Have there ever been girls of Russian descent who were Playmates?
If so, then putting pictures of those girls on the site - could you not tell a judge that these are indeed sexy women, who are Russian, and who have been Playmates - and there's no law against telling the truth?

I have no idea. If you didn't have the word sexy in the domain, I'd say throw up a kid's site of Russian kids playing in the streets (the age-old definition of "playmates") and tell Playboy GFY. But since that's neither here nor there...

Okay- I think the only reason they can go after you is because it is an adult site. Turn it into a children's site with the topic of "What Russian Playmates do for fun!" ... describe a bunch of Russian games etc... and then reply to them... 'playmate' as they said in the email themselves, general public term, eg: a mom says to another mom "they are play-mates" ... Get rid of the competitive nature of the website, and they can't take the domain, or sue you.. though the domain would probably be useless to you... but it'd be funny to see what Playboy's reaction would be.. Anyone have any comments, or want to tell me what I said is flawed?

Cheers,
Matt

they couldn't sue you for that and win. that would mean a company can 'own' words in the dictionary. which is complete bs.

Why is AOLSUCKS.COM still up & running? Don't AOL own trademark AOL?

I would think of it in terms of this:

1. Playboy has a floor of attorneys sitting around looking for shit to do. They are well versed in patent law as that is probably what they spend most of their time on. (or throwing darts at a picture of Larry Flynt)

2. You have a floor of.. err. ummm, well....you don't have a floor of anything.

3. They are a large company that will spend bucks, that they have, to protect their marks.

4. You are a ....err...ummm....you are not a large company.

5. They will drag you into an Administrative Court where the procedures and rulings are as draconian as you have ever experienced. It is not like civil or criminal court.

6. Think $5000 retainer for you to retain counsel.

7. Now consider the Alamo. It didn't go well for those fella's.

8. You won't do any better than Davey Crocket did.

:1orglaugh I would like to see the end of that.

Serious, do as they say. They even try and sue their own playmates for using the word playmate in the meta tags of their own personal site, and they ARE playmates. So, they won the case. You have no right to use it. You'll lose if you fight it.

I would get ahold of Mike Gatefold.
He battled with Playboy a few years back with Playboys Collectors Gallery.


It cost him a ton of money and headaches to defend himself.

My question to you is..is it worth fighting a long, expensive legal battle over?

Thanks for all the help I will have to sleep on it, I checked with
my lawyers and they both said the same thing and it is there tm
and I?m to close to their biz ?Adult?, if I was a ?playmates palm trees service? maybe have a chance and they have deeper pockets them us, the site is nothing to me and I have a lot for them to get.

Thanks all it was nice to hear those responses

softcore

OK, here's the technique I've used before. I'm not saying its foolproof or guaranteed, but I had this same type of problem over a domain name and was able to successfully keep it despite the legal threats coming from this company that said they owned the trademark to one of the words in this 2 word domain I had. Much like your use of the word playmate.

What I did, in anticipation of a potential problem was to clearly keep the context and use consistent throughout the site in a way that there was a distinguished difference. It is very important for this to legally work to be sure there isn't one use throughout that is different and would be confusing by precise matchup.

So for example in your case with this technique, you would need to use it like "Sexy Russianplay Mates" and clearly break it apart. No where on your site could you use the Playmates under this technique. Every instance needs to have it in consistent distinguishable useage. You might also want to interject a lot of emphasis on "Mates" throughout.

When I did this it drove the other company's attorney nuts cause he knew I had a point that at least that could raise doubt in a juries mind as to intent and that was enough to make them stop their pursuit of my use of this word.

Again, this isn't a guaranteed technique, but it worked for me.

You have to understand one point also, under trademark law if a company does not vigorously defend its trademark it can lose the rights to ever protecting it, so these companies like Playboy have to keep at it even if they don't really sue anyone.

So then why are all the aolsucks type sites still allowed? From the AOL perspective I can see allowing them to stay online, but shouldn't they be protecting their trademark?

Are you kids really questioning the AOLsucks pages?

Not too hard to figure out.

:smokin

I'm questioning the trademark issue Fletch. Do you know the answer, or not?

Same reason fuckgeneralmotors.com is up.

There is a difference between Freedom of Speech or Press, and profiting off someones trademark.

The same thing Larry Flynt fought for.

Parody and Satire.

