ISLAM NEWSROOM: "When UTUBE Sued YOUTUBE" - ICANN (Internet managers) had to sort it out through arbitration --
It was back in 2004, when an upstart domain name (YouTube) came into being and found itself in trouble for using another company's EXACT SAME NAME (by sound).
This is a true life story of what really happens when someone has the rights to something on the Internet - but a big company comes along and suddenly "Rights" give what to "Wrongs" - when there's enough dough in the pot (so to speak).
Read . .
YOUTUBEISLAM is not the only one dealing with Google's YouTube.com lawyers. Turns out - they were sued by the real owner of the real UTUBE.COM - who has owned their site for 10 years BEFORE YOUTUBE existed... Read the whole story.
YOUTUBE.COM's popularity is proving to be a headache for a company with a similar Web address. Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment is suing the viral video site recently acquired by Google, according to a news report on WTOL-TV in Toledo, Ohio.
The lawsuit alleges that YouTube is too confusingly similar to Universal Tube'S website - (started up in 1996) - UTUBE.COM, which sells tube, pipe and rollforming machinery. Universal Tube said its Web site traffic jumped from 1,500 users a month to more than 2 million, paralyzing the site.
"This is an enormous expense and distraction for us. Contact with our customers has been disrupted, so I fear we have lost sales," Universal Tube owner Ralph Girkins said in a statement. "We have even been contacted by police in Australia accusing us of having child pornography on our Web site. I resent this personally and this confusion is hurting our business."
The lawsuit asks that YouTube stop using the youtube.com domain name or reimburse Universal Tube for the cost of establishing a new corporate identity.
"We were there first--by 10 years. Now I see a potential re-branding that could take years to complete," Girkins said. "I'm not the kind of person who looks for lawsuits, but my business is being threatened by this situation."
The suit comes about three weeks after YouTube was purchased by Google for $1.65 billion in stock. A YouTube spokeswoman said the company declined to comment on the matter.
Now you don't have to be a legal genius or the smartest person in legal matters to know who won - YouTube is still out there and "UTUBE" is bending pipes under another sign on the building.
You read it . . and there's more. What happens when YouTube wants the number one video website in the world for Muslims the week before Ramadan?
Remember YOUTUBEISLAM.COM ?? It's gone now but we still have videos... (duh - you already know what happened)
The biggest problem is - We Muslims must have a voice in the real world... (NOW)
Comments
RSS feed for comments to this post