Trademarks with fictional characters in domain names

[James Trotta]

Let's say I want to buy a domain name with a fictional character's name in there. Like "Superman's blog" or something (go ahead - that's not the one I want). Would I have trademark issues?

I know Superman is trademarked, but if my site's not about superman would it be free use or anything?

[Avinash]

hmm.. I'm afraid you'll be taking risk by including a trademark in your domain that you don't own. A few months ago, Automattic was suing people for using 'WordPress' in their domain names.

You may have to contact the trademark holder to become assured. I've seen many people using trademarks in their domains but they include special notes in the footer that clearly says : "this site is not affiliated with *trademark*".

[calvinchin]

Yes, you will have to contact the respective personnel or legal adviser. Some don't have rigghts on domains, but most of them do...

I have come across that people can't register a domain with a product name 'within' it... yes, the word fo that product cannot be appeared inside the domain name, no matter how long the domain name is.

To be safe, stay away from these practices.

[ClassTopic.com]

I've seen a lot of people registering words that are very very close, but not exactly matching the trademark and getting away with it. I know one guy has redbxo.com, which is a close misspelling of redbox.com and he is hoping to get some hits off of people's typing mistakes. Even he has a line on the site that says his site is not affiliated with RedBox though.

[calvinchin]

I agree with that...

like yhoo, goglle, all are related but legal ways of getting away with the
domain trademark....

However, if you registered something like, GoogleFriendsters, YahooMarketing,
MicroSoftTutorials, then I think they will be after you very soon.

Just my idea, to play safe with our online business and domains.

[joe-d]

Yeah... I know someone who used "LordOfTheRings" in his domain and he was sued. I suppose same goes for fictional characters.

[WorldwideTrading]

It depends a lot on where you are in the world. I have had issues in the past with a US based web host getting grief and being threttened with legal action if one of my sites wasnt taken down immediatly. They couldnt touch me or my site under UK law but since the site was hosted in the USA they went after the web host who pulled my site immediatly.