Music forum - trademarked domain name

[ojm]

Hi everyone, this is my first post in this legal issues section. Thought I'd never have to use it!

I'll try and explain the situation..

I run a forum that is about house music (a genre of music, dance music). Many members there including DJs, producers of music, etc. There are many discussion forums, and also music sharing. No files are hosted on the site, although links are posted to RapidShare type websites.

The site is a .org, which unknown to me at the time of starting this forum (which probably doesn't make any different), is a trademarked name from a large nightclub and record production company. My sites domain is THEIRTRADEMARK.org. Not a good sign, I'm assuming.

[ It is M o S for those who are interested, but my site isn't M o S .org ]

I got an email the other day through my whois privacy server, which basically stated that they own the trademark and yadda yadda.

To sum it up these said:

- that you will take immediate steps to either cancel the registration of the Domain Name or transfer the Domain Name to our client and will execute all and any documents required to give effect to such transfer or cancellation; and 
- that you will provide us with details of the owner of the registration.

I've checked, and it definitely is a trademark. I've also checked my country (Australia) trademark database, and it is a pending trademark here.

The forum is five months old, and has grown massively -- 3,000 members, 100,000 posts. I'd really hate to lose all my work.

But I'm pretty sure it will be lost. Would it be best to just cancel the domain, and leave it at that? Ask them for some form of compensation, and transfer? Register a new domain and point it to that? I'm not quite sure how to handle it. But I'm not quite keen on the "that you will provide us with details of the owner of the registration" part they sent me.

Suggestions? Delete the domain? Get compo? Point?

Sorry if I've said too much! Just a bit frustrated at my lack of research prior to registering!

 

[evertonian7uk]

registering the domain using MoS (ministry of sound) was kind of foolish as they have always gone for people, there a huge club scene player worldwide and registering a domain similar or confusingly similay to theres was a mistake on your part,

best option would be to tell them you didnt mean to infringe and ask for a few days / weeks to move your sites to a new domain then you will hand it over to them,

with this type of forum your best going for something a little more generic in the name, as there are many clubs / dj's / music companies with all genre's of music trademarked in some way.

The site is a .org, which unknown to me at the time of starting this forum (which probably doesn't make any different), is a trademarked name from a large nightclub and record production company

Are you saying that when you started this music forum, you didnt know who MoS was, cause if your into the scene, you must of known who they are?

asking them for compo is bad faith on your part so dont do that, just ask for time (not months and months either) to transfer everything.

this is not legal advise in anyway just my opinion on how i would try to handle it.

good luck with it all.

 

[ojm]

Thanks for the reply.

I of course know of M o S, and wouldn't blatently go register MoS.org/biz/info and use it for my music forum, but my .org is one of there smaller, lesser known trademarks.

MoS owns the .com, which points to a site, and I'm pretty sure that it never used to point to a site. The .net is a parked domain, not owned by MoS.

Edit: It appears MoS didn't always own the .com. Used to be a different site, which doesn't look like it was MoS. I'm stuffed I think! Ah well. Lessons learnt

 

[evertonian7uk]

its still a trademark no the less, to use there TM to attract visitors is badfaith,

just because they dont own the domain doesnt mean they cant take it from you,

read DNquests sig on trademarks and usage it will help you ALOT.

i hope it works out for you mate, sounds like you put some work in, pm me the domain so i can sign up, i love all things house / trance.

cheers