legowww.homepages.com
David Koblas
Unfortuantly not for the better. For those of you who maintain
web sites I would reccomend that you review the letter that is
available at:
--
name : David Koblas domain: kob...@netcom.com
affiliation: Home Pages, Inc. phone: +1 (415) 903 5353
quote: "Time has little to do with infinity and jelly donuts."
Todd Lehman
>
> Just to let people know, legoww.homepages.com has been updated.
> Unfortuantly not for the better. For those of you who maintain
> web sites I would reccomend that you review the letter that is
> available at:
>
> http://legowww.homepages.com/
David,
I can't say I'm surprised. Or disappointed.
1. This is the fourth letter to Homepages, Inc. from Weiss et al. (the
outside trademark counsel to Interlego, A.G.). The first three letters
appear to have been ignored by Homepages, Inc. Is this true? Why?
2. The September, 1995 article in Computerworld should have been another
big clue that a very big problem existed.
3. In this case, the disclaimer on the former legowww home page was
apparently not enough to make people realize the site was unofficial.
This is probably due to the server name, as Weiss suggests, coupled
with the large number of existing links to the site prior to the
installation of the disclaimer.
legowww.homepages.com appears to have done an immense amount of damage to
The LEGO Group's presence on the web. Curiously, I just did an Alla Vista
web search on link:"legowww.homepages.com", which finds all the links out
there which point to legowww. Alla Vista says there are approximately
5000 pages linking to legowww. Five Thousand!
I checked out just a few of them -- look what people are saying...
___________________________________________________
http://kids.com/
Kids.Com: Kids, Fun, Games, Children, Toys, Friends
Under the Toys section there is a link entitled "LEGO Corporation" with
the following description next to it:
"The wonderful world of Lego is on the web. The LEGO homepage offers
information on the 1994-1995 product line and lots of specific
information on LEGO sets, including part lists. There are three
different sections that delve into ideas and activities; history, travel
and clubs; and other information sources on Legos. Highlights include
the LEGO Robots, the LEGO theme song, and the LEGO Builders Club."
______________________________________________
http://fulton.seas.virginia.edu/~js2b/com.html
Collection of some WWW for companies
"Here is a collection of some WWW servers of big companies in the world.
Please take a look! Maybe someday it will be useful for you!"
104 companies are listed, from 3M to Playboy to Xerox. In the L's it says:
"Lego Information (Toy)"
with a link of course to legowww.homepages.com.
____________________________________
http://iquest.com/~jsm/moms/kid.html
Kid's Stuff
Under the section "Toys/Games/Fun Stuff," the top link is entitled
"LEGO Home Page" with a link to legowww.homepages.com. (Interestingly,
the next link is entitled "The Barbie Home Page" and links to an unofficial
Barbie site.)
____________________________
http://www.link.ca/kids.html
Kid's Stuff
To the right of the LEGO(R) logo: "And speaking of toys, <LEGO> is
popular among Internet users."
____________________________________________
http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~kolina/Home.html
Kate Page
"Now that Ursula is getting older she can play with <Legos> and soon she
will be involved in crafts projects like <origami>, <polymer clay>, and
<marblizing paper>, and other <Kids Craft Categories>. Hopefully at the
same time she'll also be developing some interest in <frogs and toads>
as well."
_____________________________________
http://www.soc.duke.edu/100sites.html
PC Magazine's 100 Hot Sites
Under the "Education/Fun/Fringe Activities" section, there is a link
entitled "Lego" pointing to legowww.homepages.com.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
David, your new home page gets to the point but it doesn't tell the right
story to the right people. Redirecting people to the rec.toys.lego FAQ is
nice, but doesn't have the impact you need, and it's not going to solve
the problem you've created.
You have a wonderful opportunity here to start repairing some of the damage
done to The LEGO Group. At the very top of the page you should say the
following in large, bold type:
This web site <legowww.homepages.com> is NOT the official LEGO(R) web
site. For official information, please visit the Official LEGO(R) World
Wide Web Site at <http://www.lego.com>.
If you have a link to <legowww.homepages.com>, please either remove it
or change the link to refer to the official LEGO(R) web site.
This site is no longer in operation. etc., etc.
You should also change the title of the page from "Lego Site Down" to
something like "Unofficial Server No Longer In Operation."
Every access you get on legowww.homepages.com should reflect into an
access to www.lego.com. Every access that does not is a lost opportunity
to repair the damage.
You might also consider proactively writing e-mail to some of the more
popular web sites with links to legowww.homepages.com and informing them
of the situation.
You should also write Weiss and The LEGO Group and ask permission to keep
the legowww.homepages.com server running for a few months until all the
mess can be cleaned up. Only once all the links to legowww.homepages.com
are eradicated (and/or changed to www.lego.com) is the issue put to rest.
--Todd
David Karr
>David Koblas <kob...@netcom.com> writes:
>>
>> Just to let people know, legoww.homepages.com has been updated.
>
>I can't say I'm surprised. Or disappointed.
Todd goes on to make some excellent points. As I am not a lawyer, I
will not attempt to give legal advice to David Koblas, but if I were
in his shoes I'd have been a lot more openly worried a lot sooner that
this sort of thing would happen. I think the main thing that has
saved *me* from receiving a letter such as David Koblas did is simply
that my site doesn't cover anywhere near the depth or breadth of
material what his does---I've foisted most of that work onto other
people, including David Koblas and Todd Lehman, to whom I merely
maintain links.
On the other hand, I think it's only fair to say a few words in
David Koblas's defense.
>1. This is the fourth letter to Homepages, Inc. from Weiss et al. [...]
We (on r.t.l) haven't seen the text of the other three letters, nor do
we know the dates of the middle two letters. My recollection
(possibly faulty) was that David put the disclaimer on his page
sometime after the first letter was sent, because I don't think he had
one at all in the beginning.
My understanding is there's currently some controversy over various
Internet addresses assigned by InterNIC that happened to resemble
corporate trademarks, and this is still not settled. So it's a gray
area, though personally I wouldn't want to fool around with owning
one of these addresses.
>2. The September, 1995 article in Computerworld should have been another
> big clue that a very big problem existed.
Did Computerworld mention the legowww address as an issue? I remember
disclaimers and the square red logo being raised as issues, which
affected a number of Web pages. That is, LEGO (or their lawyers) sent
out a whole bunch of letters on these topics and most people who got
them decided simply not to fight the issue at all; and at least one of
those pages (I'm sure you know which one I mean)has never come back on
line.
>3. In this case, the disclaimer on the former legowww home page was
> apparently not enough to make people realize the site was unofficial.
> This is probably due to the server name, as Weiss suggests, [...]
Possibly, but I think your other suggestion is more to the point: an
awful lot of those links were made before the disclaimer appeared. In
that case we're looking at a case of too little, too late, because
people simply don't check up on all their links to make sure there are
no new surprises.
>Alla Vista says there are approximately 5000 pages linking to legowww.
Err, that's "Alta Vista." I wonder if DEC has registered it as a
trademark?
I noticed that Alta Vista finds "about 1000" pages linking to
the old address, legowww.itek.norut.no. It's obvious that an awful
lot of people have practiced "link and forget" to that page.
>You have a wonderful opportunity here to start repairing some of the damage
>done to The LEGO Group. At the very top of the page you should say the
>following in large, bold type:
>
> This web site <legowww.homepages.com> is NOT the official LEGO(R) web
> site. For official information, please visit the Official LEGO(R) World
> Wide Web Site at <http://www.lego.com>.
This makes sense to me. In fact the next time I revise my pages I will
probably put a link to the official LEGO site right up in my disclaimer.
> If you have a link to <legowww.homepages.com>, please either remove it
> or change the link to refer to the official LEGO(R) web site.
>
> This site is no longer in operation. etc., etc.
I don't see why this is necessary, though it might have been easier to
avoid earlier. The material in David Koblas's page needn't be
presented as anything more than an unofficial fan page. And frankly,
I hate to lose the site, since I don't think I can recover all the
nice stuff that was in there from anyplace else.
What I'd like to see is for the "LEGO Information Server" to come back
(under a different name and at a different URL if necessary), and for
the top of the page at http://legowww.homepages.com/ to explain very
clearly that anyone wishing to link to the official corporate Web site
of the LEGO Group should link to http://www.lego.com/; that the page
that is (or was) at legowww.homepages.com is not and never was an
official LEGO page, but an unofficial fan page; that people can link
to the unofficial fan page but should under no circumstances represent
it as an official or corporate LEGO home page; and that anyone who has
mistakenly created a link that makes this representation should please
fix it immediately.
-- David A. Karr (ka...@cs.cornell.edu)
David Koblas
David Karr <ka...@cs.cornell.edu> wrote:
>leh...@winternet.com (Todd Lehman) writes:
>>David Koblas <kob...@netcom.com> writes:
>>>
>>> Just to let people know, legoww.homepages.com has been updated.