Its not too hard to figure out.

:smokin

oh yeah.. turning sexyrussianplaymates.com into a kids site will get you into LESS legal hassles not more..lol

aolsucks.com isn't competing commercially is it now..

It's sad to see a huge company try to mess with the small guy over something that won't hurt them at all.

I'd put a disclaimer on your site that lets people know that you have nothing to do with the Playboy corp and ignore it.

If you don't want to ignore it, issue a "I'm a victim of a big bad corp" press release and make them look like the greedy bastards they appear to be.

That was my question. Also wasn't aware that they had to be "commercially competing." So, I should be able to make a Playboy Tribute site, correct?

hmm... I know Mary Ball. Better to let it go; Playboy's reach as a company seems bigger than McDonald's in some ways.

Dear Playboy - Smoke a cock.



seriously, like they gonna come to russia for you.

yeah, sell em the name for as much as you can get

time is money,
their time,
their lawyer's time,
the p.a.'s time etc
it all adds up

then go register

www.HughHeffnerHasAsmallMutantPenis.com

How about promoting (in future) playboycash as partnerprogramm on that site?
IMHO it would be a legal use of the playmate TM because you would be promoting them.

if you want to win the case and kick their asses just make a personal page about russia and your playmates... friends etc..

make it non adult and have some fun....

make the most ugly site ever :thumbsup

Playmate is not generic when it comes to adult related businesses.

If he opened up a site for russian kindergartners to discuss the ins and outs of a good game of hide and go seek or duck duck goose this wouldn't be an issue.

But no...he opened up a site with adult content.

I think you can use it in your keywords but not your *Title* at least that's what they told me on the phone. I had a .to domain and Tonic wouldn't give them my info...so I got an email from Tonic and called Playboy's lawyer... I just told him no problem I'll remove it.

Seems you are in a nasty situation........
its not fair that these assholes are allowed to just flex their muscles and everyone must cower in fear of them, but it does seem you will get your ass kicked as they probably have the best lawyer in the world working for them....

Godd Luck with whatever you decide to do but I would seriously think about it if I were you.......

:thumbsup

thanks agian to all of you for the great thoughts...

the wife says gofuckyourself playboy.
but i dont want to pay the bills to fight.

thanks
softcore

The best way to look at things like this is to ask yourself, is there really any profit in fighting Playboy?

To me, the answer is simple...No.

I had basically the same situation several years ago with Victorias Secret. My wife had a site called "Victorias Secret Hideaway". It took me until a surfer sent an email asking for a catalog before I saw the similarity. Shortly after that, a Victorias Secret lawyer contacted me. I told him I was sorry and gave up the domain.

As long as you have not used the domain, all you have to do is give it up. If you start using it, Playboy will say the damage is done. I have a friend that was sued by Ford for the same thing. The problem is, he was redirecting the domain to an adult site. It ended up costing him almost $40k just to settle the lawsuit.

Frog,

I just get tired of all the inane remarks about fighting trademarks. So yep, I smarted off. I cleaned it up before I posted it tho. :winkwink:

How MANY times has The Hun been in here over the last two years with the same thing and he took the domain/s without working up a sweat. One was in Russia. Now the man has money, but does he have as much as Hef and that corporation?! :Graucho

In so much as not getting blood out of a turnip as someone put it, true alot of cases go unpaid... think abit deeper... when you go for a loan and they pull up that your wages are garnished... Guess what you get from the bank?

0


I'm not sure if it is all over in each state and country but the courts can have X amount automatically taken from your check as well. Just like child support.

Softcore didn't think. Thats all. No one should fault him. Turning it over is the best thing, BUT, he CAN ask them to use it to promote their program. Many companies allow that and they even pay the domain reg costs. I think Lightspeed did it just a couple weeks ago for a Tawnee site. Just a thought.

Try to hold them up for more than you paid and Bang they have you on cybersquatting. Your time isn't allowable to be compensated for.

I'm registering www.mcplaymates.com today. I'll be doing shoots of hot models eating big mucs and quarter tonders. ha ha

You will be hard pushed to find any active domain name ending with playmates so I guess that sums it up.

gayplaymates.com is for sale - wonder why

Because AOL would lose if they sued. 1st amendment...freedom of expression. The guys running AOLsucks.com are not competing with AOL.

See http://www.lawspider.com/frameforum2.shtml for an explanation.