Land Rover

[cbe]

Hello everyone, Greetings from Brazil !

Unusual question from this end: the Land Rover enthusiasts association in Brazil (called "clubelandrover", a non-commercial association) have been contacted by some local intellectual properties lawyers, apparently on behalf of Land Rover, with a request to take the association's site off the air and pass on the domain to an entity "to be named by Land Rover" ...

Does The Land Rover Forum have any special understandings with Land Rover in the UK w.r.t. using the brand name in the forum, or have Land Rover every tried to obtain control of your site ?

Best regards,

Christian B Eckardt

Rio de Janeiro

S 22°57' 54.48"

W 43°13' 24.70"

[steve_a]

Somebody with more knowledge will be along I am sure, but in the meantime...

Land Rover went on a crusade about 2 years ago to reclaim their brand and threatened loads of clubs about using the logo. I belive it was all sorted out fairly amicably, in the end.

It may be that this is something similar, so don't immediately back down and contact LR direct about it and make it clear that it is in their own interest to be sensible.

Best of luck with it, as I said, I am sure some club member will be along who had to deal with all this when it occured.

[FridgeFreezer]

As long as you do not own a web domain that could be mistaken for an official land rover one (for example landrover.br) and are not using Land Rover copyright images / logos in your club materials, you should stand your ground.

[steve_d]

It may be that in the end they may find grounds to make you take the web site down but I very much doubt they can make you hand over the domain you bought and paid for.

Good luck

Steve

[FridgeFreezer]

It may be that in the end they may find grounds to make you take the web site down but I very much doubt they can make you hand over the domain you bought and paid for.

In the case of a domain such as "landrover.br" or such like, they can take the domain off you quite easily these days. If it's something that you would not expect to be associated directly with the company, such as landrover-club.br, then you have more chance of keeping it.

[Mo Murphy]

Chris,

The local club to me, BHCLRC, had some trouble a couple of years back that was resolved quite amicably with Land Rover. Contact them via this website they may be able to offer some advice.

You'll notice on the website in the top rh corner that they are now an "approved Land Rover Club" .

HTH

Mo

[Dave W]

As others have said, a few years ago now (think it was when BMW took over) they had a blitz on people using Land Rover as part of their business or club name. Lots of UK companies were forced to change their names and became "Land Rover Specialists".

If they are concerned they should buy a new domain and point that at the web site as well, get the media involved and let Land Rover know directly that the club will be starting a media and internet campaign before hand to let people know the tactics that Land Rover are using against their own customers and "fans". If you do have to give up the domain then you can keep the web site going under the new domain anyway.

I'd stand my ground personally and will do if they ever try it on with any of my domain names that contain land rover in them.

[Rizla 1]

I remember about 15 years ago landrover had a big shake up and stopped people using landrover or Rover in there titles,

Rapid Rovers and Roberts Range Rovers all had to change there company names

[newclear]

Looking at Google, seems the url is "www.clubelandrover.com.br", is that right cbe?

Can't see anything wrong with the Domain name, but I can't see the website at work, crashes IExplorer everytime - crappy work PC's (don't think these have the language packs installed or working if they are).

Matt

[mmgemini]

This topic cropped up at Peterborough.

Aparently Land Rover, under BMW ownership, wrote to a German companuy or club telling them to stop using the Land Rover logo.

The Germans sent a letter in reply written in German. They heard nothing more.

mike

[cbe]

Dera all,

Thank's for your inputs. In a first reponse to the lawyer's letter, the site was taken off the air temporarily, as we are still trying to find out what on earth is going on.

Best regarsds from Brazil !

Christian B Eckardt

Rio de Janeiro

S 22°57' 54.48"

W 43°13' 24.70"

[simonr]

My friend (Guido) used to own and run LRMart.com - but after being threatened with legal action by Land Rover - lost it. He was advised that as both Land Rover and LR were apparently trademarked - he didn't have a leg to stand on.

I find this kind of thing ridiculous. In the long run it does companies like Land Rover (and Easyjet, who don't like any company, shop or web site with easy in the name) more harm than good.

On the TV a couple of months ago, there was an Indian Take-away called EasyIndian who had been served with a writ by Easy Group - just daft. However, it seems to be supported under the law.

Maybe I should go after every URL with 'X' in the title?

Si

[Les Henson]

I am the legal owner of 'X-it, X-fix, X-tech, X-anything at all. If that bluddy SimonR geezer tries anything - my lawyers will be all over him like an embarrassing rash

Les

[jimfoo]

Classicvolvo.com had similar problems with Ford, fought them and won.

2000 - 2001: Ford Motor Company vs. ClassicVolvo.com

Ford Motor Company hits me with a law suit for cyber piracy. It is the beginning of a battle on the Internet over the domain www.classicvolvo.com. Ford Motor Company accuses me of "trademark infringement" and want US $ 100.000 plus my domain. I gives me a lot of keyboard work, front page cover on Wall Street Journal and contact with a very skilled lawyer, Eric Grim at the www.eff.org. In the end I, kind of, win and get to keep my domain.

