Newbie question: What is illegal and what's not?!

[Scorpiono]

Hello, I'm quite confused about domain name infringements that occur.

Would iPhoneblog.com be illegal to own? What about ClubAudi.ro for instance?
.. or pretty much every single fan club there is out there for artists, gaming, etc.

What's illegal and what's not?!

Cheers,

 

[Biggie]

depends on usage

ie: the degree to which the domain can be deemed as "confusingly similar" to a brand

or

content that is same or similar to or contains advertisements which contain that brands indentity

and other variations etc, etc

consult legal


imo...

 

[silentg]

I would stay away from artist names and branded product names if you're looking into developing a site.

 

[draggar]

depends on usage

ie: the degree to which the domain can be deemed as "confusingly similar" to a brand

Yep. I am not a lawyer but:

If you had Adobe.com:

It would be illegal to use it for anything related to Adobe products, and possibly graphics software (or software in general?) since that is what their TM is baded on.

It wouild be legal to use it for a site about how to use adobe (mud) as a building material:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe