If you read my blog post yesterday on the domain SYFY.com we have had contact with the subject of the post on which our story was based.
Michael Hinman has informed me that he in fact did not sell the domain SyFy.com to NBC/Universal for $250K, instead he sold the domain Syfyportal.com and an unregistered trademark to the term “SYFY” to NBC/Universal for $250K.
It’s a pretty long and complicated matter and suggest you check out Mr. Hinman comments on our post of yesterday for more insight from Mr. Hinman.
As there are so many comments on that post if you want to see them all you will have to click on “See older comments” on the bottom of the comments to see them all as the comments start with the most recent.
Here is a statement from Mr. Hinman as well:
“””We did not own Syfy.com. We owned SyFyPortal.com and other variations, but we did control the “syfy” mark.
Syfy.com was purchased by a marketing company in 2000 that wanted to distribute science-fiction DVDs. They used the name based on the growing popularity of the then-called SyFy World, which later became SyFy Portal.
We were not using domain names at the time because we didn’t fully see there being a use for it, since we felt anyone who would visit us on the Internet likely would’ve found us on the Internet, and could simply link to us from where they found us, and bookmark us. It wasn’t until we merged with Star Trek Portal in 2002 that we moved to a domain name (even though they were still pretty expensive then).
When we learned about Syfy.com, they were contacted by us, and they agreed to run a disclaimer on their main page, making it clear they were not us, and to provide a link to us. This was in lieu of us suing them to hand over the name, which you know at the time did not have fully established precedent yet and would be costly — something our site, which was generating no revenue at the time, would be able to afford.
Also, you were incorrect in the assertion that we simply sold a domain name. We did not. We sold a brand and a trademark. If we had simply sold a domain name, we could’ve easily registered syfyworld.com and went back to the moniker we were first founded with, or used some other variation of the “syfy” mark. But this was not just a domain name sale. We didn’t sell them beaches.com, we sold them a trademark as well. So there’s a big difference between receiving $250,000 for a domain name, and receiving $250,000 for a domain name and a brand.”””
These two aspects can not be compared, and your column errs in trying to do just that.
I will post this to your story, but I think it’s worth either a correction on your story, or a complete followup.
“… but we did control the “syfy” mark” Hinman
I checked USPTO.gov and I did not find any previously registered trademarks for “syfy”; only 2009 applications by NBC/Universal for the word mark SYFY.
SYFY.com
Created: 1999-06-04
SYFYPortal.com
Created: 2001-05-24
SYFYWorld.com
Created: 2009-04-08
“They used the name based on the growing popularity of the then-called SyFy World, which later became SyFy Portal.” Hinman
“It wasn’t until we merged with Star Trek Portal in 2002 that we moved to a domain name” Hinman
“This was in lieu of us suing them to hand over the name.” Hinman
Where did you have your “trademark” for “syfy” registered? It’s not with the USPTO and if it were State level then it would have only be regional at best. The other party registered or acquired SYFY.com between 1999-2000 and you didn’t start using a website for SYFY Portal until 2002.
Unless you had at least five years of exclusive usage prior to SYFY.com’s usage you had no rights to hold over the other party and you did not control the mark. Please provide evidence to support your trademark claims that upon research appear to be overreaching at best.
Several prior art examples, many referring to VD
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=syfy&defid=3810322
My point on the creation hooplah was simply that they decided, flipped a coun, used a magic 8ball, whatever to re-brand as SyFy. Perhaps the guy at NBC really did think of it himself and pitch it to the board… then, upon investigation they found a community portal with a large potential crossover in user interest and decided to payt you off and buy you out of your position (whatever that may have been) rather than create a public disturbance that could have tarnished their base by bulldozing you. Contrary to what you think, it is apparent to me that they could most certainly have used that $250k in a far different way and obtained the same result.
For their intents and purposes, perhaps he truly did “coin the term” – for their intended use, which is sufficient to make that claim. Sure, you may have used it related to something else before but obviously others have used that exact term far longer than you to mean yet another set of meanings. Obviously, he’d never heard of those uses either…
Judging from many of your statements, it does sound like you feel like you still/now actually have some sort of “case” against NBC-U for somehow misappropriating “your” creation under false pretenses.
Good luck finding an attorney that agrees with you. You surely have not done so in here.
Soundly
Mr. Hinman clearly states that he got paid for an UNregistered trademark, like a common law mark
Unregistered trademark and “we did control the “syfy” mark” are two very different things. Mr. Hinman makes some assertive statements. To claim that NBC would pay 250K for an unregistered mark that he/you claims has common law characteristics is not a supported argument. Hinman himself stated that he wasn’t running his “portal” website until 2002. NBC is doing the right thing now by filing a Federal trademark.
http://airlockalpha.com/node/6502
It is interesting that the syfyportal.com domain is supposedly owned by NBC yet it redirects to one of Hinman’s other sites, airlockalpha.com and it (syfyportal.com) is for sale on Sedo. NBC owns SYFY.com and that is the officially rebranded site.
