I just read a thread about CL craking down on sites that use Poser in their name. Well something strange happened to me recently. I have already posted this in the merchants forum, so sorry for cross posting, but many of you have not go access to that forum and this is something I feel needs to be out in the open. My post: -------------------------- Curious Practices - to sell or not to sell Many of you will know me, or at least of me. Many of you have purchased my products at Renderosity, my own website, even on Ebay. I have provided content for Poser for around five years now. I was one of Renderosity's first merchants in the Marketplace. As far as my products go, well some of you like them, some don't, such is life, but I feel confident that none of you think that any of them are illegal, and indeed they are not. That is why, a few weeks ago, I was shocked to be informed by Ebay that certain of the CD-ROMs of my Poser content were being removed from their listings. Of course I immediately queried this and was told to get in touch with the intellectual rights owner to sort it out. Now I was even more confused because the intellectual rights owner is actually me. Anyway, after reading through Ebay's emails again I discovered that my accuser was none other than Curious Labs. It seems that they use a third party company for their anti-piracy. It seems that this company, Internet Copyright Enforcement run by a Mike Watso, otherwise known as NukePirates.com, thought I was selling pirate copies of Poser. So I emailed them to let them know the disc only containe content for Poser, not Poser itself. True to most companies form they never replied. I tried Curious Labs instead, through their Contact Us form on their Website. In a matter of a few hours a person whom I only know as Fish had the whole mess sorted out. They said sorry, assured me it wouldn't happen again and that was an end to it. Fair enough. I relisted my discs, sold several and relisted them again. Sunday 17th April. Ebay email to say that they have again removed my listings and this time locked my account. What had happened, yes you guessed. They assured me it would never happen again, but it had. Once again Mike Watso had dropped the ball and expected me to catch it. This time I didn't even bother emailing him first. This time I sent a rather bristly email, complete with completely understandable four letter rant, to my old friend Fish. Who immediately apologised. Sorry? Sorry wasn't good enough this time. Once can be forgiven, but this time my account was locked, my good name had been besmirched and I was losing sales at Ebay. Finally I appealed Ebay's decision and fired an email off to NukePirates.com Fish was very sympathetic, after hearing that I needed him to contact Ebay he straightaway set about the job. Infortunately in vain. What happened their I doubt I will ever know. Meanwhile Mike Watso sent me an email, claiming I had breached a copyright by using the words Poser and Store in my product description. Quote: We had originionally had your auction cancelled for a copyright infringement on using the POSER STORE name on your auction site. :End Quote (the spelling is all his by the way). I sent Fish a second email to query this, does Curious Labs own the copyright to those two particular words. For nearly five years I have called my website PoserStore, until recently I had the domain name PoserStore.com registered. If I remember correctly even Daz3D use the name on their site, or at least used to. Fish never responded, I'm still waiting for a reply. It could be the fact that I mentioned the 'C' word, compensation for closing me down for four days (and counting), dragging my name through the mud and basically running me around in circles for the last few days, of it could be that he/she's busy checking on the legality of that copyright claim. Personally I think the claim is rubbish. If it's not then there are going to be an awful lot of locked websites and stores before long. Now, I could get my ebay account reinstated apparently, by admitting guilt and promising not to break the law again. As I have done nothing wrong, then I refuse to do this. Ebay can stick their account. I also doubt I will get very far with any compensation claim, I just don't have the money to fight with. What really worries me is this, if they can do this to me, someone who has supported their product for so long, then they can do it to you too, and not bat an eye lid about it. --------------------- So apparantly we can't use the word Poser, or Store. Which is odd seeing as they are both in the dictionary and it is a little difficult to either sell, speak about, or even give away content for Poser without actually mentioning the name Poser.

This Mike Watso person seems clueless. You can't copyright "POSER STORE", so there's no copyright infringement. You can trademark "POSER STORE", so if CL has trademarked it you could be infringing on their trademark. You should get that clarified immediately, as it would indeed affect many people. I hope "fish" (the professionalism evident in this scenario is fantastic) responds to your satisfaction. However, your ultimate recourse boils down to one word: lawsuit. I don't know that you'll want to go that extra mile, but that's probably going to be the only way you'll have a certainty of getting a chance at satisfaction. I've never sued anyone in my life, or wanted to, but if I were you I'd be severly tempted to haul Mike Watso into court, I bet you could win that case. Unzipped

I'm no lawyer, but I think they would NEED to have the name "Poser Store" trademarked, not copyrighted, to be able to do anything to you because of it. A unique name can be trademarked, but not copyrighted. Those are two different things, reserved for different purposes. I believe it could be trademark infringement, but only if they have actually registered Poser Store as a trademark. Again, I'm no lawyer, but I do have some experience in trademarking names and logos, since I've done that sort of thing before.