>>> Unfortuantly not for the better. [...]
>>
>>I can't say I'm surprised. Or disappointed.
[...]
>
>On the other hand, I think it's only fair to say a few words in
>David Koblas's defense.
>
>>1. This is the fourth letter to Homepages, Inc. from Weiss et al. [...]
>
>We (on r.t.l) haven't seen the text of the other three letters, nor do
>we know the dates of the middle two letters. My recollection
>(possibly faulty) was that David put the disclaimer on his page
>sometime after the first letter was sent, because I don't think he had
>one at all in the beginning.
[Acutally, there were only two letters prior. The second being a
ceritifed copy of the first. Requesting the removal the the LEGO
brandmark, and the termination of the name 'legowww' (which I have
personal feeling about, but will no longer persue).]
>My understanding is there's currently some controversy over various
>Internet addresses assigned by InterNIC that happened to resemble
>corporate trademarks, and this is still not settled. So it's a gray
>area, though personally I wouldn't want to fool around with owning
>one of these addresses.
Actually using sub-domain addresses is not up to the InterNIC to decide,
afterall there probably is a 'lego.cup.hp.com', 'lego.sgi.com', etc.
The InterNIC has no control over this name space, that is part of the
design on the name server information system.
Though, I now belive that 'lego' is now a _BAD_ user id for somebody to have
since their homepage might be "www.xyz.com/~lego/" and this might constitue
infringing on the LEGO trademark (food for thought).
>>3. In this case, the disclaimer on the former legowww home page was
>> apparently not enough to make people realize the site was unofficial.
>> This is probably due to the server name, as Weiss suggests, [...]
>
>Possibly, but I think your other suggestion is more to the point: an
>awful lot of those links were made before the disclaimer appeared. In
>that case we're looking at a case of too little, too late, because
>people simply don't check up on all their links to make sure there are
>no new surprises.
The disclaimer was always part of the site. From when in went online in
1994, to the day it died. And, I did remove the LEGO logo mark when the
earlier letters were received. The interesting part was that at the same
time I was working on a whole new look for the site, that the letter
delayed and eventually killed.
>I don't see why this is necessary, though it might have been easier to
>avoid earlier. The material in David Koblas's page needn't be
>presented as anything more than an unofficial fan page. And frankly,
>I hate to lose the site, since I don't think I can recover all the
>nice stuff that was in there from anyplace else.
>
>What I'd like to see is for the "LEGO Information Server" to come back
>(under a different name and at a different URL if necessary), and for
>the top of the page at http://legowww.homepages.com/ to explain very
>clearly that anyone wishing to link to the official corporate Web site
>of the LEGO Group should link to http://www.lego.com/; that the page
>that is (or was) at legowww.homepages.com is not and never was an
>official LEGO page, but an unofficial fan page; that people can link
>to the unofficial fan page but should under no circumstances represent
>it as an official or corporate LEGO home page; and that anyone who has
>mistakenly created a link that makes this representation should please
>fix it immediately.
It is all a nice idea, but I feel that if I were to bring on any of the
content that was orginally on the site, and that I've got queued up for
placement on the site. That I would need to consult with a lawer to
determine the appropate placement of the word LEGO. Would it be worth
while to bring back the site as the "Internet Lego Fan Club" with the
blessing of LEGO (my personal favorite, www.lego.org -- I actually hold
this domain, but have had the _sense_ not to use it).
Thompson
In <koblasDp...@netcom.com>, kob...@netcom.com (David Koblas) writes:
> Just to let people know, legoww.homepages.com has been updated.
> Unfortuantly not for the better. For those of you who maintain
> web sites I would reccomend that you review the letter that is
> available at:
>
> http://legowww.homepages.com/
>
When you visit this site, you see a sad message:
"This site is no longer in operation. I have decided that I no longer
have time to maintain this information. The old content is not
available since this letter was received."
[it goes on to display the letter from the lawyers of course.]
David, surely, killing the site off entirely is not necessary from a
legal perspective. Reading the letter from the legal sharks, all it says
is that you must comply with their request to remove their trademark
("LEGO" of course) from your address.
Just change your address to something else, like www.koblas.com, or
koblas.homepages.com and then they would be happy.
If it's a matter of cost for registering a new domain name, I'm sure
that the denizens of r.t.l would be glad to pitch in for the cost
of a new domain name. I'd personally contribute.
Don't just give up in the face of a legal threat. Comply with their
demand for a new site name, and then you can continue to provide
your service! Wouldn't that be a better solution?
Of course, I'm sure you're angry and bitter at LEGO for making a big
deal out of it. Emotionally it may seem like killing the service off
is the best thing to do, but I'd urge you to reconsider. Please don't
let your anger at LEGO convince you to remove your valuable collection
of resources from the net, please.
Or ....
if you do insist on shutting your page down permanently, it's be nice
if you'd pass on access to your collection of resources to somebody
else who would be interested in keeping them available to the public.
It's an ugly situation, but it can be made better with a bit of work.
Don't give up on us, please. Or if you refuse to change your mind, please
make your resources available to someone else who wants to carry on the
service of being the unofficial r.t.l archive of LEGO information.
Best regards, Jeff
--
je...@teubner.com "Float on a river, forever and ever, Emily."
Todd Lehman
> Did Computerworld mention the legowww address as an issue? [...]
Yes, in the very first paragraph. It also mentions David Koblas by name
in the second paragraph. Roy Gal maintains a copy of the article for us at:
http://astro.caltech.edu/~rrg/legoart.html
--Todd
Todd Lehman
> It is all a nice idea, but I feel that if I were to bring on any of the
> content that was orginally on the site, and that I've got queued up for
> placement on the site. That I would need to consult with a lawer to
> determine the appropate placement of the word LEGO. Would it be worth
> while to bring back the site as the "Internet Lego Fan Club" with the
> blessing of LEGO (my personal favorite, www.lego.org -- I actually hold
> this domain, but have had the _sense_ not to use it).
David,
The solution is simple. (Note -- I'm not a lawyer so obviously this is
not legal advice, this is just common sense.)
1. Wipe everything clean from legowww.homepages.com, including the letter
from Weiss.
2. Next create a very simple home page for legowww.homepages.com that reads:
legowww.homepages.com is no longer in operation. This was an
UNofficial fan-created web site which was not connected with or
sponsored in any way by the LEGO Group of companies.
Please visit the Official LEGO(R) World Wide Web Site at
<http://www.lego.com> for official information.
The information formerly hosted at this web site has been moved
to a new location. That new location is <http://xxx.xxx.xxx>
Please update your web links as this page may disappear without
further notice. We apologize for any confusion we may have caused
in this matter. Please also do what you can to help spread the
word that the LEGO Group is now officially on the World Wide Web
and has a web site at www.lego.com.
Thank you,
David Koblas
Homepages, Inc.
April 3, 1996
3. Contact Weiss, informing them of your intent to direct web surfers
away from legowww.homepages.com and toward the official LEGO(R) site
at www.lego.com and asking permission to keep legowww.homepages.com
active indefinitely, under the premise that the notice above will help
repair any trademark damages that may have been incurred and will help
prevent further confusion in the future.
There are currently thousands of links out there to legowww.homepages.com,
yet only a handful of links to www.lego.com (Alta Vista says there are
only 9, but I'll bet there are at least 20).
You have a wonderful opportunity here to reverse things. A lot of damage
has been done. Once you admit that to yourself, you'll see that you can
actually repair some of the damage.
All it takes is a simple, clear message on your home page and a link to
www.lego.com. Keep in mind that many children will be clicking on a link
somewhere that says "LEGO Information." Do you want them hit a dead-end
and read a legal letter, or do you want them to be able to click on forward
to where they really wanted to go?
In any case, I suggest you contact Carol Simkin at Weiss by phone, and
discuss openly what you can do to help clean up the mess you've created.
--Todd
James Helminski
I am certainly not a lawyer, and I know that InterNIC has *recently*
changed their policy to seem to support Lego (RRRRRR)'s position, but
just how far is this allowed to go? I certainly think that Lego (R)
has a right to lego.com, but that's it.
Do they have a trademark right to notlego.com, or slego.com, or
legout.com? Are we now going to have to put up with corporate threats
if we happen to have a domain name that contains the same letters as a
corporation, AND the other sites PRE-DATED theirs? What about
precedence?
I think that they have just lost a customer who has spent thousands on
LEGO(R) over the past year. This kind of corporate arrogance cannot
be tolerated.
Playmobil here I come.
Former lurker who just can't take it anymore,
Jim H.
@ Jeff Thompson wrote:
>Hi David.
>Or ....
