sure can be useful.
Also, having read the decision from the other case, it looks like the domain was parked and/ or up for sale. I dunno if yours is as well, but that could at least be a point in your favor. While there seem to be three main arguments they used to “win”, it also looks like the really short/ useless reply by the former owner had quite a bit to do with the decision.
Talk to a lawyer- worst case you lose a couple hundred dollars, best case you get to keep your name/ site. Either way you learn a heck of a lot more about international trademark stuff.
Wow, that’s really a tough deal there Kirsty. I really like Laptop’s suggestion about doing some research and seeing what the overall scene is of the other Olympic websites. I’ve had one of these Cease & Desists letters before for an american product that I had the name in the domain and it’s no fun really. At the time actually I saw by searching around on Google alot of other similar domains also got hit the with C&D letter. Unfortunately it is very likely that you will just have to give up the domain name. The smart thing to here is just comply and give them the domain name, you don’t want more trouble than it’s worth. As long as the letter just says that you should hand over the domain name, then by all means do that. You don’t want to find yourself paying them fines or paying anything out of your pocket. It’s tough I know especially since you did put alot of effort into it but in my opinion the best thing to do is just let it go and hand it over to them.
Till then,
Jean
You need to learn how to do a 301 redirect to a new domain (each page of your current site needs to be 301ed to its corresponding page on the new site). You will lose some of the link juice but it’s not an entirely lost cause.
It appears that you have a fight on your hands. Don’t ignore this, as they have all the horsepower. You should resign yourself to the fact that you will need to take your URL out of service. If you want to talk to a lawyer as others have suggested, that would be money well spent to get some answers. However, I think you have little choice but to do as they say.
Sorry it’s going down this way. I was looking forward to getting all my Olympics info from your site. Because of the potential for traffic your site had, you might want to hire someone through elance or some other service to assist in the transition to a new domain name. I think it might still pay off for you since you have some time and all the work has been mostly completed. Maybe your readers could offer some new domain names?
Problem is defiantly with the Phrase “London 2012″ & the use of the word “Olympics”
London Twenty Twelve Games should be fine doing a 301 redirect
“ASP”
To a new domain like “London Twenty Twelve Games” will keep you all the link juice, then do a find and replace in site/database for
“Olympic/s” Replace with “Game/s”
“London 2012″ Replace with “London Twenty Twelve”
Check images for same
Then drag out transferring the domain after a few weeks the link juice will be credited to the new domain in Google’s eyes.. and Google’s bots understands the link between the different phrasing
Lastly A few links to the Official Site and a big old disclaimer Claiming you are in no way affiliated with the Official site should be fine…
You are not responsible for who links to you “you dont need to change nothing here”
I have been on both ends of these, a lot are bluffs and some are not this is probably not.. We used to run the Olympics shop way back when along with most major league stores..
Lastly find out what other unofficial sites are doing by googling the terms and doing a inurl: search
Good Luck
The same thing happened to me. After speaking to attorneys and attorney friends I realised I didn’t have much of a chance in fighting it so here’s what I did:
1. Wrote to the company right away telling them I received their letter and will respond within 10 days. Not responding can be seen negatively so this was what was advised to do.
2. I then wrote and said that I would change my domain name. I gave them a sob story of how this is how I earn my income etc and that it would take me a few months to do all if this (give a date)
3. In the mean time I redirected the old domain to my new domain and posted a note explaining what happened to my users.
4. They agreed to that but then I asked that I hand over my domain name.
5. I wrote back very politely (this is very important!!) and said I would be happy to let them have it in two years which is when it was set to expire. I was told that asking them to buy it might reflect negatively on me. They never responded to that so I still have both domains.
If I were you, I’d buy a new domain, redirect the old one and let go of the stress that comes with this. I had several sleepless nights and it’s not worth it. I wanted to be building sites not fighting cases. Yes it’s wrong and it’s stupid to be able to trademark generic terms but it is what it is. You will build you site again. In the end I ended up with higher traffic than before. Feel free to email if u have more questions.
Wow! I’m pretty sure you guys me way more advice than I give you! THanks so much for all the thoughtful comments.
I’m perusing domain names now. The plan is to move the site over to the new domain, do a 301 redirect to get the juice, and hope that that’s enough to appease them. Then if they want the domain altogether I’ll stop the redirect and probably delete the domain rather than just hand it over… although not sure if it makes a difference.