Seems like unzipped beat me to the point. ;-)

Interesting. The site that was told to change their domain name was called PoserFreeStore. (It wasn't actually a store, it was a freebie site, but they used that name.) So maybe it's Poser and Store together that are verboten?

They're just trying to expedite their new "Content Paradise" venture by eliminating any potentially competitive domain names. If CL was smart, they would have bought all the possible "Poser Store" domain name variations themselves. They're only $15 each or less at some registrars. ;-)

well, my site is actually www.pdblake.com, it used to be Poserstore.com, but Dotster never reminded me to renew it. It's now a soft porn site:) Now that one I don't mind them closing down:) My problem is that I can't even use the words in a product description on Ebay.

Sort of OT, but related: I remember reading an article a while back on Wired News, where the owners of the site, sex.com, were trying to shut down any website that had the word 'sex' in the domain. LOL Obviously, that little trist at marketing dominance failed miserably in court. ;-)

I suppose "Poser" is trademark of Curious Labs (you can check but I'd figure they did trademark it), so they may have a case for trademark infringement in this instance. In that case you would need to investigate if/how you can use "Poser" in relation to your business. I find it hard to believe CL will disallow people to use it in the context of selling content for their program, but people do stupid things when they get greedy. Unzipped

Maybe if you change it to "Blake's 3D Model Emporium" or whatever, you'll not only avoid dealing with guys like Watso, but you'll pull in more business by attracting more than just Poser users. But the others are right. If you use the words "Poser" and "store" in your description, provided you say you're not affiliated with Curious Labs, maybe e-bay will blackhole all further Watso complaints. And CL should look into disciplining Watso, if he's driving people to consider lawsuits against him (and them by proxy).

Their hired thugs are probably just overzealous. :-P

But yeah, they should buy up the domain names. $15? Get 'em for $8 or less if you buy in bulk.

It would probably cost them only about $1,000 to shut down the porn site, if they wanted to. Basically, the fees to file a dispute with ICANN. Maybe less, if they were willing to sell. Most people just register a different domain name if the bandwidth vampires steal theirs, but occasionally, someone fights back. One site asked for donations, and got enough to file the dispute and get their name back. Another had a benefactor who bought the domain name back for them for $200.

Odd. And interesting at the same time.

I won't offer an opinion on this -- yet. We don't know enough. And we've only heard one side of the story.

But if the facts are as presented........then I am reminded of a rent-a-cop trying to make his quota. And thus justify his fee.

If the facts are as presented.

"If the facts are as presented." Eh, we all know there's always four or five sides MINIMUM to every story, then, if we're lucky, there's some truth mixed in there somewhere. LOL ;-)

I agree that this Mike Watso person and ebay have been unfair by suspending your account without hearing your side. However after reading about similar cases in the UK press a few years ago, it doesn't surprise me. Here's an explanation as to why this may have happened. Although the words "Poser" and "Store" are not copyrighted, the fact that you are using the words in the name of your site, to sell products that are in some way related to, but not created by Curious Labs the makers of Poser means that you are using the word "Poser" in the context of the name of the program, which IS registered. This could seem misleading for some people.If you had named your site something else and used those words in a way on your site such as "my poser store" or "my poser products" (indicating that they are something that you have created), they probably wouldn't have been able to do what they did. This is why lots of companies register multiple domain names for both their company and products, to stop variations of their name or products being used. McDonalds tried to take someone in Scotland to court for having a burger place called MacDonalds, despite the difference in spelling and the fact that the owner's name was MacDonald. Some companies deliberately try to trade off another companies name, which unfortunately comes back to kick innocent merchants in the ar*e "when they are tarred with the same brush" One of the main reasons I use my full name here at Renderosity etc despite that fact that most people shorten it, is that if I started trading Poser stuff under the name DAZ UK, I'd probably have DAZ on my back for the same reason.

