my profile | my password | search | faq & rules | forum home

» Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE   » Community   » Film-Yak   » Copyright infringement?

Author Topic: Copyright infringement? Andrew McCrea Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 645 From: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada Registered: Nov 2000 posted 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?  |  IP: Logged Tim Reed Better Projection Pays Posts: 5246 From: Northampton, PA Registered: Sep 1999 posted 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".  |  IP: Logged Andrew McCrea Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 645 From: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada Registered: Nov 2000 posted 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!  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 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  |  IP: Logged Aaron Mehocic Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 804 From: New Castle, PA, USA Registered: Jun 99 posted 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.  |  IP: Logged Adam Martin I'm not even gonna point out the irony. Posts: 3686 From: Dallas, TX Registered: Nov 2000 posted 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.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 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.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 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.  |  IP: Logged Andrew McCrea Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 645 From: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada Registered: Nov 2000 posted 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.  |  IP: Logged Mitchell Dvoskin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1869 From: West Milford, NJ, USA Registered: Jan 2001 posted 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.  |  IP: Logged Andrew McCrea Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 645 From: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada Registered: Nov 2000 posted 01-29-2007 03:11 PM                        Doesn't that cost a billion dollars? 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!  |  IP: Logged Mitchell Dvoskin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1869 From: West Milford, NJ, USA Registered: Jan 2001 posted 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.  |  IP: Logged Scott Jentsch Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1061 From: New Berlin, WI, USA Registered: Apr 2003 posted 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.  |  IP: Logged

All times are Central (GMT -6:00)

Printer-friendly view of this topic

Hop To: Select a Forum: Category: Operations -------------------- Digital Cinema Forum Film Handlers' Forum Large Format Forum Ground Level Feature Info, Trailer Attachments & REAL Credit Offsets Category: Community -------------------- Film-Yak Film Handlers' Movie Reviews The Afterlife Bob Maar's Joke-A-Thon Category: Classified -------------------- Equipment and Supplies Wanted/For Sale Help Wanted/Seeking Employment Category: System -------------------- Software Beta Testing Forum

The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.