| LED Digest 1738: The Web, Search Engines, and Trademark Law |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Reg. from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam,led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com ................................................ January 29, 2004 Issue #1738 ................................................ .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Web Ad Trademark Laws ==-- ~ Michael Martinez "...where the Web and search engines are concerned, Trademark Law is taking on some unique characteristics." ~ Brent Duncan "The Thunderbird car is named after...the native American deity..." ~ Heikki Nylund "[The Thunderbird] killed Killer Whale that ate the salmon, restoring good catches..." --== Ad Blocking Software ==-- ~ Tom Aman "You *cannot* guarantee the way any Website will appear on anyone's computer but your own." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Local Sites, Local Hosting? ==-- ~ Jack Allison ~ George Forder ~ Nitin Agarwal ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Michael Martinez Subject: Trademark ads > Can you please point me to the source of the word xerox being a > common term prior to the company Xerox or it's products. - Simon McArdle, LED 1737 Please forgive me if I misinterpret your intention, but I sense an unnecessary tangent in the making, and I wish to stay relevant to my original point. I hope my remarks below suffice. > Cheery-O and Cheerios are two completely different words. It is a pun, an intentional play on words. However, that is beside the point. See below. > What is a Thunderbird apart from a Ford car. > Is a Thunderbird actually a bird too? Mythologically, yes. The name is taken from the translation of (or English nomenclature for) a popular North American Indian motif and mythological figure. > Can you point me to the source of the word Middle-Earth > that is derived from Middle English. THE source would be Middle English. I do not know what the oldest citation of "Middle-earth" would be. The Oxford English Dictionary probably gives the fullest etymology for the term. J.R.R. Tolkien, who popularized the name through his novel, THE LORD OF THE RINGS, derived it from his extensive knowledge of Middle English (one of the subject areas in which he worked professionally). Much of my research on Tolkien is available free of charge online, and I will say no more about it here. People are welcome to contact me offlist with Tolkien-specific questions, although I have little time for such exchanges these days. > Xerox is an invented word. - Ian Dickson, LED 1737 Of course, all words are invented. However, in Xerox' case, they once dominated the copier market to the extent that it was common (in the United States, at least) for people to use the word "xerox" as a verb. It was even recorded in a number of dictionaries as both a noun and a verb. Xerox Corporation became so concerned for its trademark that a multi-year, multi-million dollar campaign was launched to persuade writes in all industries (including fiction) to stop using their name as a verb. They often took out full-page advertisements in writers' magazines in the 1980s, asking writers and editors not to use "Xerox" as a verb. I have often noted the irony that, as their campaign increased in persuasive success, they lost significant market share in the photocopier market. My belief is that they should have left well enough alone. However, Xerox managed to recapture control over the use of their name (at great expense), and other companies learned from Xerox's experience. They initiated pre-emptive trademark protection campaigns. That is, they have discouraged people from using their names as verbs. > But the context was that of how much power does a trademark > holder have to control the results of search engines. The US courts have been asked to evaluate what dilutes the value of existing trademarks in current search engine-related practices. Some people have set up Web sites which make exclusive use of trademarks they don't own in order to capture business. Such sites have been found to violate trademarks. Some people have also set up businesses which REFER to trademarks through their promotion, but do not make use of explicit trademarks in their Web content. Google won a lawsuit against Bob Massa's PR link sales network. So, you cannot use Google's trademarked name to create a business model which revolves around the value provided by Google's service. My point is that where the Web and search engines are concerned, Trademark Law is taking on some unique characteristics. Michael Martinez, Author Understanding Middle-earth http://www.xenite.org/ ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Brent Duncan Subject: Trademark ads > What is a Thunderbird apart from a Ford car. > Is a Thunderbird actually a bird too? - Simon McArdle, LED 1737 The Thunderbird car is named after -- and the logo is designed upon -- the native American deity that translates into English as "Thunderbird". I have a Navajo rug that depicts the Thunderbird. Since it predates the Thunderbird car by about 100 years, I assume that means the deity came just a bit before the car. Brent Duncan ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Heikki Nylund Subject: Thunderbird