The REAL tragedy here is the $$money$$ being wasted by CL
in hiring pretenders like "nukepirates.com" to hassle legitimate websites
that are operating in the light of day and actually PROMOTING CL and poser.
when we all know that private P2P network sharing of Software goes on unabated.

SAD :-/

Message edited on: 04/21/2005 14:26

I am another "old timer" I guess.. I have been on this site since it was called "PoserForum.com" (LOL). Although that history is a bit murky. Wasn't Renderosity called "PoserForum.com" as Willow was pushed out? And didn't they start "PoserForum.net"?

Nevertheless... I am following this subject with some interest. It turns out that I am just now trying to break back into the Poser(TM) marketplace. I am about to launch a series of product. Poser(TM) is trademarked by Curious Labs(TM) but that doesn't prevent me from using it in my own advertising. I am not a lawyer (and I don't play one on the internets) but I am pretty sure that if I set up a "chevystore.com", you can bet that I would hear from their lawyers.

One thing to consider is that Curious Labs has an obligation to protect their trademark or they risk losing it to the public domain (I believe that cellophane tape is an example of this.. kleenex and xerox are still hanging on to their respective trademarks but people have started calling those things facial tissues and photocopiers these days..).

Curious Labs should NOT be using a "blunt instrument" (and an apparently clueless one at that) to enforce this policy. They are fumbling the political football here. Friendly emails should be exchanged first. And then time should pass... Opportunities to correct the problem or to ask for further clarification should be given. These things are all a part of enforcing a trademark infringement, IMHO. As long as you are trying to enforce it, I don't think the courts will take it away.

Now if Curious Labs continues this process, it will hurt them. In fact, we should try to make it hurt them. We are their reason for existing. They shouldn't be playing this way.

In fact, I think I have identified the problem. We don't really have a "generic" term for Poser. DAZ Studio works on Poser models. We need a term that means "Poser" model but that can be used generically as "facial tissue" and "photocopier" are used to mean "Puffs" and "Canon".

Just my $0.02.

===Underdog===

P.S. Here is a rather interesting trademark disclaimer from games-workshop.com. They've been through the mill with T.S.R. (creators of Dungeons and Dragons - talk about trademark tyrants!).. Check out their MASSIVE disclaimer...

http://uk.games-workshop.com/legal/disclaimers/

LOL!!!

Sorry, just this minute got your second post about the name of your newer site. I can't see why they did it, how are people supposed to sell products that THEY have created if this is what happens. This means that anyone, including Renderosity, DAZ or Runtime DNA could be shut down for using the words poser on their site.
The trouble is that these companies that do the searches possibly don't even check to see if the copyrights been infringed or not. Just read the message above and I agree that a more generic term could be used if this sort of "witch hunting" continues. Unfortunately "pz3, cr2, pp2" and the other file formats that describe exactly what they are, are likely copyrighted too. If someone was use any of those, the same thing could happen.

Message edited on: 04/21/2005 14:41

I can see legitimacy on both sides of this issue.

If anyone has ever gotten burned -- bigtime -- by pirates: then it's been Curious Labs. And I can understand them wanting to do what they can in order to defend themselves.

On the other hand, it does look like pdblake has been treated unfairly. Which isn't a good thing.

If the problem lies in using the term "Poser Store" -- then Curious Labs needs to let everybody know that up front.

Doing so might help to avoid some grief for well-intentioned merchants and supporters of Poser.

Not to mention helping Curious Labs to avoid the PR headache of potentially negative threads like this one in the forums. Or at least -- to mitigate the problem somewhat.

Good Grief! Sorry to hear about your difficulties Blake...who's the idiot in charge of PR at Curious Labs?! First they release buggy software, then try to cut off the hand that feeds them! Underdog's right - that group "posing" as an anti-piracy company should have given a list of possible "offenders" to CL for analysis before any action was taken. Whoever had the idea to just start shooting legitimate content developers should be sacked (in more ways than one). Hope it gets resolved soon! Cheers, Bonzai Gopher

A suggestion on product descriptions only... Instead of the following: Content created for use in Poser. Try: Content created for use in Poser, an extraordinary 3d modeling program for sale by Curious Labs. Several other people were right about the copyright/trademark thing. The program itself is copyright, the name is trademark.

