Hi there,
i'am the owner of the domain: [www.the-rolling-stones.de] since 2002. Now, the Stones changed there Record-Company from EMI to UNIVERSAL.

This week i got a friendly letter from UNIVERSAL - i have to give up / transfer my domain to universal because of trademark reasons an so on.

Anyone here can help me? I would like to keep "my" Domain - because of fan-reasons. I have no commercial interest in this domain.

would be happy for some comments...

I'm anxious to hear about this as well.
Why is there a trademark issue with Universal, but not with EMI?

the-rolling-stones.

They can never win.

The rolling stones almost hit me on my last vacation when I was walking in the mountains.

I planned to write a book about this called "The Rolling Stones" to you think they would allow this ?

__________________________

Quote
harald2002
Hi there,
i'am the owner of the domain: [www.the-rolling-stones.de] since 2002. Now, the Stones changed there Record-Company from EMI to UNIVERSAL.

This week i got a friendly letter from UNIVERSAL - i have to give up / transfer my domain to universal because of trademark reasons an so on.

Anyone here can help me? I would like to keep "my" Domain - because of fan-reasons. I have no commercial interest in this domain.

would be happy for some comments...

harald2002 is this a commercial site ? if not....... they can't win this

__________________________

If it's a 'friendly' letter, maybe they could be persuaded to buy it for appropriate compensation.

Erm... we've all kinda been wanting a concert for a while. Toronto is pretty central...

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SomeTorontoGirl
If it's a 'friendly' letter, maybe they could be persuaded to buy it for appropriate compensation.

Now, there you go!

Harald, in cases like this - you are supposed to get a lot of money from whoever wants to buy your domain-name. Some people became millionaires from being the first with a certain webaddress.... get a good lawyer



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-03-08 22:47 by Erik_Snow.

They should buy it off...sell it for a few
thousand € to that greedy bunch!

Try to sell it through this site; [www.whois.de]
or buy Rolling Stones .com

funny, The-Rolling-Stones.at is still availlable.

_{edit: I changed that for a working link}



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-03-09 15:06 by open-g.

If you are not making money out of their name,basically they can't do shit to you,eexcept try to scare you into giving up the name without they having to pay you money for it.
Tell them you would be willing to NEGOTIATE($$$$) the rights of your website..
As another member mentioned get a lawyer, and please let us know what happens.

"No dope smoking no beer sold after 12 o'clock"

Hi there,
thanks for your comments! I already asked a lawer, a specialist for trademark an copyrights. he said, i should give the domain to UNIVERSÁL because they have the rights on the words "the-rolling-stones" !!!
But - i don't really see the point - i have this domain since 6 years - nothing happend! there was a german stones fanpage before on my site.
And i don't really know if the word-combination "the-rolling-stones" ist really trademarkt protectet?

Keep on fighting. I'm sure we're many right behind ya.
Ya had it first.

Quote
harald2002
I already asked a lawer, a specialist for trademark an copyrights. he said, i should give the domain to UNIVERSÁL because they have the rights on the words "the-rolling-stones" !!!

Get another opinion.

That's a real iffy situation.
read about what happend with Schmidt.de
[www.sedo.de]
Harald Schmidt and SAT.1 won in the end - but it wasn't like that in the beginning.

IMo, it wouldn't be wise to let it get to court, since you haven't used and established something on your domain.
They of course have a proven interest and money doesn't matter for them.
Try to get some cash out of them instead and let it go - walk, before they make you run.
If you lose after some court decides, you'll be sitting on a not so small pile of bills.

Edit

Quote
Baboon Bro
Keep on fighting. I'm sure we're many right behind ya.
Ya had it first.

I appreciate your sympathizing, but an independent court does not look at how many sympathizers are backing one.

Thoroughly thought over and pragmatic words
from our friend open-g there. I take back what I said
& will support open-g's statement above totally.

Why would The-Rolling-Stones.de belong to Universal, when rollingstones.de belongs to Musidor B.V.?

therollingstones.de still belongs to EMI, which might change any day of course.

Is the owner (private person) of rolling-stones.de also going to receive a letter from Universal or rather from Musidor?

The-Rolling-Stones.com belongs to Virgin Music Group. rolling-stones.com is registered in Finland. So lot’s of work for the lawyers all over.

Harald, do a good search in the internet. There have been verdicts about such issues. And in your case it’s all about German law.

open-g, see my next post. You're right. Still:
Have but heavy experiences of court work
and expertness. Actually won a remarkable case for the Samis in two levels.

To latvian: open-g is from the same country as harald2002.

???
so much different opinons on this theme... i will ask another lawer.
the main interesting question ist: who is owning the rights on the words
"the-rolling-stones"

Domain name rules are different in every country. For most countries the owner of the domain have very strong rights. I would not trust any random lawyer because they don't have a clue about domain name rules. You need to read the rules as you signed them when you bought the domain. The rules at the time you got the domain. They have to explain what rules you are breaking. A brand name is not related to owning a domain name. I might own coke.no or coke.com if I like but I don't need or wsih them. And I might even own mercedes.no or mercedes.org and so on. Read re domain rules of your particular market and see what right you have. In most markets it's the owner of the domain and NOT the lawyers or the brand pusher that have any rights to domains, but they sure try to scare everybody away of course. Noboldy likes letters from lawyers, and they know it, and use it to make people give away their rights.

PS. I own may be 20 domains. Some time ago I got letters from a bunch of lawyers demanding one of these, because it was their brand name. I still own that domain, simply because I told them I would sue them if they did not stop trying to scare me away and waste my time. These domains are all mine and I have the legal rigtht to them in my market of course. This was not a Stones-related domain but it's all the same. It's about who owns what, about the little guy in the street and the big money trying to step on your rights.

Bjornulf

Hi Harald,

I don't think your ISP Strato has any valuable information on this topic, but please read domain guidelines on this page www.denic.de

Scaring is a surprisingly common strategy in business life.

A tyre workshop in my town sad when he established his enterprise
a few years ago there were several deputations there trying to scare
with all kinds of measures. He just told them to @#$%& off.
Sometimes thats the only thing it takes.
But I cant say how it is here.

just to let you know:
i spoke to another lawer, an expert of music and trademark rights - a big stones fan and a friend of mine. he said also: no chance to keep the domain. it can get very, very expensive if i get this case to a court.
so - i won't risk anything with that and will have to give my loved domain away...

I don't know if this is any help to you, but the the law often works with deadlines. If you have claimed your the-rolling-stones.de 6 years ago and nobody has approached you in protest on the use of that domain name (within for instance a period of 5 years), you are entitled to keep that name. Just check for the exsistance of such a deadline in German law! And make sure you can prove that you have the domain name for the period you mentioned.

Good luck and ..... don't give up too quickly. Laywers do not know everything.

Try selling it first, before you give it away...also, read what BV has said.

If you had cancer, would you settle with two doctor's opinions?

just for your information...

...i lost the domain some days ago...

that's life...