Thunderbird is a mythical creature of northwest Indians. It killed Killer Whale that ate the salmon, restoring good catches to the people. Regards, Heikki Nylund http://www.chitarrata.com/ ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Tom Aman Subject: Ad blockers > ... don't tell me that you want to look at their content AND not > see their ads. It's not your content. It's theirs and they may > present it any way they wish. Your only choice should be > to either accept it or go elsewhere. - Steve Fleming, LED 1735 I will agree with that approach ONLY if you can ABSOLUTELY GUARANTEE than NONE of the ads displayed will try to set any form of tracking info (usually in the form of a cookie) on my computer. It may be their content but it is my computer that ends up with the cookie, not theirs. > Changing the way a website was originally designed to be > presented is the same as using film, music or literature and > changing the way the author originally created it. It is > intellectual property theft. There is no intellectual property theft involved at all. Film is very often presented in a way that is different from the way it was originally created. A wide screen movie certainly requires much different treatment to show on a TV screen. It needs to be be reformated, and usually some scenes are even removed to fit it into the available time. And movies are often released in several forms on video and/or DVD (wide screen, TV screen format, including extra scenes, director's cut, etc.) Music is often presented differently than the way the author originally created it, and the older the composition, the greater the variety of presentations available - different instruments, different tempos, with and without lyrics, etc. Same with literature - making a film based on a book requires a huge change from the way the author originally created it. But it can all be done within the limits of the copyright - just requires the copyright holder's permission. As to Website presentation, I've said it before and I'll say it again. You CANNOT guarantee the way any Website will appear on anyone's computer but your own. It is the very nature of HTML. To think you can control the exact way in which a Web page will display shows a lack of understanding of how the Web works. Computers differ, operating systems differ, browsers differ, browser settings differ, monitor resolutions differ, color depths differ, etc., etc., etc. As long as the Website content (i.e. the TEXT) is presented in some fashion, that is best that can be expected. If the surfer ALLOWS anything else (images, ads, sounds, colors, etc.) to show up on his/her system, the Website owner should considered that to be a bonus because the surfer controls all of that. When you put up a Web page, you are implicitly accepting those limitations over your control. That is the way the Web works. Tom Aman Aman Software http://www.cyberspyder.com ==== BILLBOARD ==================================== From: Jack Allison Subject: Local hosting My 2 cents worth The debate on local hosting seems to be missing an important point when it comes to Google. Since they have many different servers and Country URLs, a dot com URL will not be rated so highly for the local Country search (e.g. looking for a .com result on Google.com.au having selected "pages from Australia" as the result filter). So you could lose surfers that check a local results box if you don't have a local URL. Jack Allison When the music stops http://www.whenthemusicstops.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: George Forder Subject: Local hosting > I recently had a conversation with a South African who > was telling me that a lot of US based ASP type sites > were virtually unusable from South Africa because the > international connections linking SA to the rest of the > world are overloaded. - Ian Dickson, LED 1737 I am in South Africa, (but not the South African mentioned) I used to host my sites on South African servers until I visited my sister in the USA. It was very frustrating trying to get into the sites. I did a little research on both-ways connectivity and now I host my sites in Germany, which seems to have the bandwidth to meet the world. I'd be interested in comments. George Forder Spindrift International www.spindrift.co.za ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Nitin Agarwal Subject: Local hosting I have been optimizing sites from 4.5 years now. I am very sure that the sites hosted on local servers make your site more accessible through search engines. You need to have either a local domain name or a local hosting, if you want to be popular in a particular market. When my client has an offer specially made for a local market, say "UK", I just make sure that this site is hosted in UK if I can not have a UK based domain. Do a search for "Rajasthan tour packages" on Google.co.uk (with pages from UK option checked, if you are outside UK) , and you will see www.newagetours.com in top positions just because this is hosted on UK servers. My 2 cents ! Warm Regards Nitin Agarwal, Project Manager -Internet Marketing www.ishir.com ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2004 Adam Audette. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "We are confronted with insurmountable opportunities." - Pogo |
