Copyright/trademark name in a title tag

[temi]

I got and email from a guy a day or so ago asking me to remove the name of his site from my sites title tag or one of my sites or else he will take legal action against me. I told him to go ahead and be my guest.

After that, he sent a more conciliatory email saying okay, sorry about the initial heavy handed email but could I remove that word from my site's title tag. I say yes, on one condition, he should remove my site/product's name from his site's title tag as well.

The interesting thing was that this guy actually inserted my site/products name in his site's title tag months ago, when I saw him doing this, I paid him in kind.

There could be a gap in my knowledge but is there a law that prohibits you from using certain word in your site meta tag?

[TnT]

Anything that has a legitimate trademark name such as Nike, Disney or Lego for example – can not be used unless you have prior permission to do so, or you are an authorised licence holder to use the trademark name to sell or distribute on the trademarks companies behalf.

For instance, if you make your own operating system, you can’t call yourself Microsoft-OS or such like. If you’re a trading company, you can not use another companies name if it trademarked. If you’re called Toms Bakery, and you’re using a competitors name within your site keywords / description/ such as Joes Bakery – when you’re not said company, then legal issues can arise from that, but if it’s not legally trademarked, or registered, it’s going to quickly empty someone’s wallet.

Unfortunately, the law regarding the use of names inside meta tags, especially keywords is still much in a grey area. A few years back we had a site that was copying our specific site keywords into their own site, to try and jump ahead in search rankings. The site was in direct competition, but neither site / company was trademarked or registered, or copyrighted, so not much at the time could be done about it. Further down the road, the site did get it’s name trademarked, and was able to successfully have a site removed that was using the sites name in a derogatory tone, it only took a couple of legal letters, and the host pulled the plug on the site.

If you’re a company trading with a specific name you wish to have protected, become a registered company, have the name trademarked, go through the proper copyright procedure, don’t just stick a © and date on, there’s much more to it than that. There are a number of sites available for checking your competitors sites for ‘ripped’ content and keywords, use them, and there are a number of sites providing templates for writing an initial legal proceedings letter too. However, remember, unless you’ve got the ® or legal TM then you have a vast grey area of the law as a playground.

[deluxdon]

Originally Posted by TnT

Anything that has a legitimate trademark name such as Nike, Disney or Lego for example – can not be used unless you have prior permission to do so, or you are an authorised licence holder to use the trademark name to sell or distribute on the trademarks companies behalf.

For instance, if you make your own operating system, you can’t call yourself Microsoft-OS or such like. If you’re a trading company, you can not use another companies name if it trademarked. If you’re called Toms Bakery, and you’re using a competitors name within your site keywords / description/ such as Joes Bakery – when you’re not said company, then legal issues can arise from that, but if it’s not legally trademarked, or registered, it’s going to quickly empty someone’s wallet.

Unfortunately, the law regarding the use of names inside meta tags, especially keywords is still much in a grey area. A few years back we had a site that was copying our specific site keywords into their own site, to try and jump ahead in search rankings. The site was in direct competition, but neither site / company was trademarked or registered, or copyrighted, so not much at the time could be done about it. Further down the road, the site did get it’s name trademarked, and was able to successfully have a site removed that was using the sites name in a derogatory tone, it only took a couple of legal letters, and the host pulled the plug on the site.

If you’re a company trading with a specific name you wish to have protected, become a registered company, have the name trademarked, go through the proper copyright procedure, don’t just stick a © and date on, there’s much more to it than that. There are a number of sites available for checking your competitors sites for ‘ripped’ content and keywords, use them, and there are a number of sites providing templates for writing an initial legal proceedings letter too. However, remember, unless you’ve got the ® or legal TM then you have a vast grey area of the law as a playground.

From where you have copy-paste this ? Can you share a direct link with us please.

DON.

[TnT]

I typed it in Word - hence it's in Times New Roman lol shared mainly from personal experiance with a similar issue.

