Infringing on the Amazon Mark: Kindle Websites
Amazon has a winner in the Kindle e-book and that kind of success demands imitators who want to make money off the Kindle brand by creating source websites or fan pages by using some form of a Kindle-ized URL.
Amazon is forced by these pretend fans to fight them in legal letters and in a court of law, if necessary, because to use the Kindle trademark without explicit permission from Amazon is to infringe upon the innate rights of Amazon.
It doesn't matter if one is celebrating the Kindle or not, no one may use Amazon's brand or intellectual property or the physical manifestations thereof for their own claimed private use on the public web. Intention does not matter. Usage matters.
We applaud Amazon's rightful need to protect their time and investment in the Kindle brand and even if small website owners -- or domain stealers -- complain and cry on their websites and in their blogs about Big Bad Amazon, we can only try to pity them for their transparent attempt to slide along for the ride on the bare back of the Kindle wave.
Posts
4 comments:
That's upsetting. Why would anyone want to steal the Kindle name?
They want to sell advertising on their Kindle sites or they just want the attention of a Kindle-type URL so they can make a mark in the world. There are professional journalists who have infringed on the Kindle mark in this manner and it is purely astonishing.
Why don't they just follow Amazon's trademarking rules? Then they can use the Kindle(tm) name without problem.
Hi Heidi --
I think the trouble comes when people try to monetize the Kindle mark for their own profit. Since Amazon cannot know the future plans for a site, the best way to defend their mark is to just not to allows its use as the single focus of any current or future domain they do not control.
Post a Comment