>Best regards, Jeff
>--
--
James Helminski jim...@access.digex.net
ISM-Business Systems
INTELSAT james.h...@intelsat.int
jeff findley
|> David Koblas <kob...@netcom.com> writes:
|> >
|> > Just to let people know, legoww.homepages.com has been updated.
|> > Unfortuantly not for the better. For those of you who maintain
|> > web sites I would reccomend that you review the letter that is
|> > available at:
|> >
|> > http://legowww.homepages.com/
|>
|>
|> David,
|>
|> I can't say I'm surprised. Or disappointed.
|>
|> 1. This is the fourth letter to Homepages, Inc. from Weiss et al. (the
|> outside trademark counsel to Interlego, A.G.). The first three letters
|> appear to have been ignored by Homepages, Inc. Is this true? Why?
|>
|> 2. The September, 1995 article in Computerworld should have been another
|> big clue that a very big problem existed.
|>
|> 3. In this case, the disclaimer on the former legowww home page was
|> apparently not enough to make people realize the site was unofficial.
|> This is probably due to the server name, as Weiss suggests, coupled
|> with the large number of existing links to the site prior to the
|> installation of the disclaimer.
|>
|> legowww.homepages.com appears to have done an immense amount of damage to
|> The LEGO Group's presence on the web. Curiously, I just did an Alla Vista
|> web search on link:"legowww.homepages.com", which finds all the links out
|> there which point to legowww. Alla Vista says there are approximately
|> 5000 pages linking to legowww. Five Thousand!
I did the same for the official site www.lego.com and came up with only 9
pages linking to www.lego.com. There has obviously been a lot of damage
done when the unofficial links outnumber the official ones by several
orders of magnitude. The official site hasn't been up and running for
very long, but promoting it is going to be a problem when a few thousand
sites think they are already linked to the official LEGO(R) site.
Perhaps to "cover your own butt", everyone running unofficial LEGO(R)
sites should review their disclaimer and insert a link which clearly
sends the user to the official LEGO(R) site.
|> David, your new home page gets to the point but it doesn't tell the right
|> story to the right people. Redirecting people to the rec.toys.lego FAQ is
|> nice, but doesn't have the impact you need, and it's not going to solve
|> the problem you've created.
Looks like this has been taken out. Besides the letter from Weiss, the
page only says:
This site is no longer in operation.
I have decided that I no longer have time to maintain this information.
The old content is not available since this letter was received.
|> You have a wonderful opportunity here to start repairing some of the damage
|> done to The LEGO Group. At the very top of the page you should say the
|> following in large, bold type:
|>
|> This web site <legowww.homepages.com> is NOT the official LEGO(R) web
|> site. For official information, please visit the Official LEGO(R) World
|> Wide Web Site at <http://www.lego.com>.
|>
|> If you have a link to <legowww.homepages.com>, please either remove it
|> or change the link to refer to the official LEGO(R) web site.
|>
|> This site is no longer in operation. etc., etc.
|>
|> You should also change the title of the page from "Lego Site Down" to
|> something like "Unofficial Server No Longer In Operation."
|>
|> Every access you get on legowww.homepages.com should reflect into an
|> access to www.lego.com. Every access that does not is a lost opportunity
|> to repair the damage.
I agree completely with what Todd is recommending. Setting up your
now defunct unofficial site to point to www.lego.com will at least help
repair some of the damage. Even if this doesn't appeal to you, it's the
right thing to do (IMHO).
Jeff
--
LEGO: MOC>++++ SP++++(6984) AQ+++ TR,TO,FS++ BO,TC+ #++ S+ LS>+ Hsu M+ A+ YB69m
,------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Jeff.F...@sdrc.com | The above opinions | First things first, |
| SDRC | are my own and do | but not necessarily |
| 2000 Eastman Drive | not reflect the | in that order. |
| Milford OH 45150-2789 | opinions of SDRC. | -- Doctor Who |
`------------------------------------------------------------------'
Todd Lehman
> This is infuriating.
> I am certainly not a lawyer, and I know that InterNIC has *recently*
> changed their policy to seem to support Lego (RRRRRR)'s position, but
> just how far is this allowed to go? I certainly think that Lego (R)
> has a right to lego.com, but that's it.
You don't seem to understand the damage that legowww.homepages.com has
done in terms of confusing the general masses out there. WE know it
wasn't an official site, but take a close look at some of the links to it.
That kind of damage is going to take a lot of work to fix. It all could
have been avoided by (a) a different server name or (b) a much louder
disclaimer on the home page. Certainly the official-sounding title
"LEGO Information" didn't help things.
I expect David will pull through this and reinstate the site at a different
URL, maybe still at homepages.com. He said the site was undergoing a
face lift last fall when the letters came; it might not be much more work
to make it fly.
> Do they have a trademark right to notlego.com, or slego.com, or
> legout.com? Are we now going to have to put up with corporate threats
> if we happen to have a domain name that contains the same letters as a
> corporation, AND the other sites PRE-DATED theirs? What about
> precedence?
I think that depends on the content of the site.
> I think that they have just lost a customer who has spent thousands on
> LEGO(R) over the past year. This kind of corporate arrogance cannot
> be tolerated.
When you really think about it, they are only being reasonable.
What do you think Sony would do if there were a sonywww.homepages.com with
the title "Sony Information"? Or a hondawww.homepages.com with the title
"Honda Information"? Or an ibmwww.homepages.com with the title "IBM
Information"?
Fan-created web sites have a duty to do whatever they can to make sure
people realize they're unofficial. That includes finding links to your
site when people misunderstand, and correcting those misunderstandings.
It also includes linking to the official site, if there is one.
If you don't do that, companies get pissed off. That's life.
> Playmobil here I come.
>
> Former lurker who just can't take it anymore,
> Jim H.
See you on playmobilwww.homepages.com or www.playmobil.com?
:)
--Todd
Paul Vargo
>|> The LEGO Group's presence on the web. Curiously, I just did an Alla Vista
>|> web search on link:"legowww.homepages.com", which finds all the links out
>|> there which point to legowww. Alla Vista says there are approximately
>|> 5000 pages linking to legowww. Five Thousand!
>pages linking to www.lego.com. There has obviously been a lot of damage
>done when the unofficial links outnumber the official ones by several
>orders of magnitude. The official site hasn't been up and running for
>very long, but promoting it is going to be a problem when a few thousand
>sites think they are already linked to the official LEGO(R) site.
Ok. Am I the only one who thinks these # of links to which
sites is missing a major piece of info? I really don't
believe that these links mean SQUAT at this time.
As far as I know, Lego has NOT announced it's web site to the
world. Hence no links to it.
paul
--
"I called Jesus, He's not home, So I am so pleased, To talk to you" Eldritch
"Threatened species they adore me, Flower Children never bore me" 1990
LEGO: FS TO+(565) BV-- SP-(483) CA+++(6077) PI+ AQ+ #115
S- Ls-->++ H!? M+ A+ YB69m
David Karr
Todd Lehman <leh...@winternet.com> wrote:
>David Karr <ka...@cs.cornell.edu> writes:
>> Did Computerworld mention the legowww address as an issue? [...]
>
No. The title of the site is mentioned, but not its address. The
word "legowww" appears nowhere in that paragraph. Of course that is
not to say it wasn't mentioned in any correspondence at that time; as
I pointed out, I had no way to know (though based on David Koblas's
subsequent comments---thank you, David!---it appears that the name
"legowww" *was* an unpublicized topic of contention).
David Karr
>There are currently thousands of links out there to legowww.homepages.com,
>yet only a handful of links to www.lego.com (Alta Vista says there are
>only 9, but I'll bet there are at least 20).
This is a meaningless figure at this time. Heck, even my page doesn't
list www.lego.com yet, because my last revision was on March 14, 1996
and I didn't find out about www.lego.com until March 22. Let's look
at the number of links again in a couple of months.
(Even so, I bet we'll still find links to legowww on many, many pages,
including hundreds of "lots-o-links" pages that were dashed off in the
early days of Web hype and that haven't been used by anyone, not even
their creators, in months.)
>Keep in mind that many children will be clicking on a link
>somewhere that says "LEGO Information." Do you want them hit a dead-end
>and read a legal letter, or do you want them to be able to click on forward
>to where they really wanted to go?
This raises an interesting side issue. Which is a better source of
information on LEGO Space sets: The Fibblesnork LEGO Guide or
www.lego.com? My bet is on FLG.
(And regarding our *other* conversation, note that www.lego.com surely
doesn't win on browser compliance, since it's not only broken on any
browser other than Netscape 2.0 or higher, we've found out that it's
broken on Netscape 2.0 running on anything but a PC or a Mac.)
But of course it is important that the official site be listed in the
places where one would expect to find an official site. And indeed,
one of those 9 or so links is on the Yahoo page of LEGO links, which
is where I'd go if I were looking for a link to the official page.
All that having been said, however, I'd like to add my voice to yours
and to others asking that the substance of the old "LEGO Information
Server" be reincarnated somewhere, and that legowww.homepages.com not
be a dead end. (Personally, I have no objection to presenting the
letter as an explanation for the change to that site; I see nothing in
the letter that is inappropriate for children to see.)
