The Problems With Accepting Advice On Forums.
Many people seek advice on forums. It can be easy to find the answers that you require by doing this But there is 1 problem, how can you rely on advice from strangers? Especially when you have no idea of their credentials.
I am a regular on a domain forum called Namepros and 1 thing I notice is that everyone is willing to give their $0.02.
So what is the problem of this you may ask? People are trying to help so surely it can’t do any harm!
You would think that wouldn’t you, but when people start giving legal advice when they have no knowledge of the legal system can be downright dangerous. All too often I see on such forums that people will give advice that is wholly inappropriate and could land an individual in trouble.
If you are a member of such a forum please please try and keep to the facts in such legal matters, only respond if you know something as fact. If you are unsure of the facts read the advice others give and educate yourself. Part of the problem caused by people posting wrong information is that the original poster does not know what to believe and causes confusion. Another more serious side affect is that the person may follow your advice and land himself in serious legal problems with the potential of having a serious fine or even imprisonment.
On the other hand if you ask for advice please READ THE ADVICE given. I was involved in a thread recently where someone registered a .net domain and intended to use it as a direct competitor for a site that was on the .com. They contacted the .com owner for permission to go ahead with the project and of course they said no. It took us many posts to convince the person that if they went ahead anyway that they would be violating the trademark of the other party, in fact direct links showing the rules of trademarks was given and they still did not believe us. Their argument was that although the site was active for x amount of years they had not registered the trademark, NEWSFLASH trademarks can be obtained via usage. Registering a trademark just makes it easier to enforce as they can prove 100% when they registered it. If you do not register a trademark you have to prove sufficiently that you were using the trademark before the other party. This can usually be done simply by obtaining a cache that a service such as the wayback machine has on record.
The moral. If you are going to give advice to a user on matters of legality ensure that you know what you are talking about. If you are asking for advice on the other hand be prepared to accept the information given, even if you do not like it, just because you do not like it does not make it untrue (laws are not made to make people happy). There are many knowledgeable people on these types of forums just be prepared to check what they say and accept it if true.
October 30th, 2007 at 6:44 pm
Heh, Unfortunately I knew who you were talking about (”Legal Issues” board) almost instantly.
Dan
October 30th, 2007 at 8:31 pm
Yeah I had 1 particular thread in mind. The person would just not believe that trademarks do not have to be registered no matter how many times he was told.
All too often we see people telling others to ignore trademark laws and to just sell the domain or things like that. And in 1 post I remember someone basically saying to make it difficult as possible for the trademark holder to get it. this sort of thing does not serve any purpose at all and instead makes a potentially bad situation worse.