In brief, what happened was as follows: In May 2000 I received a fat, 20 page, Fed-Ex letter, from a law firm in Michigan, in my post office box. To start it was hard for me to understand what it was all about but after a while it looked like somebody accused me of trademark infringement and cyber piracy and that this somebody was Ford Motor Company, the owner of Volvo. I got very surprised and also very upset since I never have done anything than excellent promotion for Volvo all along on this web site. The days went by, I got into contact, via the web, with a lot of other site holders that also had been contacted by FoMoCo in the same manner. It looked like that the law firm had done a major sweep and were aiming to sue over 100 domain holders. I was Mildly miffed off by being bundled together with domains such as www.****fordfast.com, www.ihateford.com and decided for counter measures. I sat down and wrote the first page in what was going to be a rather long story. Nothing did happen at first but in October a journalist at the swedish Nine O´clock television news came across my writings when looking for parts for his Volvo Duett 210. He got upset by the obvious injustice, fascinated by a story with a lot of web ingredients (very hot in year 2000) and came out with a photographer and made a six minute long film that was released on prime time news time. Everything exploded! Statistics skyrocketed 10-fold. My telephone almost melted down into a little pool of plastic. I was hot stuff. Journalists from all over wanted to come. Wall Street Journal came and spent most of the day with me and my company and I made the front page in the European and Asian edition (page 7, I think, in the US). ABC News announced a visit but they cancelled when they understood that I was on the other side of the Atlantic. I made the entire news bill for a couple of papers the day after the news entrance and people came up to me when I walked the street. My case was written or talked about in many, many newspapers, magazines, TV- and radio programs both in Europe and in the USA. And all the time everything was in favor of me!

In all this commotion, I got in contact with Eric Grimm at the www.eff.org. Eric did think that this case was so interesting so he took it on even if the financial outcome would be zero. Thank you again, Eric! Eric took my case through a more than year long expedition until he finally got a judge to decide that the acting of Ford Motor Company was wrong. The judge also ruled out every possibility of getting paid for damages so Eric got nothing, neither did FoMoCo.

Most of the web pages I did write to me defense against Ford Motor Company are still online. Read them here. The billboards do not work anymore which is sad. There were a lot of angry people that posted on them. Even without the billboards I think you can get a good picture of what did happen.

ClasscVolvo.com vs Ford Motor Company, closing page: http://classicvolvo.com/ford/index.html

Starting page: http://classicvolvo.com/ford/round1.htm

[OilIT]

http://www.bl.uk/collections/patents/tms.html

[TJ101]

Classicvolvo.com had similar problems with Ford, fought them and won.

Ditto.. he is not the only one,, been there as well , over the last 20 years !! now keeping my head down !!

[sparg]

I think these kinds of cases are really interesting cases of bullying, in that they demonstrate that the bully (person or company, organisation, whatever) appears unaware that their reputation and well-being could be harmed. Sometimes they may just think their position is unassailable, and that they get to actually specify what is 'right' and 'wrong'. the actions of Kings and Governments in the past show us how unhinged some people's morality can become when they are truly not accountable. But other times, they actually are unaware that they are trampling on someone.

If I had the money, I'd start the "just say NO" movement, designed to do exactly what trade unions were supposed to do, but on a wider context. All organisations can succumb to the tendency to bully - and indeed, sometimes don't know they're doing it. But if enough people stand up and simply say NO, they have to wake up. So (for example) - any shop that uses a wheel clamping-and-towing enforcement company - just say 'no thank you' and shop elsewhere. See how long they continue; it may be forever, but you should still refuse to cooperate.

The trademark bullying is a similar situation; the company fall into the bad habit of thinking of the public as cattle rather than symbiotes. Clearly, behaving like cattle isn't the way to deal with the situation, but in a straight arm-wrestle, the company's going to win. Solution? rally support, and conduct 'guerilla war' - not too illegal, but a measured response - like Greenpeace do.

It's well to think about what it is you're trying to communicate to the bully - first, that they are in fact bullying, second that they can be seen to be bullying, third, that there are consequences. Although these last (in the form of monetary penalties of various sorts) are what will impress the company, it needs to clearly understand steps one and two first, so that it doesn't simply see the third step as an attack - because then, they'd react aggressively, thinking that they were being bullied! - you can see an analogous situation in the behaviour of the US in respect of foreign policy - they sometimes bully in the belief that they are defending themselves from bullying. so, it's delicate balancing act between communicating, and being seen to bully - you know if someone nags you, instead of listening to the message, you react defensively; same thing. So a campaign to make a company wake up needs to well-crafted AND soundly based in morality. If people are too subjective about their own preferences - and think that's 'moral', then they are likely to fall into the same bullying trap.

So, good luck to anyone taking on a big company, but don't do it alone

regards

[Rizla 1]

I wonder if Hughie new this when he named his new company - Portal Rover -