Michel Renaud
<Snip!>
> (And regarding our *other* conversation, note that www.lego.com surely
> doesn't win on browser compliance, since it's not only broken on any
> browser other than Netscape 2.0 or higher, we've found out that it's
> broken on Netscape 2.0 running on anything but a PC or a Mac.)
>
<Snip!>
> -- David A. Karr (ka...@cs.cornell.edu)
Hmmm, I am using Netscape 2.0 from an HP7000 and I have no problem...
Michel
--
Michel Renaud
Nortel - Public Carrier Networks
mre...@nortel.ca
----------- All opinions expressed here are personal
--------------------
David Karr
>David Karr wrote:
>
>> we've found out that it's
>> broken on Netscape 2.0 running on anything but a PC or a Mac.)
>
OK, so I extrapolated from "SGI and Sun and maybe a couple others"
to "anything," partly on the strength of the fact that on the
"my home page" form, the only computer you can admit to having
is a PC or a Macintosh (and the server complains to you if you
don't check off one of those two choices).
Have you filled out your home page form, and were you able to enter
your country of residence (which I presume would come after B in the
alphabet) without any difficulty? This is the part that has really
been giving us Unix-based folks on other platforms a hard time.
Jeff Thompson
> This is infuriating.
>
> I am certainly not a lawyer, and I know that InterNIC has *recently*
> changed their policy to seem to support Lego (RRRRRR)'s position, but
> just how far is this allowed to go? I certainly think that Lego (R)
> has a right to lego.com, but that's it.
>
> Do they have a trademark right to notlego.com, or slego.com, or
> legout.com? Are we now going to have to put up with corporate threats
> if we happen to have a domain name that contains the same letters as a
> corporation, AND the other sites PRE-DATED theirs? What about
> precedence?
Obviously this whole area DOES need to be hashed out more
thoroughly.
Personally, I'm on the side of LEGO here. We had a competitor
register a misspelling of our company name, tuebner.com (with
the 'e' and 'u' reversed) so that they could try to direct
customers to THEIR website if they went to www.tuebner.com
rather than www.teubner.com. And, incidentally, email to
any...@tuebner.com was NOT bounced by their mailer but
presumably forwarded to somebody there.
They very quickly admitted that this was absolutely wrong
and backed off, giving us control of that family of
domain names based on the misspelling of our company names.
Now, that's dirty pool, rather than just fan-based web pages,
but it shows that people do abuse the freedom that Internic
gives people regarding site names.
I think a company *should* complain about misleading or confusing
domain names. And legowww.homepages.com is WAY over the line
as far as that's concerned.
>
> I think that they have just lost a customer who has spent thousands on
> LEGO(R) over the past year. This kind of corporate arrogance cannot
> be tolerated.
>
> Playmobil here I come.
>
> Former lurker who just can't take it anymore,
> Jim H.
Ehh ...
Personally, I think the time to make the "I hate LEGO's legal
practices" stance was back when they stomped on LEGO WARS.
I think LEGO is in the right, here.
Anyway, I guess I'm used to buying products from companies who do
not always behave exactly as I would want them to. Good examples
are Atari's competition-through-litigation strategy in the 80s,
Geffen's lawsuit against Neil Young for not making commercial enough
music, Nintendo's legal misadventures, and Apple's various (and
sometimes justified) charges against Microsoft. I base my buying
decisions on how much I want the product, not what their lawyers
have been up to recently. I won't skip out on a CD I want just
because of which record company it came from. Similarly, just
because some legal shark somewhere is dumping on David Koblas doesn't
mean I'm going to dump my Blacktron sets in the garbage and start
buying Ritvik instead.
--
je...@teubner.com "Set the controls for the heart of the sun."
Pat Tinney
<je...@teubner.com> Jeff Thompson wrote:
[legowww.homepages.com discussion snip]
>Similarly, just
>because some legal shark somewhere is dumping on David Koblas doesn't
>mean I'm going to dump my Blacktron sets in the garbage and start
>buying Ritvik instead.
Hey! If you change your mind, let me know where your garbage is! ;-)
Pat.
Tony Kilaras
'kob...@netcom.com (David Koblas)' wrote:
>
>It is all a nice idea, but I feel that if I were to bring on any of the
content
>that was orginally on the site, and that I've got queued up for placement
on
>the site. That I would need to consult with a lawer to determine the
appropate
>placement of the word LEGO. Would it be worth while to bring back the
site as
>the "Internet Lego Fan Club" with the blessing of LEGO (my personal
favorite,
>www.lego.org -- I actually hold this domain, but have had the _sense_ not
to
>use it).
new name? I personally think the folks at lego are being a bunch of
assholes for sic-ing lawyers on their most loyal fans, but I don't think
the solution is to simply knuckle under.
--
A heart that's left alone becomes a heart of stone.
--New Order
David Karr
>The fact that the legowww address is an issue, however, doesn't appear until
>the fourth paragraph:
>
> "It also has an official-sounding address: http://legowww.homepages.com"
>
>But it -is- there. Sorry about the confusion. It's hard to pick it out
>because they wrapped the URL on 3 lines of text -- skinny column.
Sorry I didn't read the article more carefully myself. I found the
scanned-image version hard to read (my lousy monitor strikes again,
I suppose) but I'm sure I could have dug up the text somewhere.
And thanks to you and David Koblas and everyone else who offered up
the relevant details about this situation. I'd still like to see the
old pages reappear somewhere on the Web, though apparently there are
some clueless people who are advertising legowww as "official" and who
need to be given a new clue.
Meanwhile I've made one of my aperiodic updates to my own site, so
www.lego.com is on my list and legowww.homepages.com is off (except
for a brief notice in "What's New" about its demise). This doesn't
mean that www.lego.com replaces legowww, but merely that I learned
about both changes to the Web during the same time interval.
-- David A. Karr (ka...@cs.cornell.edu)
-- LEGO: <URL:http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/karr/lego/>
Todd Lehman
> Todd Lehman <leh...@winternet.com> wrote:
>> David Karr <ka...@cs.cornell.edu> writes:
>>> Did Computerworld mention the legowww address as an issue? [...]
>> Yes, in the very first paragraph. [...]
>
> No. The title of the site is mentioned, but not its address. The
> word "legowww" appears nowhere in that paragraph. Of course that is
> not to say it wasn't mentioned in any correspondence at that time; as
> I pointed out, I had no way to know (though based on David Koblas's
> subsequent comments---thank you, David!---it appears that the name
> "legowww" *was* an unpublicized topic of contention).
Grphfl. What I meant to say was, the -site- is mentioned in the very first
paragraph:
"It's called the Lego WWW Server."
The fact that the legowww address is an issue, however, doesn't appear until
the fourth paragraph:
"It also has an official-sounding address: http://legowww.homepages.com"
But it -is- there. Sorry about the confusion. It's hard to pick it out
because they wrapped the URL on 3 lines of text -- skinny column.
--Todd
Paul John Gyugyi
You don't seem to understand the damage that legowww.homepages.com has
done in terms of confusing the general masses out there. WE know it
Todd, you're harping on the "damage" phrase quite a bit. I can't
see it as anything more than "mild confusion" rather than "damage".
It's not like there's inverted pentagrams made of LEGO(R) on the page,
or juicy SEC materials about an impending IPO. As of a month or two
ago, it was _the_ place to get general lego information (at least as a
starting point).
Not to be cynical, but are you just doing this to keep TLG from
shutting down your site, or do you really believe TLG has lost big
bucks in intangable assets?
--
=--=-==-==--=-=-=--==-=-==--=-==-=-=-=-=-=-==--==-=-==--==-=-==-==
Paul Gyugyi pa...@gyugyi.com http://www.gyugyi.com/
Gyugyi Cybernetics DSP, LEGO, Mountain Dew, Be, Raytracing
Todd Lehman
> leh...@winternet.com (Todd Lehman) writes:
>
> You don't seem to understand the damage that legowww.homepages.com has
> done in terms of confusing the general masses out there. WE know it
>
> Todd, you're harping on the "damage" phrase quite a bit. I can't
> see it as anything more than "mild confusion" rather than "damage".
> It's not like there's inverted pentagrams made of LEGO(R) on the page,
> or juicy SEC materials about an impending IPO. As of a month or two
> ago, it was _the_ place to get general lego information (at least as a
> starting point).
I'll be more careful using the word "damage." Originally I was talking
about damage to the LEGO Group's web presence due to the number of pages
out there that seem to think legowww was an official site.
But you're right, there is no proof that any monetary or long-term damage
has been done, only confusion. And even that's tough to measure.
> Not to be cynical, but are you just doing this to keep TLG from
> shutting down your site, or do you really believe TLG has lost big
> bucks in intangable assets?
I really think it's cool how many people out there have links to
legowww.homepages.com...it's a great show of support for LEGO fandom.