"Try: Content created for use in Poser, an extraordinary 3d modeling program for sale by Curious Labs." But that would then be "false advertising", because Poser isn't a modeling program. hehe. Just teasing. ;-P

How about about referring to all poser content by a symbol, or unspecified content formally known as poser.

ROFLMAO @ DarrenUK!! That's genius man. ;-)

I second this. Until Curious gets that hair out of their Actor hip:1 let's refer to the program we all love to hate as "The program formerly known as Poser."

To be fair, Fish from CL, who turns out to be the CFO, has chased NukePirates and EBay about this. It just seems that he/she isn't getting very far very quickly. My Ebay account has been dead in the water for five days now. Fish also seems genuinely apologetic, but when it's happened twice and is actually costing me money and reputation, well, sorry just isn't good enough anymore. Just to clarify, this is nothing to do with my website, but with the use of the words in an Ebay listing.

geez.. the CFO (Chief Financial Officer) ? that's on the Board or Directors..above Presidents, VP's, etc. You could only go one step higher, and that's the CEO..the head of the company. If he/shes's working your case, that's about as intense a pressure as you can get. Now granted, it could be a small company, but still, that's pretty personal service. Good luck.

Message edited on: 04/21/2005 16:13

Unfortunately "pz3, cr2, pp2" and the other file formats that describe exactly what they are, are likely copyrighted too. If someone was use any of those, the same thing could happen. You can't trademark or copyright a file extension. If it were possible, then thousands of file extensions would be in trouble and there would be a global class-action suit against the idiot company that tried to enforce such a preposterous notion. If you do a search on ""file extension" trademark", all you get are links about file extensions and 'this product is trademarked'. Meaning, they can trademark a product's name or other names associated with the product (a named feature, for instance0, but not its content. They can copyright the content format but not names associated with it, unless it is a uniquely trademarkable feature. Can Curious Labs really infringe on my ability to use "pz3" for my "Pizza 3.0" program? Let 'em try! ;0)

Nope, Because Curiouslabs wouldn't be able to fight Canon for rights to the Cr2 format. Canon CR2's are a propriatory TIFF picture format.

Any suggestions for a term to replace Poser? I am looking for something easier to say than "facial tissue" or "photocopier".. We want a term that folks will go "oh, yeah, you mean like 'Poser', right?" without being told. It also would mean, of course, DAZ Studio data as well as any other programs that come along. For example, I have a web application that generates FC2 files for lip sync. I would like to call those Poser fc2 files but I guess I might need to rethink that one now.. So, Ladies and Germs! Post your suggestions on a Poser replacement name! Be the first on your class 'C' IP range (first on your block just sounded so 'last century' - lol)... ===Underdog===

I also read through the other thread on this and still not sure what all the drama is about.

If it's over using the word Poser in a site, surely that can be fixed by either adding the (R) beside the word Poser (see below) in your title - I know that won't work for domain names but you could add a phrase such as this to the main page...

Poser is a Registered
Trademark of Curious Labs an
e frontier Company

I just did that to my "Elysium Poser Playground" - just in case!

Message edited on: 04/21/2005 17:47

Poser replacement term... DORK or D.O.R.K Digital Orientation, Rendering & Kinematics Cheers

P.O.S.E.R.

Posing
Orientated
Scaled
Eye Candy
Renders

Message edited on: 04/21/2005 17:52

Does CL actually think they own the rights to everything created by other people, just because its created for use in their program? Cause it sounds to me like either CL, or their little e-bay nark, seems to think if its made for poser, you can't sell it cause it's owned by CL, regardless of who made it. I don't know a whole lot about the details of stuff like this, but i do know that who ever registers a domain name first, regardless of the words used in that domain name, it belongs to whoever registered it. As for the content that the domain name. Example, Ellen Digeneris (however you spell it), had to pay several hundred thousand $$$ just to use her name on her own .com because somebody beat her to it and registered it first. And, that's actually how a lot of people make tons of cash, or at least did back when tons of .com names were being created. People would register domain names of celebrities, businesses, etc, and wait for the person/business/etc to come and offer money to be able to buy back their name. I know this isn't about a website, but was just making a point. 8-) E.D.

"NVM Pro" NVM= nekkid vicky maker :-)

Bwhahahahahahaha! "NVM" gets my vote!