Things don’t add up with Hinman’s account.
Soundly
All I can tell you is like you I read the article, all the comments on the first post and honestly this whole deal has now given me a headache.
I think the long view here is that NBC-U decided upon their re-brand name and, upon investigation, realized that there was a very vocal and somewhat sizable community whose name could possibly create a legal hurdle for them to deal with.
Seeing as the portal people were also some of NBC-U’s target demographic market as well, it makes sense for them to eliminate any possible fight and avoid the obvious downside of bad press resulting.
So they buy the portal’s name and assumed associated rights to make everything easier and less stressful.
Obviously, the verbiage in that contract is going to reference trademarks, intellectual property, good will, etc – whether those rights actually exist or not. Just because the contract states those things are being purchased does not confirm the strength or even the existence of any of those rights. It does, however, ensure that the portal could never claim those rights after the deal. By design, the whole deal was to eliminate a conflict and the contract accomplishes just that.
…and yet there is still noise.
So he did not sell even a domain for $250K, he sold nothing, just air
“It does, however, ensure that the portal could never claim those rights after the deal … and yet there is still noise” Cartoonz
Exactly. Hinman’s claims and arguments fly in the face of any contractual agreements he may have made. I’m also certain there would have been some nondisclosure terms there as well.
The guy seems to feel pretty bamboozled by the fact that they used a shell company, and claimed that they “coined” the term. I think he has more credibility in claiming to have coined the term, and doesn’t feel like he was compensated to yield that claim, beyond the price paid for the domain and trademark rights. Obviously they thought his unregistered mark was enough to make a case. And the original post got a lot of the basic facts wrong – big facts, like the domain in question – that was M’s assumption, not his. Decent of you to make a correction, but it is too bad to see this guy get bashed on top of the “correction”. He didn’t really seem to be showing any ill will, nor was he rude in posting his thoughts. They are also probably letting him transition the domain for traffic until his community gets used to the URL, as well as letting the search engines find the new site domain.
Its most likely NBC just coughed up a “pain-in-the-ass removal fee” to save themselves from Erkle-ish annoying persistence so they could move forward.
jblack sums it up eloquently.
As for the domain involved in the deal… it still resolves to the portal people for a time specified in the contract, as referenced by Mr. Hinman earlier.
I very much doubt that NBC-U really cares about that domain, other than to eliminate its use, so whatever the time period is won’t really make a difference to them.
best quote in all these posts ….
MHB “this whole deal has now given me a headache”
if only your ICANN posts would get this much heat (lol – although not really that funny)
This is interesting…
“When we learned about Syfy.com, they were contacted by us, and they agreed to run a disclaimer on their main page, making it clear they were not us, and to provide a link to us. This was in lieu of us suing them to hand over the name, which you know at the time did not have fully established precedent yet and would be costly — something our site, which was generating no revenue at the time, would be able to afford.”
Reviewing archived copies of syfy.com from 2001 through 2007, no such disclaimer nor link exists.
All to fix what wasn’t broken. From Subscription AdAge:
The Scene: After months of preparation and blogger speculation, the year’s most controversial cable rebrand — Sci-Fi Channel’s transition to Syfy — launched today to heavy fanfare from parent company NBC Universal. Freeloader hoofed it to the launch party at Rockefeller Center’s temporarily transformed “Imagination Park,” where purple-and-white Syfy-branded flags, a giant lollipop, a life-sized viewfinder and even Kathie Lee Gifford all awaited us.
In the first few weeks since Syfy announced the impending name change back in March, Freeloader couldn’t think of a more hyped-up cable TV event this summer. Of course, that was before Jon and Kate filed for divorce or Michael Jackson passed away. But for one imaginative hour at Rockefeller Center in an NBCU-branded bubble, the Syfy transition seemed almost as big as the months of marketing, constructive criticism and Twittering made it out to be.
We chatted briefly with Michael Engleman, Syfy’s VP-creative marketing, who appeared both excited and exhausted about the new brand and tagline, “Imagine Greater.” Syfy, he told us, is a “connective tissue that brings all the seemingly different elements of the brand together.” The explanation made Freeloader think of Syfy sibling network USA, which created the tagline “Characters Welcome” five years ago to help viewers make sense of a channel that featured wrestling, “Monk” and U.S. Open coverage all under one roof.
Mr. Engleman added that the Syfy brand will be tweaked and adjusted going forward, based on audience feedback and other elements that will naturally be introduced as viewers familiarize themselves with the new brand. “You can’t place any limits on people’s imagination,” he said.
also:
“According to research done exclusively for BNET Media by TNS Cymfony, syphilis jokes account for about four percent of all commentary about Syfy.” Ouch. That’s gonna leave a mark. Or an unsightly rash leading to eventual brain damage. BNET’s got a fairly comprehensive round-up of the negative reaction to Sci-Fi Channel’s decision to rebrand itself as SyFy. Not surprisingly, there are a lot of syphilis jokes flying around the interweb machines.
Indeed, the kindest thing you’re likely to find is the question, “Was Arnell involved in this somehow?” What’s amazing about this is that in talking to The New York Times, Sci-Fi President David Howe specifically referred to the Tropicana debacle. As BNET puts it, “A day later, you have to wonder who the hell Howe tested the idea with.” I want to believe that all the kids are spelling it SyFy to text each other. But I don’t.
http://adage.com/adages/post?article_id=135297
Mr. Frager,
Have you not one thought of your own? Why are you posting what appears to be the majority of copyrighted, subscription based material by an author and brand (AdAge) whom I am certain did not give you permission to do so. You are habitual at doing this Mr. Frager.
The proper thing would have been to simply reference the first few lines of the non-subscription version and then link to it. What you have done is just outright copyright infringement.
umm….both those syfy domains are bad anyways.
doesnt excit eme much, the domain name anyways !!
Soundly, well said.
Fair use is not explicitly rigid but there are some well-defined limits which that post crossed:
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/
Boring. He said, she said. Put your handbags down and move on. Someone’s probably said that before: sue me. I don’t know what commenter’s issues are here; maybe they feel cheated by someone snagging $250K. Bravo, that man. If NBC have the cash to splash, so what?
Soundly Reasoned: I went into deep detail on the necessity and reason of filing for a trademark and when you don’t. I am not going to repeat it here, so you will have to look at the previous comments to get those details.
But in a nutshell, filing a trademark with the government provides added protection and lessens your burden of proof of ownership in an infringement case, but it’s not required to prove ownership of a mark in an infringement case.
If you took a story I published, and re-published it and made money off it without my permission and sharing the revenue with me, I would be able to sue for copyright infringement. I can do that whether or not I registered that story with the copyright office, because I reserve rights on anything I created and can prove I was the first to create whether or not I register it with the government. It might be a bit harder for me to prove being the original author (although in this case, it’s simply comparing dates of publication), but it’s still straightforward and I can still sue for infringement without registering.
The same is true with trademarks. If NBCU had decided to not negotiate with me and use the “Syfy” name anyway, they would have faced a trademark infringement case from us, and likely lost it, whether we had a REGISTERED trademark or not. It would be a little more difficult without a registration, because we have to prove that we were publicly using the name first, but we would not be precluded from filing or even winning a trademark infringement suit simply because it was not registered. Registration is a form of protection. It’s not a license, and it’s not a patent.
Unregistered trademark and “we did control the “syfy” mark” are two very different things.
They are not two different things. I can assert control over a trademark that I created very easily. In the case of Syfy.com being bought in late 1999 or 2000 (depending on who you talked to), if we had sued the company that bought it and asked for an injunction against them using the mark, we would have just as much chance of winning such a move than if we register it.
Remember, registration is a form of PROTECTION, it is NOT a license.
Thus, we could use the mark and control the mark and its uses anywhere else. Now, if someone claimed they created and were using the mark publicly before us, they could challenge our usage of it, and enjoin us from continuing to use the mark.
When you’re in the business I am, you work really hard to understand every nuance of copyright and trademark law. So trust me when I say I know what I am talking about.
For instance, I just visited Wikipedia (not the most legal source, but shows that I am not the only one exercising this belief):
“The owner of a registered trademark may commence legal proceedings for trademark infringement to prevent unauthorized use of that trademark. However, registration is not required. The owner of a common law trademark may also file suit, but an unregistered mark may be protectable only within the geographical area within which it has been used or in geographical areas into which it may be reasonably expected to expand.”
I hope that helps you understand how trademarks work and whether or not they must be registered.
Mr. Hinman makes some assertive statements. To claim that NBC would pay 250K for an unregistered mark that he/you claims has common law characteristics is not a supported argument.
In what way? All I would ever have to prove in the court of law is that I have the earliest claim to a mark. That’s all I need to do. Registering a mark would help establish a timeline, but it’s not entirely necessary. All I have to is show a public usage that predates any challenges.
That also means that I can sell that control to anyone I please, as a trademark does NOT have to be registered to be a trademark.
Hinman himself stated that he wasn’t running his “portal” website until 2002. NBC is doing the right thing now by filing a Federal trademark.