What gets me is that all of those links used to lead somewhere. Now that
the site is down, all of those links are dead ends. That's not in the
spirit of the Web, and it's really a snub to the LEGO Group, given that
many of the links thought they were linking to an official site. I'm
doing this (all this talking) because I can't stand to see the site go
down in a manner that creates even more confusion, rather than simply
starting to clear it up. I'm also on David's case (Koblas, not Karr)
because he didn't actively monitor links to his site and correct the
misinformation they were spreading. Part of a webmaster's job is to
do stuff like that.
Am I worried that TLG would shut my site down? Heck, no. But I want
to do everything I can to "play fair" and think we all should. Talking
about legowww openly gets certain issues and data out into the open that
can help us make decisions.
I think every fan-created LEGO site should have a simple, plain notice
stating that it's an unofficial site, and then graciously include a link
to www.lego.com -- I call that an important part of playing fair.
To answer the last question a second way, Yes I would be worried about it
if we didn't have set of general guidelines to follow. The Fair Play
page on www.lego.com sets a lot of things straight.
--Todd
Tim Rueger
>>>>> "tl" == Todd Lehman <leh...@winternet.com>:
tl> You don't seem to understand the damage that legowww.homepages.com has
tl> done in terms of confusing the general masses out there. WE know it
tl> wasn't an official site, but take a close look at some of the links to it.
tl> That kind of damage is going to take a lot of work to fix. It all could
tl> have been avoided by (a) a different server name or (b) a much louder
tl> disclaimer on the home page. Certainly the official-sounding title
tl> "LEGO Information" didn't help things.
More to the point, this "damage" could have been completely avoided in
the first place by Lego getting its official web site up and running
back in 1994, instead of waiting around while everyone linked to an
unofficial site.
There are many unofficial sites out there that are a lot better than
Lego's official one, put together by enthusiasts who (AFAIK) aren't paid
to do it. Just what was Lego waiting for when legowww.homepages.com
first came out? And how long was it there when Lego first started
sending David Koblas its letters?
I think Lego fumbled big time on this one, and is now alienating its
fans by using its lawyers to fix the problem.
-Tim
--
Tim Rueger Motorola CCRL IC Design Laboratory, IL02-2921
Phone: (708) 538-5092 1301 E. Algonquin Rd., Schaumburg, IL 60196
Fax : (708) 538-4593 Internet: rue...@areaplg2.corp.mot.com
Tony Kilaras
'spf...@sdrc.com (jeff findley)' wrote:
>
>I did the same for the official site www.lego.com and came up with only 9
pages
>linking to www.lego.com. There has obviously been a lot of damage done
when
>the unofficial links outnumber the official ones by several orders of
>magnitude. The official site hasn't been up and running for very long,
but
>promoting it is going to be a problem when a few thousand sites think they
are
>already linked to the official LEGO(R) site.
blows the offical one away by several orders of magnitude. Lego should be
ashamed of their "official" site! Maybe the folks who do these links should
do more than a surface scan. "Duh, it has the word lego in it so then it's
the lego site"
--
A heart that stays alone becomes a heart of stone.
--New Order
Tony Kilaras
'leh...@winternet.com (Todd Lehman)' wrote:
>
>You don't seem to understand the damage that legowww.homepages.com has
>terms of confusing the general masses out there. WE know it wasn't an
official
>site, but take a close look at some of the links to it. That kind of
damage is
>going to take a lot of work to fix. It all could have been avoided by (a)
a
>different server name or (b) a much louder disclaimer on the home page.
>Certainly the official-sounding title "LEGO Information" didn't help
things.
>
What damage? Exactly what was on his site, or any unoffical site, that was
so bad? His site was far better than than the offical site is. The offical
site is laughable. If your any kind of a lego aficionado, you need a site
that contains more than eye candy. If he had some pornography or something
like that on his site, then I could see the problem.
John Cromer
describe what David has inflicted on TLG. I'm having a hard time with
this. The teubner vs tuebner example, I understand. Jeff lost business
to a competitor. Has TLG lost business because of David's page? I
doubt it. I personally have been inspired by the some of the ideas on his
page to buy *more* sets to build the models I've seen there. Where
are the *real* damages?
I think they are shooting themselves in the foot with these kinds of
actions. But of course they're a huge, multinational corporation; they
have a lot of feet to shoot.
John C.
Tony Kilaras
'<je...@teubner.com> Jeff Thompson' wrote:
>
>I think a company *should* complain about misleading or confusing domain
names.
>And legowww.homepages.com is WAY over the line as far as that's concerned.
>Personally, I think the time to make the "I hate LEGO's legal practices"
stance
>was back when they stomped on LEGO WARS. I think LEGO is in the right,
here.
So what happens when the fan's homepage is alot better than the official
site, as is the case here? I guess we should be deprived of a valuable
resource and go to the offical cotton candy site instead right? First
legowars, and now this. There's a trend here. maybe they'll try to get rid
of RTL next, since its not a "corporate-sponsored" group.
Tony Kilaras
'rue...@areaplg2.corp.mot.com (Tim Rueger)' wrote:
>
>
>More to the point, this "damage" could have been completely avoided in the
>first place by Lego getting its official web site up and running back in
1994,
>instead of waiting around while everyone linked to an unofficial site.
>
>There are many unofficial sites out there that are a lot better than
Lego's
>official one, put together by enthusiasts who (AFAIK) aren't paid to do
it.
>Just what was Lego waiting for when legowww.homepages.com first came out?
And
>how long was it there when Lego first started sending David Koblas its
>letters?
would take off. When they saw that yes, it could be popular they jumped in,
telling those who ere here first and who did all the grunt work to fuck
off.
>I think Lego fumbled big time on this one, and is now alienating its fans
by
>using its lawyers to fix the problem.
That's the problem with a monopoly.
Tony Kilaras
'p...@tranquility.gyugyi.com (Paul John Gyugyi)' wrote:
>
>You don't seem to understand the damage that legowww.homepages.com has
>done in terms of confusing the general masses out there. WE know it
>
as
>anything more than "mild confusion" rather than "damage". It's not like
there's
>inverted pentagrams made of LEGO(R) on the page, or juicy SEC materials
about
>an impending IPO. As of a month or two ago, it was _the_ place to get
general
>lego information (at least as a starting point).
(more informative) than the "official" one?
Paul John Gyugyi
I really think it's cool how many people out there have links to
legowww.homepages.com...it's a great show of support for LEGO fandom.
What gets me is that all of those links used to lead somewhere. Now that
the site is down, all of those links are dead ends. That's not in the
Yeah, there should be a link. Like when Babylon 5 finally got an
official web page, they put a intro paragraph and link at the top
of the "Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5", the previous almost-official
web page.
I think every fan-created LEGO site should have a simple, plain notice
stating that it's an unofficial site, and then graciously include a link
to www.lego.com -- I call that an important part of playing fair.
Thanks for the examples of html you posted. Without them, there's not
much of a chance I'd have time to upgrade my site. Hopefully I'll find
myself at work (i.e. with a smokin' web connection) after hours
sometime, without any immediate work to do, and unable to find a
good Xpilot game going on anywhere, and I'll be able to upgrade my
links.
Scott R Schuricht
Tony Kilaras <kil...@nyc.pipeline.com> wrote:
>On Apr 03, 1996 20:09:16 in article <Re: legowww.homepages.com>,
>
>So that's it then? What's the big deal about bringing the site back under a
>new name? I personally think the folks at lego are being a bunch of
>assholes for sic-ing lawyers on their most loyal fans, but I don't think
>the solution is to simply knuckle under.
I agree. Does this letter sound like the biggest bunch of legal mumbo-jumbo
you've ever heard, and I quote
"Accordingly, the action of your company make it liable to our client for trademark
infringement and unfair competition. Putting aside the issue of monetary recover,
our client is entitled to a court ordered injunction against your company should
you pursue in the use of this mark. We thus again, and regrettably for the last
time, request that you voluntarily undertake to discontinue this use and that you
advise us of this undertaking in writing.
We trust that you will not force use to litigation, but if you do we will seek as
full a recovery of costs and our legal fees as possible given that, under all
circumstances, you should not be requiring us to incur these expenses."
Now I am not a lawyer, but does the use of the domain name legowww.homepages.com
really infringe on their trademark and introduce unfair competition ? David is
not producing actual plastic blocks or selling them to compete with InterLEGO.
Also, what "kind" of monetary recovery could they possibly get out of a lawsuit?
Did this site take sales away from LEGO products ? Did he deface the company or
slam it's products ?
I am getting sick of the legal profession in general in this country, especially
the big companies who feel compelled to make this large of an issue over something
so trivial.
Scott
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Scott Schuricht schu...@ecn.purdue.edu
Purdue University http://128.46.142.191/home.htm
Mechanical Engineering
je...@jeff.teubner.com
Raymond Suke Flournoy
Scott R Schuricht <schu...@widget.ecn.purdue.edu> wrote:
>....
>Now I am not a lawyer, but does the use of the domain name
>legowww.homepages.com
>really infringe on their trademark and introduce unfair competition ?
