If you select a username for your account we reserve the right to remove or reclaim it if we believe appropriate (such as when a trademark owner complains about a username that does not closely relate to a user's actual name).
As an aside, where is evidence that shows (or even suggests) that Facebook actually sold the URL for $$?
- facebook has indeed sold the name
- facebook gives trademark law preference over personal names
(they may have been threatened to be sued, but then they should
have simply stood up for their users).
Facebook is first and foremost a site for PEOPLE, not companies so the rights of users should always go before the rights of incorporated entities.
I'm not saying it's impossible, but based on just that I don't see how TC can run such a headline... FB's actions being deplorable or not.
You mean techcrunch would use a headline that is not 100% the truth simply to get more viewers?
'Honour' and 'Techcrunch' have not been used in the same sentence other than this one since they posted twitters internal documents, 'because otherwise someone else would have'.
Using a misleading title is small fry on that scale.
Sued? For what? Under the Fair Facebook Vanity Names Act? There is no conceivable case Harman would have against FB for URLs on their own site!
FB might have a policy which would give companies priority. I think Twitter has been doing something similar when it reassigns celebrity names; in such cases the personal name of the original user is irrelevant as the decision is based upon what most people would expect from that name/what the company wants. Obviously, both Twitter and FB want to encourage companies and celebrities to endorse their service and offering them the names they want is a great way to get that endorsement.
Whether they would win the suit or not does not matter, they can sue.
Whether they have a case or not is for a judge to decide.
Errm. No, sorry. I wished that was true but it really isn't.
If you are a corporation suing another corporation for trademark infringement on something as silly as what is essentially a path name then you can only lose, even if you win. After all, both parties can expect to pay a solid amount of money to their lawyers, and only in rare exceptions will you be able to recover that.
The monetary loss due to the lawsuit could only be offset by an unknown quantity of PR backlash in case you give in too early.
But lose you will. So by suing, even if the one party 'has no case' there is a fair chance the other one will call it a day and give in.
Simply because it isn't worth $50K to $100K or thereabouts to facebook to stand by this one individual user.
On the one hand I don't blame facebook, on the other I think they are underestimating the $value of that PR backlash.
If facebook is lucky some of the PR flak will be directed at Harman International and they will reconsider their stupid request.
Facebook is between a rock and a hard place on this one. On the one hand a company that has a legitimate (even if it is a stretch) reason to sue, which will cost them money, on the other hand their users who will all feel their vanity urls are going to be given to the highest bidder or the one with the largest legal department.
Neither is good.
Facebook giving in this quickly is definitely a losing proposition to them, they should have said, 'ok, this user may be infringing, but since that is not proven in a court of law you will have to get a ruling, and then we will yank the account but you can not have it'.
By rolling over like this and potentially giving harman international the url they have clearly crossed a bunch of lines.
By caving they are in effect setting their own precedent that trademark holders can demand and will receive arbitrary URLs on their private web site. You would think that this outcome would be so bad for them that they'd gladly pay practically any amount to avoid it.
So no - I don't think there is any credible legal reasoning behind FB's decision on this one. I would expect it is an internal policy, probably combined in this case with money and/or advertising commits changing hands.
That's not so 'routinely' as you think, and these costs are not equal to the actual costs billed by the defendants lawyers.
I wished it was, then I could recover a 100K or so from various idiots that sued us over the years.
> especially since they are quite likely to get it back,
They really likely would not. The judge might even rule against them for a variety of technical reasons.
Going to court is much like going to the casino, only for much higher stakes.
> By caving they are in effect setting their own precedent that trademark holders can demand and will receive arbitrary URLs on their private web site. You would think that this outcome would be so bad for them that they'd gladly pay practically any amount to avoid it.
Yes, that's what you would think. But the fact that they don't should make you wonder if you aren't missing something.
They're evil, but they're definitely not stupid. I really do not think that this case behind the scenes is as simple as what it looks like on the outside.
Trademark law is tricky and the outcome of such a case is by no means certain. I'm fairly sure that facebook made that provision in their terms of service exactly for cases like this, because standing up for the 'rights' of their users over what is essentially a string of bits on a server is not in the interest of their bottom line.
Only a very small fraction of their users will ever run in to this problem, and only a very small fraction of those will have sympathy on their side.
> I would expect it is an internal policy,
Agreed, in fact it is a published policy.
> probably combined in this case with money and/or advertising commits changing hands.
If there ever is any proof of that then I think the sentiment will change drastically, for now - and I stress that that could change any moment - it does not look as though 'harman' has been assigned to any other party.
See the case of 'Nissan' vs 'Nissan'
http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2001/01/40939
and:
I just quoted the ToS and tangentially remarked that, despite the articles title, I couldn't find any evidence that Harman International actually paid Facebook.
I edited to avoid ambiguity.
Any hard evidence will be on private email servers and we may never see it. But the fact of the confiscation and reallocation is obvious; it is its own evidence.
Whether or not money actually changed hands or whether it was part of some quid pro quo arrangement or whatever is kind of besides the point. Obviously FB is getting something out of the deal, or it wouldn't have done it. Either way the user is getting screwed.