myspace.com and myspace.xxx

tekz999 · Oct 23, 2005

Lets say a owner owns myspace.xxx, and s/he parked it into a PPC parking program like goldkey.com.

1) Will the owner be sued by myspace.com for having myspace.xxx?

2) Can the words "my space" be counted as "generic" domain?

3) What if the owner put a page in index.html like this:

Disclaimer: By entering this site, you agree that we are in no relationship with myspace.com

Click "here" to proceed.

Then once a user clicked "here" and proceeded, he will be redirected to a PPC parking page, then is this ok?

4) Heres another scenario, what if the owner of myspace.xxx is selling a service that myspace.com doesnt have. e.g. postal service. AND, he has put up google adsense advertisements (Pay per click) on the page. Will the owner be alright?

5) What if the owner of myspace.xxx has put up the disclaimer page first, then when a user agrees the disclaimer, s/he will be redirected to buy postal service. Will this be ok also?

I will donate DNF$ for the best clarification of this situation. Any legal advice greatly appreciated!

DNjet · Oct 23, 2005

This of course is just my opinion and not legal advice:

myspace in my judgement is generic as it has several different trademarks on it by several different companies , see links: ( the first being the most popular)
http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=doc&state=7hhed8.2.3
http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=doc&state=7hhed8.2.5
http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=doc&state=7hhed8.2.6
http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=doc&state=7hhed8.2.9

In my opinion using a exact letter domain myspace.xxx in a different extension that is NOT infinging on any of the trademarked content above is perfectly legal as it is a generic term.

A mispelling of the domain in the extension they are using would of course simply fall into cybersquating category and not trademark infingement.