Using trademarks (possibly distorted) and city names on website to make money

[fredrik]

This post concerns the use of trademarks on a website hosted in Sweden. The website is a dotcom-domain with the United States, Europe, Russia, China and India as the main markets. The overall goal of my questions is to avoid being sued in any country or state (and I expect abiding by the laws in the United States as a whole a good benchmark to start with).

Assume the website ranks "things" according to how much money has been spent through the website on each thing. For example, the website might set up a race between X and Y. Assume it currently shows that $1200 has been spent on X and $1150 on Y. A user, who likes Y more than X and has money to spare, pays $100 to make Y rank ahead of X. For doing this, the user gets a post on his/her facebook wall, saying "FirstName FamilyName donated $100 for Y on website.com." It will be clear to paying users that all they get is that the spending counter for the thing of their choice will increase with the amount they pay, and that they will get a post about it on their facebook wall; no portion of the money will go to/toward X or Y.

My questions concern what I can use as X and Y on this website:

1. Can I use trademarks? If yes, what are the requirements, e.g. disclaimer?
2. Can I use city names, e.g. Cambridge, MA and Princeton, NJ?
3. Can I use country names?
4. Can I use distorted trademarks, e.g. "Columb1a" instead of "Columbia," "Goldm@n Zachs" instead of "Goldman Sachs," "P3psi" instead of "Pepsi?"
   
   
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   a) What degree of distortion is necessary for this to be allowed? How many letters need to be changed?
5. Does the nature of the website affect the answers to these questions? Consider the two cases:
   
   
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   a) The website donates at least 50% of revenues to charity.
   
   
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   b) The website targets rich people and emphasises their ability to aimlessly waste their money on things like this, while normal people have to struggle just to pay the rent. In doing this, the website uses politically charged phrases like "Live like the upper class. [...] Absolutely no money will go to charity or socialist things like welfare for the working class."
6. (off-topic, optional question) Should this be regarded as a commercial website where users buy products or is this a recreational website where some users donate money to the website?

Please let me know what you think. If you have any questions, please post them and I will try to respond. Thank you very much!

Fredrik

 

[crights]

trying to understand the idea

I don't understand what you are trying to achieve. Are the "x" and "y" values reflective of actual sales?

In other words is the site tracking sales of a product of Apple ("x") and a product of Microsoft ("y")? Or is it just tracking opinions of products, where the opinion cost money (e.g. the $100) to "post" and is acknowledged by Facebook feedback?

Aside from IP issues, I don't understand the basic premise of the pursuit. Is the site looking to get "rich" people to pay to show their opinion (some element of "prestige"?) but at the same time showing that the same people paying to get their opinion are then acknowledged as "foolish" in that they waste money on paying for the opinion?

-- Just trying to understand the idea.

 

[fredrik]

Pay to show your opinion - get prestige

The site is just tracking opinions in terms of money paid through the website. The return for the buyer is some kind of prestige, by showing that they can spend money on "liking" e.g. their university on a website without getting anything else back.

The idea comes from Sweden where rich kids used to spray champagne in the night clubs, but after it was prohibited, they just bought the champagne and asked the bartender to pour it out in the sink (I know, it's crazy). Anyway, there are now a couple of websites in Sweden were people can pay money to pour out virtual champagne and show it off on facebook or be acknowledged on the website.

 

[crights]

No IP advice, but...

Thanks for the clarification and world culture info.

Sorry I cannot give IP advice. As you may see from my posts, I am in the same boat you are – just seeking and trying to understand the arena and just curious by nature.

That being said, that idea does sound crazy – in a good way. If people are up on that sort of thing, and you can find a legit way to cash in on it, more power to you and hope something works out. It also kind of makes me want to go to Sweden – sounds like they are having more fun than I am.

Best of luck.

 

[fredrik]

Thank you. Well, I surely wouldn't have any qualms about receiving money from people who can spend like this, but using trademarks as an added incentive might be too much...

 

[crights]

$arbie distorted

If you do a search on "$arbie distorted harvard" the results may be of interest to you. Goof luck with it.

 

[Michael Wechsler]

I'm not sure I understand the problem. So long as you aren't seen as passing off goods or services or otherwise being confused with the company with the mark, you shouldn't have a problem. I can state my opinion that the sears.com domain has done $100 million worth of sales in the past 3 months without fear of being sued. I can even rank my top ten consumer sites or have my site members do the same. Nobody is confusing me with passing myself off as any of these companies.

Using a slug in a name doesn't change much in the eyes of the law if the result is a likelihood of confusion or it falls within the definition of intellectual property law or other law, e.g. tarnishing good name, libel, etc. If you make a false statement about G@ry J@ckson of @l@b@m@ it doesn't matter that you've changed the letters to have another take it's place -- it's clear what you meant to say.

Not sure if this answers your questions but it's the best I can do at the moment.