I also am not a lawyer, but I don't think that there has to be an
element of competition for a use of the trademark to be considered
misuse. After all, LEGO has a right to be in control of its image and
reputation. Remember that in LEGO's original complaint, the existance
of the web site wasn't the issue; it was the appearance that the site
was an official one sponsored by TLG itself.
Frankly I'm surprised at the heat people have turned on LEGO for
this action. If you had created your own company and someone was
seemingly presenting themselves as a representative of your company,
it would worry/irritate/anger you I'm sure.
I'm not flaming Dave or the legowww site at all. I'm just not
ready to demonize TLG.
--Raymond Flournoy
======================================================================
flou...@cs.stanford.edu "Because, of course, a man with an
Computer Science Dept. obsession is a man who has very little
Stanford University, CA sales-resistance." -- C. S. Lewis
West...James West
What about Prior Art?? What about that fact that this name has been in
the public domain for a considerable amount of time.
Funny how LEGO (no R here) has decided to take legal action only when they
decided to put a Web site together ... appearantly it was ok for others to
have LEGO (again no R) in their domain name before this was done.
I think I'll go hire a lawyer and sue everyone that uses the word "West"
since this is my last name. I've already filed for a trademark and
copyright on this word.
From now on you all will refer to West as West(R). Boy I'm gonna make a
ton of money from compass sales alone !!!
Is there anything that us netizens can do about this ?!?!?!?!
I for one am very disappointed in this letter and the fact that
legowww.homepages.com has shut down.
This is nothing more than legal censorship.
...ok, I'm off my soapbox now. Just had to vent a bit...
In article <4k0gha$8...@intelsat2.intelsat.int>, james.h...@intelsat.int (James Helminski) writes:
Path: news.internetMCI.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.intelsat.int!usenet
From: james.h...@intelsat.int (James Helminski)
Newsgroups: rec.toys.lego
Subject: Re: legowww.homepages.com
Date: Thu, 04 Apr 1996 12:45:23 GMT
Organization: Intelsat
Lines: 85
Message-ID: <4k0gha$8...@intelsat2.intelsat.int>
References: <koblasDp...@netcom.com> <4jv092$3...@news.cis.okstate.edu>
Reply-To: james.h...@intelsat.int
NNTP-Posting-Host: pc6m06.adm.intelsat.int
X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent v0.55
This is infuriating.
I am certainly not a lawyer, and I know that InterNIC has *recently*
changed their policy to seem to support Lego (RRRRRR)'s position, but
just how far is this allowed to go? I certainly think that Lego (R)
has a right to lego.com, but that's it.
Do they have a trademark right to notlego.com, or slego.com, or
legout.com? Are we now going to have to put up with corporate threats
if we happen to have a domain name that contains the same letters as a
corporation, AND the other sites PRE-DATED theirs? What about
precedence?
I think that they have just lost a customer who has spent thousands on
LEGO(R) over the past year. This kind of corporate arrogance cannot
be tolerated.
Playmobil here I come.
Former lurker who just can't take it anymore,
Jim H.
@ Jeff Thompson wrote:
>Hi David.
>In <koblasDp...@netcom.com>, kob...@netcom.com (David Koblas) writes:
>> Just to let people know, legoww.homepages.com has been updated.
>> Unfortuantly not for the better. For those of you who maintain
>> web sites I would reccomend that you review the letter that is
>> available at:
>>
>> http://legowww.homepages.com/
>>
>When you visit this site, you see a sad message:
>"This site is no longer in operation. I have decided that I no longer
> have time to maintain this information. The old content is not
> available since this letter was received."
>[it goes on to display the letter from the lawyers of course.]
>David, surely, killing the site off entirely is not necessary from a
>legal perspective. Reading the letter from the legal sharks, all it says
>is that you must comply with their request to remove their trademark
>("LEGO" of course) from your address.
>Just change your address to something else, like www.koblas.com, or
>koblas.homepages.com and then they would be happy.
>If it's a matter of cost for registering a new domain name, I'm sure
>that the denizens of r.t.l would be glad to pitch in for the cost
>of a new domain name. I'd personally contribute.
>Don't just give up in the face of a legal threat. Comply with their
>demand for a new site name, and then you can continue to provide
>your service! Wouldn't that be a better solution?
>Of course, I'm sure you're angry and bitter at LEGO for making a big
>deal out of it. Emotionally it may seem like killing the service off
>is the best thing to do, but I'd urge you to reconsider. Please don't
>let your anger at LEGO convince you to remove your valuable collection
>of resources from the net, please.
>Or ....
>if you do insist on shutting your page down permanently, it's be nice
>if you'd pass on access to your collection of resources to somebody
>else who would be interested in keeping them available to the public.
>It's an ugly situation, but it can be made better with a bit of work.
>Don't give up on us, please. Or if you refuse to change your mind, please
>make your resources available to someone else who wants to carry on the
>service of being the unofficial r.t.l archive of LEGO information.
>Best regards, Jeff
>--
>je...@teubner.com "Float on a river, forever and ever, Emily."
--
James Helminski jim...@access.digex.net
ISM-Business Systems
INTELSAT james.h...@intelsat.int
--
_/_/_/_/_/ _/_/_/_/_/ _/_/ _/_/ | Shanker's Converse to O'Hare's Law:
_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ |
_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ | Inside every small problem is a
_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ | larger problem trying to get out.
_/_/_/_/ _/_/_/_/_/ _/ _/ |
______________________________________________________________________________
(@ @)
---------------------------oOO--(_)--OOo-------------------------------
``` '''
Always code as if the guy who ends up testing your
code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeff Thompson
>
>
> What about Prior Art?? What about that fact that this name has been in
> the public domain for a considerable amount of time.
>
> Funny how LEGO (no R here) has decided to take legal action only when they
> decided to put a Web site together ... appearantly it was ok for others to
> have LEGO (again no R) in their domain name before this was done.
>
> I think I'll go hire a lawyer and sue everyone that uses the word "West"
> since this is my last name. I've already filed for a trademark and
> copyright on this word.
>
> From now on you all will refer to West as West(R). Boy I'm gonna make a
> ton of money from compass sales alone !!!
<laugh> Nice parody.
>
> Is there anything that us netizens can do about this ?!?!?!?!
>
> I for one am very disappointed in this letter and the fact that
> legowww.homepages.com has shut down.
>
> This is nothing more than legal censorship.
All they did was ask for the site to be moved to a different domain
name. Whoop-dee.
Censorship?
The only reason the site shut down was because Mr. Koblas decided
to shut it down in annoyance or anger, not because LEGO made him
do it. Don't confuse the stimulus and response.
It's certainly David's right to kill the site, but if he had
been interested in keeping it up he could have done so. Change
the domain name, and put a notice at the old address saying
"this site has moved --- find us at <link>, and find the official
LEGO homepage at <link>." Quite feasible.
Pity - it was a good site, although David seemed to have
lost interest in keeping it current. Maybe I'm wrong, but
it's crossed my mind that perhaps he was already getting close
to burn-out on the whole thing *before* the legal problems
arose.
--
Jedi Master
flou...@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Raymond Suke Flournoy) wrote:
>In article <4k4ot6$o...@mozo.cc.purdue.edu>,
>Scott R Schuricht <schu...@widget.ecn.purdue.edu> wrote:
>>....
>>Now I am not a lawyer, but does the use of the domain name
>>legowww.homepages.com
>>really infringe on their trademark and introduce unfair competition ?
>>...
>
> I also am not a lawyer, but I don't think that there has to be an
>element of competition for a use of the trademark to be considered
>misuse. After all, LEGO has a right to be in control of its image and
>reputation. Remember that in LEGO's original complaint, the existance
>of the web site wasn't the issue; it was the appearance that the site
>was an official one sponsored by TLG itself.
>
Ok, maybe it does infringe on the trademark. But I still want to know
what "unfais competition" the legal guys are talking about, and also what
"monetery" compensation beyond the legal fees they expect to get.
> Frankly I'm surprised at the heat people have turned on LEGO for
>this action. If you had created your own company and someone was
>seemingly presenting themselves as a representative of your company,
>it would worry/irritate/anger you I'm sure.
>
OK, I'll buy that. I still think LEGO was too far behind the times
in setting up their WWW presence. When they finally did they jumped
the gun, in my opinion, on this whole copyright issue. I agree that
they should protect their trademark/copyright, I just think the way
they implemented that protection was poor.
Scott
(O-)-------------------------------------------------------------------
Scott Schuricht schu...@ecn.purdue.edu
Thermal Sciences & Propulsion Center http://128.46.142.191/
School of Mechanical Engineering Purdue University
LEGO: TO+++(6335) BO+++(4030) TR+++(4549) #+++ S- LS++ H!? M+ A++ YB68m
David Koblas
>
>The only reason the site shut down was because Mr. Koblas decided
>to shut it down in annoyance or anger, not because LEGO made him
>do it. Don't confuse the stimulus and response.
