DON'T FOLLOW ME
I AM NOT A REAL TUMBLE BLOG, I AM USED AS A FILTER
SINCE TUMBLR TOOK AWAY MY REAL FILTER.
From Nov 18, 2009:
I Have Found The Tumblr Filter
This Filter is Obsolete
How can this guy claim (with a straight face) that he was actually using this as a blog, when he has posts on the blog explicitly stating that it is not a blog?
Personally, I think there is enough blame to go around:
* Meaghan is probably trying to cover her ass because she over-stepped herself in removing this blog without notification to the user because she though it was abandoned.
* Tumbldore is just using this to generate drama and publicity. It's also possible that Tumbldore is just a giant troll that had this whopper of a piece of bait dumped onto his lap, so now he's just going to milk it for all it's worth.
The original owner of pitchfork.tumblr.com has his own response with a screenshot of an email from Tumblr stating that they didn't ask him before reassigning it:
From Tumblr's TOS:
"Tumblr reserves the right to remove any Subscriber Content from the Site, suspend or terminate Subscriber’s right to use the Services at any time, or pursue any other remedy or relief available to Tumblr and/or the Site under equity or law, for any reason...or for no reason at all."
Just because they can, does it mean they should have?
It doesn't seem like a fair assumption that the account is abandoned if there are a few posts form the past year, especially when Tumblr didn't contact the user (assuming they did not).
It sucks, but you get what you pay for.
I can't say that the original owner has made the best case for himself. Throwing around terms like "libel" and "exercise my right" is off-putting and makes it hard to empathize with him.
If you've posted five times in a year, and the last one sounds like you've decided your blog is obsolete, then it's not an instance of somebody abandoning a longrunning thing. It looks like somebody gave the service a few tries and gave up.
Personally, I'm all for ridding the internet of name-squatters, though Tumblr really should have deleted all of the old data first. I think Pitchfork Media's response is fair and more than I would have expected.
It sound like they did not try very hard to contact anyone, this is pretty bad even from a free service. If this was a facebook or google doinging this there would be a huge shitstorm from you guys.
Correct me if I am wrong, but you cannot trademark the name of an everyday object, such as a pitchfork, and then have rights to any use of the word in a domain.
So do they have the rights to pitchfork.wordpress.com, pitchfork.heroku.com and pitchfork.github.com ? Of course not.
This is not about IP, this is about a company doing their friends a favor. I will now stay away from tumblr. If I cease posting for a few months they could take my domain away.
> Correct me if I am wrong, but you cannot trademark the name of an everyday object, such as a pitchfork, and then have rights to any use of the word in a domain.
You can trademark the name of an everyday object. See 'Apple' computers vs 'Apple' the music label. Now they only have a trademark dispute is someone in their industry has the apple.com or apple.github.com or whatever (e.g. if Microsoft or Dell registered apple.wordpress.com, Apple might have a case to take it away from them do to brand confusion -- which was the original reason for trademarks).
[+] [-] pyre|16 years ago|reply
From March 14, 2009:
From Nov 18, 2009: How can this guy claim (with a straight face) that he was actually using this as a blog, when he has posts on the blog explicitly stating that it is not a blog?Personally, I think there is enough blame to go around:
* Meaghan is probably trying to cover her ass because she over-stepped herself in removing this blog without notification to the user because she though it was abandoned.
* Tumbldore is just using this to generate drama and publicity. It's also possible that Tumbldore is just a giant troll that had this whopper of a piece of bait dumped onto his lap, so now he's just going to milk it for all it's worth.
[+] [-] tdm911|16 years ago|reply
http://tumbledore.tumblr.com/post/393276231/this-is-in-respo...
[+] [-] nopal|16 years ago|reply
Just because they can, does it mean they should have? It doesn't seem like a fair assumption that the account is abandoned if there are a few posts form the past year, especially when Tumblr didn't contact the user (assuming they did not).
It sucks, but you get what you pay for.
I can't say that the original owner has made the best case for himself. Throwing around terms like "libel" and "exercise my right" is off-putting and makes it hard to empathize with him.
[+] [-] jpwagner|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] petesalty|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davidkarp|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jmm|16 years ago|reply
This is a more interesting to me as a Pitchfork copyright/trademark issue: http://pitchforked.com/ (Context here: http://twitter.com/zachklein/status/9188476155 )
I hope the guy doesn't get the smackdown after just building the site, but who knows. (A lawyer knows.)
[+] [-] Jach|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|16 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] andymoe|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jasonlotito|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] steve19|16 years ago|reply
So do they have the rights to pitchfork.wordpress.com, pitchfork.heroku.com and pitchfork.github.com ? Of course not.
This is not about IP, this is about a company doing their friends a favor. I will now stay away from tumblr. If I cease posting for a few months they could take my domain away.
[+] [-] pyre|16 years ago|reply
You can trademark the name of an everyday object. See 'Apple' computers vs 'Apple' the music label. Now they only have a trademark dispute is someone in their industry has the apple.com or apple.github.com or whatever (e.g. if Microsoft or Dell registered apple.wordpress.com, Apple might have a case to take it away from them do to brand confusion -- which was the original reason for trademarks).
[+] [-] thibaut_barrere|16 years ago|reply
- Tumblr: http://www.tumblr.com/docs/custom_domains
- FeedBurner MyBrand: http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mybrand
[+] [-] anigbrowl|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jackowayed|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rogermugs|16 years ago|reply
thats my opinion... taking it away under any circumstance is sketchy in my opinion.
[+] [-] waterlesscloud|16 years ago|reply
Exactly.
[+] [-] fnid2|16 years ago|reply