Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Copyright infringement?

This is topic Copyright infringement? in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Andrew McCrea (Member # 674) on 01-27-2007, 01:37 PM:

So, on the 24th I started a web forum (with friends) called Eleven Magazine and today Googled "Eleven Magazine" which brought up elevenmagazine.

At the bottom of their site, it says "all contents ©elevenmagazine 2006" and on the about page, it says "First launched on October 16, 2002, elevenmagazine is an Australian based site for those with a keen interest in all things music.

Featuring news, reviews and interviews along with band profiles, festival updates, special features and gig listings elevenmagazine hopes to satisfy all your music wants.

We hope you enjoy your stay."

My website and our forum looks nothing like theirs, and neither does the logo nor the slogan resemble theirs at all. They both generally deal with the same issues (music, arts), but my "magazine" is supposed to be something that the members of the board create together, and also deals with frank sexual discussions, confessions, user submitted creations and headlines.

Their copyright would be for Australia, so is it safe in Canada? Can I go until a cease and decist order is sent?

Opinions, suggestions?

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 01-27-2007, 03:11 PM:

"Twenty-Two Magazine" doesn't seem to be taken...

You could also go with "Ten-Eleven" or "Eleven-Twelve".

[Wink]

Posted by Andrew McCrea (Member # 674) on 01-27-2007, 03:15 PM:

But wouldn't their copyright only protect them in their country since they cannot dictate the law in other places?

One of the first times I didn't Google around first!

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 01-27-2007, 03:27 PM:

There are international copyright agreements that many nations are party too
Also trademark registration is now international as well

Posted by Aaron Mehocic (Member # 15) on 01-27-2007, 04:14 PM:

Both Australia and Canada are accorded dominion status under the British Crown. A slick lawyer may be able to connect the dots and nail you along those lines. Not quite sure, however.

Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 01-27-2007, 04:57 PM:

How did you come up with the name "Eleven Magazine"? If it has nothing to with a -zine, maga- or otherwise, you could just drop the "Magazine" part and probably be just fine. No legal advice implied. [Wink]

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-27-2007, 05:18 PM:

Why not just use some other number. You could pick from one of these hilarious comedy quotes.

JACK BENNY: I was thirty-seven for years. Then I was thirty-eight. Then we stopped at thirty-nine because thirty-nine is a funny number. Forty isn't.

MITCH HEDBERG: My lucky number is one billion. It's cool, except it never works out when I'm throwin' dice. "Come on, a billion!"

BILL COSBY: (in a casino) Everybody's always praying to God: "Please God, give me a seven, please God, give me a ten for twenty-one. Well God hears all this coming up and he doesn't know what to send to who, so God just says, "Bust everybody!"

P.S. Andrew: Your forum pages with gray text on black background are hard to read. They look cool, but for readability I'd at least go to white text.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 01-27-2007, 05:46 PM:

Unless I'm missing something, this is a trademark rather than a copyright issue. In other words, it's the name of Andrew's website, rather than its content (which is obviously and clearly different from the Australian one), which is at issue. Since Andrew is not trying to give the impression that there's any connection or link between his site and the Australian one, I can't see how there can be any problem.

For example, if I started a 'film-tech.co.uk' site, using this site's logos and colour scheme, and offering bottles of used engine oil for sale for use as a cleaning solution on 35mm film prints, that would be a clear trademark infringement, because I'd be trying to associate my bootleg product with Brad's original one. But if I started a 'film-tech.co.uk' site with a completely different logo and colour scheme and selling cling-film for use in the catering industry, no reasonable person could infer that by using the name I was trying to associate my product with Brad's. By the same token, I can't see how anyone, looking at the two sites in question, could conclude that Andrew was trying to hijack the reputation of the Australian site.

Posted by Andrew McCrea (Member # 674) on 01-27-2007, 10:49 PM:

What we originally intended was to do a web magazine. You'd click the link and be taken to the front page. The front page captions would be linked to the articles.

It was going to be a magazine with a strong political stance, a la Rolling Stone, which sure makes a coincidence. It would offer music reviews etc. and also look heavily at current world events.

We wanted to make the magazine flexible and allow users to contribute, and after finding a free BB system, we knew we had found the perfect solution.

The name was chosen long before we even knew what the magazine would become. Since it would be like Time or MacLean's, we wanted to provide that irony that Michael Moore used in Farenheit 9/11 by saying that the scare tactic is a selling feature, so we chose Eleven based on the fact that people would associate it with the diamond logo (its two diamonds that look like the WTC).

It not supposed to be offensive, but its supposed to show how sick things are in this world, but how it helps make big corporations succeed.

Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 01-29-2007, 12:48 PM:

Copyright the name, and register the trademark in Canada. If the registration goes though with no conflict, your probably good, if not, you know you are going to have a problem that you mighn't as well fix now before you become well known.

Posted by Andrew McCrea (Member # 674) on 01-29-2007, 03:11 PM:

Doesn't that cost a billion dollars? [Razz]

P.S. I'm a low income earner and have to save for school right now.
P.S.S. Mitchell, you look like Lorne Michaels!

Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 01-29-2007, 03:25 PM:

Here in the US of A, copyrighting and trademarking is not expensive. It gets expensive when you hire a lawyer to do it for you, or hire someone to do copyright/trademark searches. You don't need all that, all your doing is filing to covering your rear. If it is already copyrighted/trademarked, your application will bounce out of the system. If not, you have some level of protection should your site become popular.

No, Lorne Michaels looks like me. I'm the original, he is the clone.

Posted by Scott Jentsch (Member # 1681) on 01-30-2007, 04:47 PM:

Andrew,

I see that you're using phpBB for your forum software.

One word of caution, keep up to date on all the security fixes. Disable any features that you don't need, remove scripts that you aren't using.

phpBB is an exploit magnet for some reason, probably due to its popularity across the net. I was using it for a while on a client's site, and decided that it wasn't worth the hassle any more. The forum community never really got going, and the frequent updates and abuse attempts that I found in our logs dealt it the final blow.

The software itself was easy enough to use, and had the feature-set that I was looking for, but you just have to keep an eye on it to prevent against being compromised.

FYI.