>
>It's certainly David's right to kill the site, but if he had
>been interested in keeping it up he could have done so. Change
>the domain name, and put a notice at the old address saying
>"this site has moved --- find us at <link>, and find the official
>LEGO homepage at <link>." Quite feasible.
>
>Pity - it was a good site, although David seemed to have
>lost interest in keeping it current. Maybe I'm wrong, but
>it's crossed my mind that perhaps he was already getting close
>to burn-out on the whole thing *before* the legal problems
>arose.
>
The interest remained, the time commitment didn't stay around. I've been
designing web site for the last 1.5 years... which unfortuantly makes
one a little snobbish about what is considered "acceptible". So, yes
I could move the site to 'www.koblas.com' and I have mentioned that
I would be doing this in my response to LEGO, however I feel that to make
the move sucessful I'll need to go through the site and carefully inspect
for any trademark infringements or other possible legal problems.
This takes time, which I don't have.
The removal of the site was not out of anger or annoyance, but rather
a desire not to end up at the end of legal procedings. Which I truely
do not have time for.
--
name : David Koblas domain: kob...@netcom.com
affiliation: Home Pages, Inc. phone: +1 (415) 903 5353
quote: "Time has little to do with infinity and jelly donuts."
Tony Kilaras
'schu...@widget.ecn.purdue.edu (Scott R Schuricht)' wrote:
>
>Now I am not a lawyer, but does the use of the domain name
>legowww.homepages.com really infringe on their trademark and introduce
unfair
to
>compete with InterLEGO. Also, what "kind" of monetary recovery could they
>possibly get out of a lawsuit? Did this site take sales away from LEGO
products
>? Did he deface the company or slam it's products ?
>
>I am getting sick of the legal profession in general in this country,
>especially the big companies who feel compelled to make this large of an
issue
>over something so trivial.
The worst part is that his site is many times better than the offical one,
but guess which one stays?
The dollars, always the dollars.
Michael Holmes
: I've read the word "damage" and "damages" now in several posts used to
: describe what David has inflicted on TLG. I'm having a hard time with
: this. The teubner vs tuebner example, I understand. Jeff lost business
: to a competitor. Has TLG lost business because of David's page? I
: page to buy *more* sets to build the models I've seen there. Where
: are the *real* damages?
I think one of the things that you, and some others, are forgetting, is
that once a company is lax with any trademarked or identifying logo, it
becomes that much harder for them to fight against more serious problems
in the future.
Think of it as a fuzzy line dividing what is 'fair use' and what is
not -- with sites like David's making the line that much fuzzier, and
more out of the control of the company. And, it *is* their original
idea and product and name and... anyway, I think they certainly _do_ have
to take some precautions, especially given that the internet is still
somewhat vague from a legal standpoint.
: I think they are shooting themselves in the foot with these kinds of
: actions. But of course they're a huge, multinational corporation; they
: have a lot of feet to shoot.
I think they have actually responded much more reasonably than
other companies in similar situations. I also think you have to
consider it from their point of view -- you don't have much at stake
in this issue; they obviously have a lot more to lose if some confusion
does result.
--
/* -> Mike Holmes, Happiness Patrol // Happiness Will Prevail! \\
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
"I am more and more convinced that our happiness or unhappiness
depends far more on the way we meet the events of life, than
on the nature of those events themselves." - Baron von Humboldt
John Cromer
>
>Censorship?
>
>The only reason the site shut down was because Mr. Koblas decided
>to shut it down in annoyance or anger, not because LEGO made him
>do it. Don't confuse the stimulus and response.
>
Not many people like seeing others bullied or being bullied themselves.
The usual response is recalcitrance -- completely understandable,
though a sad loss for us.
>
>Pity - it was a good site, although David seemed to have
>lost interest in keeping it current. Maybe I'm wrong, but
>it's crossed my mind that perhaps he was already getting close
>to burn-out on the whole thing *before* the legal problems
>arose.
A good possibility.
John C.
Javier Ramos
>but guess which one stays?
>The dollars, always the dollars.
No, they are Danish Kronen and Swiss Francs.
Javier
Sander Plomp
>On Apr 04, 1996 14:15:18 in article <Re: legowww.homepages.com>,
>'leh...@winternet.com (Todd Lehman)' wrote:
>
>>You don't seem to understand the damage that legowww.homepages.com has done in
>>terms of confusing the general masses out there. WE know it wasn't an official
>>site, but take a close look at some of the links to it. That kind of damage is
>>going to take a lot of work to fix. It all could have been avoided by (a) a
>>different server name or (b) a much louder disclaimer on the home page.
>>Certainly the official-sounding title "LEGO Information" didn't help things.
>
>What damage? Exactly what was on his site, or any unoffical site, that was
>so bad? His site was far better than than the offical site is. The offical
>site is laughable. If your any kind of a lego aficionado, you need a site
>that contains more than eye candy. If he had some pornography or something
>like that on his site, then I could see the problem.
The damage is to the exclusiveness of LEGO trademarked name. The point
of having a trademark is that the LEGO group gets to control what is
cold, published, marketed etc. under the LEGO name. If someone
publishes something (e.g. a web page) in a way that people may think
it comes from, or is endorsed by, the LEGO group they have lost this
control.
The official site may be boring, but they get to control exactly how
boring it is. If they can make it better if they want, or more boring.
They can take it offline if they feel that would be best. And at least
it will be technically well done boorishness: if their pictures are
boring it's because the subject is uninteresting, not because they're
out of focus.
They have no such control over other peoples sites. And they make no
attempt to censor the fan sites. All they ask is that it made very
clear that these are fan sites, and not official ones. They limit the
way their trademarked name can be used, their logo etc. Because that's
the only legal tools they have.
Most fan sites may be great, but some are truly awful. It doesn't
really matter. LEGO just wants to make a clear distinction between
official and unofficial sites. Since legowww.homepages.com was
sometimes mistaken for official it damages this distinction. Damages
don't have to be material to be real. Violating traffic rules damages
road safety. Copying a key damages its uniqueness. Either can occur
without specifically hurting someone. Still most people don't consider
it OK as long as there is no specific damage.
--
Sander Plomp pl...@together.net
Tony Kilaras
'pl...@together.net (Sander Plomp)' wrote:
>
>>What damage? Exactly what was on his site, or any unoffical site, that
was
>>so bad? His site was far better than than the offical site is. The
offical
>>site is laughable. If your any kind of a lego aficionado, you need a site
>>that contains more than eye candy. If he had some pornography or
something
>>like that on his site, then I could see the problem.
>
>The damage is to the exclusiveness of LEGO trademarked name. The point of
>having a trademark is that the LEGO group gets to control what is cold,
>published, marketed etc. under the LEGO name. If someone publishes
something
>(e.g. a web page) in a way that people may think it comes from, or is
endorsed
>by, the LEGO group they have lost this control.
Oh please. Cry me a river.
>
>The official site may be boring, but they get to control exactly how
boring it
>is. If they can make it better if they want, or more boring. They can take
it
>offline if they feel that would be best. And at least it will be
technically
>well done boorishness: if their pictures are boring it's because the
subject is
>uninteresting, not because they're out of focus.
Wow sounds great. A huge step forward for Lego fans everywhere.
>They have no such control over other peoples sites. And they make no
attempt to
>censor the fan sites. All they ask is that it made very clear that these
are
>fan sites, and not official ones. They limit the way their trademarked
name can
>be used, their logo etc. Because that's the only legal tools they have.
>Most fan sites may be great, but some are truly awful. It doesn't really
>matter. LEGO just wants to make a clear distinction between official and
>unofficial sites. Since legowww.homepages.com was sometimes mistaken for
>official it damages this distinction. Damages don't have to be material to
be
>real. Violating traffic rules damages road safety. Copying a key damages
its
>uniqueness. Either can occur without specifically hurting someone. Still
most
>people don't consider it OK as long as there is no specific damage.
Thanks for clearing that up for me >:( Does lego have you on retainer?
John Cromer
>John Cromer (c...@chandra.caltech.edu) wrote:
>: Where
>: are the *real* damages?
>
>I think one of the things that you, and some others, are forgetting, is
>that once a company is lax with any trademarked or identifying logo, it
>becomes that much harder for them to fight against more serious problems
>in the future.
>
True.
>Think of it as a fuzzy line dividing what is 'fair use' and what is
>not -- with sites like David's making the line that much fuzzier, and
>more out of the control of the company. And, it *is* their original
>idea and product and name and... anyway, I think they certainly _do_ have
>to take some precautions, especially given that the internet is still
>somewhat vague from a legal standpoint.
I guess, but, really, they've already lost control of the use of the
term "lego." *Everyone* I know uses it in a generic sense. I hear
"Let's play with legos," and I do not respond "Uh, you mean with Lego(R)
Brand Building Sets," because I don't want to sound like a dork.