As for links:

KeywordSpy is meant to be a good resource - (why people can't just right click and view source I'm not sure?)

there's another link too that I just can't find (highly disorganised favourites) that can to content check to make sure your content hasn't been copied or violated etc..........if I find it, I'll edit and pop it in.

hope that helps

Edit bit Brand Protection | Online Brand Name Protection | Internet Brand Protection | Protecting Brands - another good link (wasn't in my favourites which is why I couldn't find it, it was in the web stats............still can't find t'other one though!

found it Copyscape - Website Plagiarism Search - Web Site Content Copyright Protection

[temi]

I have a website that uses Google, Yahoo and MSN in its title tag, I have had the site for years, I have never had any complaints from those three companies.

[TnT]

This is the wonderful grey area - if you pose no threat, no harm, and it's deemed as harmless and if anything promotes themselves, there is no worry, it's just a huge grey area - I'm sure if someone set up a forum and then just named it uk webmaster world, and utilised all the SEO used on this site - people might gettle a little miffed - but there would be no real legal standing on it.

Lego managed to win a case against someone using their product in some videos, but because it was deemed that the vids weren't in Lego's clean nature they had to drop the lego brand name from the title. How many of us ask for a 'biro'? or go to 'hoover' the mess up?

It's a huge grey area, and I'm sure in time and I'm sure there have been some cases in court to argue such things, it's a case using some common sense, and thinking correctly, there's no point in getting into arguments, or annoying other people or landing in a legal battle - especially if it's for a little bit of PR etc.

Wasn't there a similar case where - I think it was Microsoft threatened legal action against a 12 year old in Canada about the domain name or site he was running - can't remember the fully story, maybe someone else can remember - but it's a similar thing. There's no harm, if it's doing no harm.

[KingPin]

TNT, you mean the kid who owned Mike-Roe-Soft.com?

Yeah thats how sad MS are, took a domain of the poor kid but he got compensated very well for it.

KP

[OldWelshGuy]

I am well versed in IP as we dealt with it daily with our newspaper

there is something called 'fair use' for example, microsoft is a trademark, but how else could I convel who I am talking about without using their trademarked name? I could say "that software company that makes windows operating sytems" BUT, Windows is ALSO a trademark, so I would have to say "that company who maake the most popular operating system for PC's that have a wavy flag logo on them, and use blue as corporate colopurs and is owned by William J gatesIII"

But you can see how ridicolous THAt is so the law allows fair use. EG Image my trying to write a product review of Windows Vista, without being able to mention either windows, or vista

Fair use also allows you to grab snippets of copyrighted material for use in reviews, articles etc.

So temi, if his site was about 'joes fishing shop Dallas' then you are TOTALLY within your rights to have a page title of "Joe's fishing shop Dallas, Store review" and there is not a damned thing he can do about it.

In fact THAt is on of the metods I use to ensure my clients dominate for their competitors phrases and push the actual competitor site off the first page

[temi]

Thanks for that contribution OWG, I would quite like the guy to test this legally like he is threating to do, maybe it will set some sort of precedence. But I am 98% sure that he does not have a case, the words in question are actually generic words. If it was a word he created for example "Haabaa" I think he may have a case but we are talking of words that are generic words which is probably impossible to trademark.

[livetech]

It's not the only action, but that one was a bit of a PR disaster for Microsoft, just because of the age of the kid. He was 17 - if I can recall - and it was a hobbyist programming site. But domains such as Mikerosoft.net have also been threatened with legal action (I believe that one may have been owned by a chap called Mike Rosoft).

I generally thought title tags are fine for most things (I have Google/MSN/Yahoo in title tags, and it's done me no harm), as if you're promoting other people's stuff, then that's fine. I believe domains are a legal grey area. Say if I have a site about - say - the Nintendo Wii and I sell Wii goods on it and the domain name is something like wiishop.com, then Nintendo could come knocking on my door if it becomes commercially viable. However, if I have a wii blog on the domain name wiiblog.com, then as it's not a commercial venture, I'm okay.

However, if the blog makes money, I'm not sure.

On the list of things that I am, a lawyer isn't one of them. So don't take my words as gospel.