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Life through a polaroid is no more

instagatainstagata
edited November 2005 in Vanilla 1.0 Help
After a 6 month legal battle I have finally settled with polaroid.

They got the domain www.lifethroughapolaroid.com and I got some cash.

w00t

Comments

  • ChrisGwynneChrisGwynne ✭
    How much?
  • instagatainstagata
    image

    100 million dollars!!!
  • Mr. FahrenheitMr. Fahrenheit
    uh... that's it?
  • nathannathan
    seriously... is it a fair amount?
  • KosmoKosmo
    Maybe Google would like to buy my Kosmov.net :D
  • MarkMark Vanilla Staff
    *buys lifethroughavaio.com* *buys lifethroughathinkpad.com* *buys lifethroughapowerbook.com* *waits for phat cash*
  • FLCFLC New
    *buys lifethroughvanilla.com*
    *buys lifethroughafilebroswer.com*

    *waits for some of Mark's proverbial "phat" cash*
  • JazzmanJazzman
    Hehe... funny :P
  • instagatainstagata
    you should have seen the initial letter that got send to me by polaroids IP lawyers. fucking naaaastay. I will have to scan it in and post it up
  • lechlech ✭
    Sounds crazy, what was the initial dispute about though and what was the site content? Obviously they probably didn't like something you were doing with their name so please, do tell :D
  • instagatainstagata
    The dispute was over the domain name lifethroughapolaroid.com (how good is it) and the use of the scanned polaroid on the website. They were trying to claim the free promotion of their product was detrimental to their business etc etc etc the initial site content was basically a bunch of photographs that I would put up every month to show everyone. I designed it around the polaroid and it looked really nice and worked a treat. I just looked at it as them wanting the domain name for themselves for marketing purposes
  • Nathan_ANathan_A
    the other possibility is to protect the name "polaroid" generic. If a company doesn't actively try to protect people from using it in a possibly generic sense (ie, in place of the word photograph), then they can lose the rights to have it a protected trademark. You see the same with Adobe, actively discouring people using Photoshop as a verb (they suggest "I edited this photo with Photoshop", instead of "I photoshopped this photo") bit iffy now, considering polaroid has entered niece status - but you never know
  • nathannathan
    I will always say I 'photoshopped it', unless I am speaking to a client. Even then, most of my clients are light hearted and would not mind. I know what these companies are trying to do, but I think they are taking it to the extreme. Imaging if google started thinking like this... what then? I would have to use the word 'search' again, instead of just 'google it'.
  • KosmoKosmo
    What would happen if I registered www.iownmicrosoftdotcom.com? Americans are notorious for using company names or product names as a proper verb and it is even accepted to use them in any form of spoken or written text. Examples are: "goole it" instead of "search it" "kodak moment" instead of "photograph" "to xerox" instead of "to copy something with copymachine" "photoshop" instead of "edit image in image editing software" and the list goes on. So I understand their worry about the proper use of their product and company name.
  • MinisweeperMinisweeper New
    i must say i've never heard of 'to xerox', but 'kodak moment' especially was actually the kodak marketing phrase so for them to get rid of that would be plain stupid.
  • KosmoKosmo
    Well, mainly the reason why people use the term and why the company name is Xerox is because of the Xerography technique.
  • lechlech ✭
    /me wanders off to potatochop and polaroid his findings
  • instagatainstagata
    hahaha I am betting we will see some crappy polaroid advertisement soon with the domain name. either that or the lawyers for polaroid were hunting for shit to do.
  • lechlech ✭
    Well, the good news is you were at least compensated and not sued or anything worse. I bet their HR domain whores were looking for shit to do one day and googled up your site. It's rather sad when companies stoop so low to knock someones domain out who isn't even remotely their competition.
  • instagatainstagata
    I wasnt even trying to make money off the site it was all for arts sake.
This discussion has been closed.