Suggestions for commercial scripts

[Wayne Luke]

Jelsoft hasn't lied. vBulletin is a trademark, it is not a registered trademark. In the United States and the United Kingdom, you do not have to register a trademark for it to be valid. You only have to use. A registered trademark on the other hand has more enforcement value behind it. Being from another country Floris might not know this and his statements are a case of not investigating further before posting.

Personally, I think all the names with vBulletin in them, including vbulletin-fans.xxx et al., are confusing to the customer and should be shut down. They produce commercial instability in the marketplace and diminish the value of the vBulletin brand. Until trademark registration has been followed through with though, it can be difficult to do so though. And yes, I do realize that I own a vBulletin domain for a particular project.

[Princeton]

I believe a "vBulletin Certification" would be enough.

Checking software would amount to a lot of work and would imply that "vbulletin" has checked software for bugs, etc -- which may lead to a liability issue down the road. I don't think they will go this route.

It's better being safe than sorry. Plus, the resources could be used "in-house" to further enhance the company's products/services/etc.

[GoTTi]

hmm well from what you guys are now talking about is the domain name point of things....

floris has in his signature on vb.com 4 sites with the vb lingo,

vBulletin Fans "Language" Site @ http://www.vBulletin-Language.com/ [unofficial site]
vBulletin Fans "Fans" Site @ http://www.vBulletin-Fans.com/ [unofficial site]
vBulletin Fans "Tutorials" Site @ http://www.vBulletin-Tutorials.com/ [unofficial site]
vBulletin Fans "Style Demo" Site @ http://www.vBulletin-Style.com/ [unofficial site]

all have vbulletin names in them and all say unofficial. domaina can be owned by anyone. u cant trademark a internet domain name. thats how alot of companies that register domains stay in business, by buying up possible domain names. for instance, www.mikerowesoft.com. this was from a kid, who happend to have the name Mike Rowe, and decided to make that domain name, and m$ got fumed, tried to take it from him and lost. from what happend though, i think Mike got a lifetime membership to their programmer site and schooling and training to not market the name or some junk...i dunno. whatever it was, m$ was not able to get the site from him.

[Andreas]

u cant trademark a internet domain name.

You can, at least in Germany.

[Wayne Luke]

Originally Posted by GoTTi

for instance, www.mikerowesoft.com. this was from a kid, who happend to have the name Mike Rowe, and decided to make that domain name, and m$ got fumed, tried to take it from him and lost. from what happend though, i think Mike got a lifetime membership to their programmer site and schooling and training to not market the name or some junk...i dunno. whatever it was, m$ was not able to get the site from him.

Actually, there is legal justification and use of a trademark in a domain name is valid. Microsoft lost this case because:

1) It was the person's legal name. In the United States, legal surnames trump trademarks.

2) It was deemed dissimilar enough not to create commercial confusion. In order to enforce trademark violation, the entity whose trademark is being used incorrectly must prove that the use is causing them financial losses. Mikerowesoft.com was not causing documentable financial loss. If he had been peddling his own version of a Linux desktop called "Doors" (Open the Doorways to the imagination), then he would have lost.

To find proof of case #2, you only have to look at Lindows. A linux distribution purported to be as easy to use as Windows. Microsoft sued them for similarity of trademark and they were forced to change their name. Trademark is the entire basis of every anti-domain squatting law in the United States and Europe.

[bigcurt]

Originally Posted by Wayne Luke

Jelsoft hasn't lied. vBulletin is a trademark, it is not a registered trademark. In the United States and the United Kingdom, you do not have to register a trademark for it to be valid. You only have to use. A registered trademark on the other hand has more enforcement value behind it. Being from another country Floris might not know this and his statements are a case of not investigating further before posting.

Personally, I think all the names with vBulletin in them, including vbulletin-fans.xxx et al., are confusing to the customer and should be shut down. They produce commercial instability in the marketplace and diminish the value of the vBulletin brand. Until trademark registration has been followed through with though, it can be difficult to do so though. And yes, I do realize that I own a vBulletin domain for a particular project.

I know I dont have much a say in this but I would have to respectfully disagree, vbulletin-fans is a great place for people who love vBulletin like myself to chat about anything involved with vBulletin ( other than code modifications ) I am glad floris opened that and it is a great site and I would very much hate to see it get closed down by ANY reason, other than personal reasons made by floris. I understand it can sometimes confuse people but it is hard to confuse vbulletin-fans with vbulletin.com where to buy a license at .


~Curt
Once again I do this out of respect, just had to voice an opinion and I DONT want to get offtopic so this is the last thing Iwill say about it .

[GoTTi]

okok so back to the main topic here then. enough with .com rules and mumbo jumbo.

we're tryin to establish here whether commercial hacks should be allowed. Wayne, thanks for takin time to input us from the vb staff side. can u ask the rest of the group to put their cents on this so we can all discuss the right situation here?

Originally Posted by GoTTi

okok so back to the main topic here then. enough with .com rules and mumbo jumbo.

we're tryin to establish here whether commercial hacks should be allowed. Wayne, thanks for takin time to input us from the vb staff side. can u ask the rest of the group to put their cents on this so we can all discuss the right situation here?

I don't think that is going to happen. This affects Jelsoft as a business directly, so it's going to be their decision/opinions that matter in the end, not ours.

[sabret00the]

Originally Posted by Wayne Luke

If it were a second site, it would be the place we (vBulletin support staff) would send customers first. With a list of add-ons and providers, we would be reasonable certain their needs would be handled. This site would be relegated to secondary status because of lack of promotion on vBulletin.com except for the links in the forum list. I mean it is in our commercial best interest that customers are satisfied as quickly as possible and for many plug and play commercial extensions will be the answer.

so ultimately it would be in the best interest of jelsoft to do this in the same way as vbulletin.org, i.e. establish the userbase in an unofficial capacity to the point of being the unofficial-'official' resource and then applying for sisterhood/official status?

Originally Posted by Wayne Luke

Personally, I think all the names with vBulletin in them, including vbulletin-fans.xxx et al., are confusing to the customer and should be shut down.

i actually agree, the url's suggest officiality. and allowing another company to thrive on your trademark in such a way just isn't good business sense lol.

saying that, i hate/detest the fact that vbulletin-germany.com is not vbulletin.dr (or whatever the german domain is). and that vbulletin-china.com isn't vbulletin.ch

[spence2]

What I'm waiting for is consistency and an assurance that any certification process would be free of favoritism. That is why the domain issue is on-point.
On the one hand: here are the rules.
And on the other hand: "we" are exempt from following them.