>
>: I think they are shooting themselves in the foot with these kinds of
>: actions. But of course they're a huge, multinational corporation; they
>: have a lot of feet to shoot.
>
>I think they have actually responded much more reasonably than
>other companies in similar situations. I also think you have to
>consider it from their point of view -- you don't have much at stake
>in this issue; they obviously have a lot more to lose if some confusion
>does result.
>
Well, I guess we're getting into "dead horse territory" as David Karr sez.
We'll have to agree to disagree. I do have something at stake. Unlike
some on the group here, I *do* boycott companies that engage in behavior
I consider disagreeable. Sometimes. With Lego, it's tough, because I like
their product so much. Of course they have more to lose than I do, but I
still think they've stepped on a site which increased their business, and
did them more good than "damage."
John C.
Kevin Johnston
>>> What damage? Exactly what was on his site, or any unoffical site, that
>>> was so bad?
>>
>> having a trademark is that the LEGO group gets to control what is cold,
>> published, marketed etc. under the LEGO name. If someone publishes
>> something (e.g. a web page) in a way that people may think it comes from,
>> or is endorsed by, the LEGO group they have lost this control.
>
> Oh please. Cry me a river.
Tony, a very important legal point is at issue here: you CANNOT protect a
trademark in the future if it can be shown that you knowingly failed to
protect it today. If Lego fails to protect its trademark on the web
today, it could (potentially) be unable to protect it on clothing or books
or competitor's toys in the future. Despite the fact that this is an
extreme example, everyone should understand that every large corporation
has a staff of people whose sole job it is to track down and prevent
trademark infringement because that is what trademark law requires.
Trademarks are important industry tools and companies simply have to
follow the letter of the law, however distasteful, if they want to get
protection from the law in the future. It sucks, but there you have it.
Kevin
Tony Kilaras
I *know* all of this. I am edjumakated :) There's more than one way of
doing things. Stomping on the lego site isn't one of them. If lego made a
decent effort to work with koblas on making the site "legal" (and form
letters from some law firm don't count) and koblas was being a prick about
it then fine, but this is not the case.
--
Tony KilarasŽ
Frode Torske
just going there, David Koblas.
Some time back i fiddled a little with SG's IRIS Explorer and tried
the Help/About... option. It then showed a group picture of the development
team, and the name under one of the guys was David Koblas.
Does anybody know whether this is the same guy?
Frode Torske
David Koblas
Ja, de er meg.
I am one in the same, I've got the "red" shirt on in that Explorer picture.
You can also find a picture of me off the 'GNN/Koblas Currency Converter' site
[I don't know the URL] which is a B&W profile shot, not much better.
Also, since I'm on the topic, you'll also find references to me in regards
to SOCKS, and XPaint.
--
name : David Koblas domain: kob...@netcom.com
affiliation: Novo Media Group phone: +1 (415) 284 1405
Frode Torske
>
> In article <317A35...@nauticus.dnv.no>,
> Frode Torske <ft...@nauticus.dnv.no> wrote:
> >The owner of the legowww.homepages.com pages is, as one can see by
> >just going there, David Koblas.
> >
> >Some time back i fiddled a little with SG's IRIS Explorer and tried
> >the Help/About... option. It then showed a group picture of the development
> >team, and the name under one of the guys was David Koblas.
> >
> >Does anybody know whether this is the same guy?
>
> Ja, de er meg.
Hi David,
While I am at it (and since you responded in pseudo-Scandinavian - OK, there was only
one spelling error, you missed a t behind the 'de' ,-) ) is there anything in the
rumour these pages actually reside on a computer in Norway?
Just curious,
Frode
PS. I got your generic e-mail reply indicating you might miss the message there,
so I took the liberty of poting it here too since it seems you can find time to
read rtl (at least sometimes). :-)
Tim G. Foley
> On Apr 14, 1996 17:07:40 in article <Re: legowww.homepages.com>,
> 'pl...@together.net (Sander Plomp)' wrote:
>
> >The damage is to the exclusiveness of LEGO trademarked name. The point
of
>
> >having a trademark is that the LEGO group gets to control what is cold,
> >published, marketed etc. under the LEGO name. If someone publishes
> something
> >(e.g. a web page) in a way that people may think it comes from, or is
> endorsed
> >by, the LEGO group they have lost this control.
This is fine, that is still no reason to out right threaten a person with
severe legal costs and actions. In the letter, they stated they would
pursue all their legal costs as well if this went to court. I think this
is a case for the EFF. I'll forward a copy of the letter to them and see
if they like the intent. :)
This could be a very precident setting matter here, a company being able
to take control of a simple word, which actually means something in some
languages (ie. Lets see you copyright the word 'COPYRIGHT' and tell
everyone in the world they have to stop using that term...cause I make
'Poptarts' by that name....).
They also go so far as to mention that a disclaimer would not be enough,
yet in the 'Play Fair' official page, they mention that a disclaimer is
ok.
Does this mean if someone made a web page on drug abuse called
'cokewww.com' they are in deep trouble? I think lego has take this too
far.
I hunted all over the lego site to find a feedback option but found none,
I guess our only recourse is to fax them letters stating that this type of
behaviour will not be tolerated by the general populace of the web.
So when is lego going to sue Kellogs for using 'Lego my Eggo!' ?????????
My warm, fond memories of the lego I grew up with completely shattered
by a legal department
that probably played with wooden blocks....
Tim
Lou Zucaro
Tim G. Foley <ti...@interlog.com> wrote:
> My warm, fond memories of the lego I grew up with completely shattered
> by a legal department
> that probably played with wooden blocks....
>
Gee...I've seen the letters, "threats" of action, etc., etc., and all
of my Lego still look and work the same way...
See ya...
Lou
LEGO: FS+(1819) TO+++1(6399) BO+++(709) TR+++(4558) PA+(6416)
SP+++2(497) CA+++(6071) PI+++c(6276) AQ+++3c(6195) TC++(8857)
#+++++ S++ LS+ Hs M+ YB67m
"I...I think he was a mandroid."
Frode Torske
Tim G. Foley wrote:
> I hunted all over the lego site to find a feedback option but found none,
> I guess our only recourse is to fax them letters stating that this type of
> behaviour will not be tolerated by the general populace of the web.
You can send your comments to Blind...@lego.com.
The rumour is you won't get any replies to things sent to this address, but
at least you save the money for the fax.
Frode Torske
Frode Torske
Tim G. Foley wrote:
> This could be a very precident setting matter here, a company being able
> to take control of a simple word, which actually means something in some
> languages (ie. Lets see you copyright the word 'COPYRIGHT' and tell
> everyone in the world they have to stop using that term...cause I make
> 'Poptarts' by that name....).
Well, whaddaya say about this then:
Some days ago I stumbled over a Japanese company called ASCII Corporation
who claimed to have a tradsemark for the word 'ASCII'. And their page didn't
show up particularly well on my browser either. <grin>.
If you care to have a look, go to: "http://www.ascii.co.jp".
This doesn't have anything to do with Lego at all, but I couldn't
resist it when I saw the lines above. please forgive me.
frode
Lunatic Johnathan Bruce E'Sex
In article <01bb3369.55a3c740$2846cecd@timfoley> Tim G. Foley <ti...@interlog.com> writes:
>> On Apr 14, 1996 17:07:40 in article <Re: legowww.homepages.com>,
>> 'pl...@together.net (Sander Plomp)' wrote:
>>
>> >The damage is to the exclusiveness of LEGO trademarked name. The point
>of
>> >having a trademark is that the LEGO group gets to control what is cold,
>> >published, marketed etc. under the LEGO name. If someone publishes
>> something
>> >(e.g. a web page) in a way that people may think it comes from, or is
>> endorsed
>> >by, the LEGO group they have lost this control.
>
>
>This could be a very precident setting matter here, a company being able
>to take control of a simple word, which actually means something in some
>languages (ie. Lets see you copyright the word 'COPYRIGHT' and tell
>everyone in the world they have to stop using that term...cause I make
>'Poptarts' by that name....).
brand name, etc. After you fill out a bunch of paperwork and continue
using that name in business for a certain period of time, your trademark
becomes REGISTERED, and you can replace that little "TM" with a little
"R" in a circle.
Copyrights are for works as a whole, like books, artwork, photos,
software, etc. The Lego building instructions are copyrighted.
[...]
> So when is lego going to sue Kellogs for using 'Lego my Eggo!' ?????????
Kelloggs and Lego have cooperated in the past, with the AppleJacks/
Fruit Loops Lego premium offer... (and I've been saving proofs of
purchase ever since then, hoping that they'll repeat it again :).
Besides, I'm sure if they ever wrote it out, Kellogs would probably
say the phrase was written "Leggo my Eggo!"
--
_______
______/ , -= Lunatic Johnathan Bruce E'Sex (:
_____/ / _ ___ _ @netcom.com
____/ //__ (_| |\| /-\ | ][ {_ @genie.com