MDVHPPPhhhhhhhhffffffffttttttt ----

Multi-Directional Virtual Human Position Placer Program.....

........phhhhhhhhhffffttttt.........

'Twas just on the news today, somebody's snatched popebenedictxvi.com, and the poor old guy's not even sobered up from the party yet!

MikeRoweSoft.com - sued by Microsoft and WON because it was 'drawing' traffic away from their site!

In both my documentation, readme files, website, and programs where 'Poser' is used, I always use (r) since Curious Labs Poser (r) is a registered trademark. :)

ETA: On my website, I now use a disclaimer on all pages "All products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies." to cover everybody!

Message edited on: 04/21/2005 20:34

As I remember, you can't have the name of a famous person or company as a web address anymore with the hope of forcing them to buy it from you. It's called "cybersquatting" and there are laws against it. Brad Pitt sued the "cybersquatter" owner of bradpitt.com and won.

Attached Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3429485.stm

ah. so they've created laws for it now. a few years ago they had not. Degeneres most likely had this issue prior to the creation of those laws then. (or she just had a really bad attorney). the internet still has a lot of areas where there are no laws that govern it, and a lot of the time it falls to the laws that apply to the area of the country/world in which the site/site owner resides. Yet would the actor brad pitt still have been able to sue had the site been owned by brad pitt the mechanic? hmmm...

E.D.

Message edited on: 04/21/2005 21:11

"Yet would the actor brad pitt still have been able to sue had the site been owned by brad pitt the mechanic? hmmm..." That's usually handled as a different issue by the courts. Nissan, the car company, just a few days ago lost a big case against a guy who had the word "Nissan" in his web site address because his name really WAS Nissan. If the cybersquatter's legal name really had been "Brad Pitt," he probably wouldn't have lost. -jjsemp

Yeah, makes sense.

You could use "Pose Her" or "Pose Him"... "Pose-Her" is proly best. Or what about Pos-Er?

Or screw it, just claim to be french. 8-)

Some guy from france a few years ago tried suing a family-owned sweater company for using the name Montana* on their little sweater emblem, cause that was his last name. The company used the name montana* because they were based in the state of montana. I don't know if he won the case or not. I'd hope not, or else every business from montana that uses their state's name in its logo/name is in trouble.

E.D.

Message edited on: 04/21/2005 21:20 *oops. spelled it wrong.

Message edited on: 04/21/2005 21:23

Poser 1) Informal - someone who tries to behave like a fashionable, rich, intelligent, etc. Person to make people notice or admire them: Kate's such a poser. 2) Old-fashioned - a difficult question or problem.

Okay, they threatened suit and he was forced to change the domain name. But there is an ongoing appeal to this. When I say "sued", I mean lawyers were involved. :)

Copyright is a very serious thing in our community. Stuff like that makes it harder to enforce valid copyright. I am bothered by this trend of throwing the word around as an umbrella eexcuse to control legitimate people and competition.

I would contact a lawyer.

Underdog wrote: "We need a term that means "Poser" model but that can be used generically as "facial tissue" and "photocopier" are used to mean "Puffs" and "Canon"."

how about
ASC = Animatronic Software Conetnt
and also ASCII (File Name Extension)

Abbrv to AnimaSC

Message edited on: 04/21/2005 23:46

Who hired nukepirates.com? It could be eBay, it could be CL, it could be a consortium of companies who make digital products. The first post doesn't say who set the watchdog on a long leash. In the old days Anthony Hernandez (Nosfiratu) was the CL anti-piracy person and it was nice to have a human face, someone who actually knew us, be involved in chasing down the real criminals. I hope that the people who drove him out of the forum are happy. If CL subcontracted the job out, they probably had good reasons. Carolly

"Or screw it, just claim to be french. 8-)" Then it would be "Poseur" - Oui? cheers

I believe a previous thread said that CL feeds the dog...who probably operates out of his garage with a PC and a web-bot that searches ebay.com and other likely sites for the word "P*&^r". According to their rather colorful website, they've killed half the internet. Piracy should ceast to exist by next week.

From this glorious day pirates don't exist anymore, now they are called corsairs.

I love their list of "nuked" sites. One of the URLs is labeled as having been nuked "twice - so far."

I guess nuking isn't very fatal...