However, upon a bit of research I discovered that I have been using graywolf.com since before they had formed their company. That I had registared a DBA (Graywolf Consulting) in Charlotte NC several years before they had formed their corportation. They had no recourse against me, and I could have prevented them from operating in NC if I had desired to go to the trouble. The decided not to trouble me, and I decided not to trouble them.
The only time you are going to find a problem is:
1. You register a domain name that is similar to a well known business.
2. You are both pretty much in the same business.
3. Or, as you mentioned, they are a site with a very negative image the reflects back on your site.
Since there is no conflict, and since the .net address was available when they registered the .com and they did not grab it up. I think you have nothing to worry about.
And, welcome back, Jerome. Glad you had such a great trip.
jerome wrote:
Here's a question for you omnipresent/omnipotent pentaxians.
When I registed my website some months ago ( http://exposedfilm.net ), I noticed that someone else had already registered exposedfilm.COM ( http://exposedfilm.com ). However, their site wasn't up yet. Over the past few months, I'd check periodically to see if anything had popped up, but found nothing. I was kinda holding my breath hopeing that it would be neither a porn site nor anything too close to (and worse yet, much better than!) my site.
Well, it finally popped up. It's a movie company. While I'm pleased with that (as if my opinion matters), I was kinda taken aback with the similarity of the logo. We both use a film strip, albeit different types of film. The only solace is that the orientation of mine is landscape, while theirs is portrait.
After I thought about it some, the following question popped up: Given the similarity in name and also logo, are their any circumstances in which I should anticipate this being a problem? Personally, I don't care much about it... but as my imagination ventured off, I pictured them contacting me sometime down the line saying that I have infringed on some copyright / trademark law that I don't even know about... and all I'd be able to say was "but I was here first!"... Now *that* would bother me. It seems like we are both pretty small entities right now, but if they should blow up (not literally), then this line of question may not seem as unreasonable.
What do you think?
Side note: They're in Canada, I'm in the USA.
Aside the side note: since they're the "com" and I'm the "net", they'll likely get more of my mis-directed traffic (not that I Have much anyway) than me theirs. That's crummy, too. I can't catch a break.
-- graywolf http://graywolfphoto.com
"You might as well accept people as they are, you are not going to be able to change them anyway."