I guess this means that my Rio domain which has ‘Rio’, ‘Olympics’ and ’2016′ is also screwed! So I’m going to go for a generic type name so I can use it with all Olympic games in the future.
Ok… time to go domain shopping! I’ll keep you all posted about what happens and thanks again!
Glad it sounds like you’ve come up with a plan to deal with this mess. Suki gave some very good advice since she’s gone through that exact same scenario. Of course it’s still going to come down to how much of an ass the Olympics people want to be about this. You would think they would actually be less strict than companies, but they are very protective of trademarks. So just do what it takes to resolve this with spending the least amount of extra money and wasting the least amount of time possible. BS like this does come up with the internet marketing world. It’s just another obstacle that has to be dealt with. With lawyers potentially involved, there is no point in trying to fight it or try to sneak around their complaint. So be sure your new domain name is completely compliant.
When you have done the switch I’m sure your readers would be happy to throw you a little link love also
“I’m going to go for a generic type name so I can use it with all Olympic games” I had the same situation with “final four” + year eventually came up with something that works for all years..
I am sorry to hear this is happening to you Kirsty. I had a friend who did a ton of work on his site only to be contacted to take it down due to keywords in the domain name having a trademark. I am surprise also you can trademark London and 2012, seems kinda ridiculous. Kinda like copyrighting the phrase “your fired”. Let us know what you decide to do.
- Robert
Wow that sucks! The toughest part is losing all of your link building that you’ve done. Hope it works out. Hang in there
I am apologetic to apprehend this. It absolutely blows that something like this would appear afterwards all the harder plan that you assign into it.
Aw, this is not really good. I mean, you have no choice but to follow the rule and the law. The safest thing to do here , I think, is to do what they want or what they told you to do about this case stated at their letter.
The worst thing you can do is NOT respond. They will simply file a UDRP, and WIPO will direct your registrar to turn the name over to the complainant.
As stated several times above, the Olympic committee goes after their TM vigorously. MY suggestion (if you REALLY want to keep the name) is to contact an Attorney specializing in IP/Domains – John Berryhill or Howard Neu come to mind – Google them for their info.
Good luck!
sip
Wow. That sucks donkey balls. I hope it works out!
I used the google trends tool to see what was searched for at the last olympics
http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends?sa=X&date=2008-8-8
2012 summer olympics
Maybe using summer in your title will work?
(((hugs)))
Can’t really give advice because I’ve not been in your situation and am not knowledgeable on international law. But I will be following with interest so keep us posted.
If I was in your situation I would ask them what they wanted and try to negotiate a bit. At least try to retain some of the work you put in. I would guess any related word would work best in URLs so it’s hard to match the performance you are getting from the website now and (what would be) in the future with it.
Hmm… sorry, to hear that, but you were warned 18 months ago that you were impinging on the Olympic Committee’s trademark (http://www.nerdynomad.com/2009/04/08/london-2012-olympics-site-launched#comment-29485) and even you yourself acknowledged you were “pushing your luck”. The IOC are notorious for aggressively pursuing anyone who steps on their IP so I guess it’s a costly lesson learned that you should read widely around any subject before starting up a big project about it.
That’s sad news. But seriously London and 2012 shouldn’t be trademarks. i think these words are too general. If that was the case, they shouldn’t have given you domain in the first place.
Bad luck but I guess you knew before how protective the Olympic movement is.
Even some Chip shop owner in the East End of London had his knuckles wrapped for renaming his sausages, London 2010 Bangers!
Perhaps now is an opportunity to use a generic name, like summer games guide etc and this way you can re-use the domain?
I always thought it would be a shame to see the site virtually die in two years because no one will be searching for London 2012 after then unless you made it a historic site perhaps?
London1948.com was still available when I last looked, I wonder if you’d get in trouble over that!
What Suki said is what I was going to suggest.
Get that new domain fast, because you want the 301 up for as long as you can play it!
The Olympics people are all real bastards about their IP, so *don’t* expect them to just forget about you.
Follow the steps Suki suggested and hope you manage to keep the domain for the 301 (you of course want to do you best to update all the existing links. Should you somehow manage all of them, the 301 would be much less important to you)
That’s a nice domain name. I am not sure what you could do, but just hope you get it sorted out soon. Good luck.
I don’t see how they can do that. You own the site and there wasn’t a trademark when you bought it was there? That really sucks that they slapped a redirect on it.
yes i can understand its a bit disappointing moment for you but sure you will find out better one.