You are incorrect. I stated that we didn’t purchase a domain until 2002, but that we were operating a news operation online using the “SyFy” mark since 1998.
SyFy World was founded, actually as “Syfyman’s World” on Aug. 13, 1998, on GeoCities. Three days later, the name was modified to SyFy World, and moved to Trek Nation (the home of TrekToday) in 1999, taking on a subdomain address of http://www.treknation.com/syfyworld.
In late 2001 to early 2002, SyFy World merged with Star Trek Portal, and it was under that partnership we became SyFy Portal. We left Trek United and formed our new site under our own domain name of syfyportal.com, and have used that name ever since (and technically still continue to use it now).
It is interesting that the syfyportal.com domain is supposedly owned by NBC yet it redirects to one of Hinman’s other sites, airlockalpha.com
As part of the negotiated sales agreement, syfyportal.com will continue to direct to whatever site of Quantum Global Media’s choosing for a specified time. This is part of a transition agreement that we negotiated into the deal.
Airlock Alpha is actually SyFy Portal, but rebranded. Airlock Alpha carries all of the history and past stories of SyFy Portal, but just with a new name, and will actually celebrate its 11th anniversary in less than a month, even though it’s technically SyFy World’s anniversary. Since Airlock Alpha is a continued progression of that original site, just under new branding, all of the current history remains intact.
If something doesn’t make sense, all you need to do is ask. There usually is an explanation, and is much easier than implying something more sinister.
and it (syfyportal.com) is for sale on Sedo. NBC owns SYFY.com and that is the officially rebranded site.
Someone placed syfyportal.com on Sedo a few years back. It was not us, but likely someone trying to screw with us. But the ad is quite old now, and just has never been removed. It uses information that has always been publicly available, and was not placed by us.
So he did not sell even a domain for $250K, he sold nothing, just air
It is a brand and a trademark. I am not going to complete going around in circles. I’m sure all of you are very knowledgeable when it comes to buying and selling existing domain names, and that’s great. But I seem to be accomplishing very little trying to explain the nuance of what is considered a trademark and what is not.
Exactly. Hinman’s claims and arguments fly in the face of any contractual agreements he may have made. I’m also certain there would have been some nondisclosure terms there as well.
You do an awful lot of assuming, even adding “certain,” but you are incorrect every time.
Let me help you out here. If you are not sure, ask. Don’t assume.
And no, there were absolutely no nondisclosure terms. We made it clear we would not sign anything that would prevent us from being able to explain to our readers what was going on in terms of rebranding and the such.
He didn’t really seem to be showing any ill will, nor was he rude in posting his thoughts. They are also probably letting him transition the domain for traffic until his community gets used to the URL, as well as letting the search engines find the new site domain.
Mystery, thank you very much for this post. I am doing my best to try and explain every element of this, although I do not benefit from explanation in any way.
I cannot control what is written about me or the work I am involved in, but I do my best to make there if there is misunderstanding, confusion or what not, that I am upfront and explain things as best as I can.
While I am perfectly OK with the people having a negative opinion on how I reacted and treated all this, it is frustrating when I have to keep repeating myself in terms of trademarks, whether one needs to be registered or not, the actual history of the use of the name, why we didn’t own syfy.com, etc.
The writer of the post has linked back to the original and even explained that I have talked extensively about all of this there. If people have further questions beyond that, I am more than happy to take the time to do it. Otherwise, I do run a series of Web sites coming up to the most busy time of year, and work a day job on top of that … I can’t keep spending the time repeating myself.
But seriously, Mystery, thank you.
I very much doubt that NBC-U really cares about that domain, other than to eliminate its use, so whatever the time period is won’t really make a difference to them.
Cartoonz, I am not intimately familiar with the details of NBCU’s future branding plans, but I think you are definitely on the right track. I don’t believe they have any specific plans for the SyFyPortal.com domain, because they were buying the “SyFy” mark, and really nothing else.
Reviewing archived copies of syfy.com from 2001 through 2007, no such disclaimer nor link exists.
I will have to come back and provide you with a link at a later time since the Wayback Machine is giving me retrieval errors. But if you put in Syfy.com, and check the third link provided, I believe it’s April 2000 (but I am doing this from memory), the cached main page, at the bottom, contains the exact disclaimer I have described above.
Mr. Hinman,
After finally having enough time to read through your long novella of a comment it’s quite clear, through your own misguided statements, that your knowledge of trademark law is lacking in many areas (dangerous). Your boastfulness in wanting to “educate” us is also amusing.
Let me know when you actually file for a Federal trademark and/or actually file a trademark lawsuit in Federal district court and actually go through all the legal motions; the months and possibly years it takes for each of those and the expense on the latter (into the tens of thousands of dollars).
Until then, you can keep your pompous commentary as it means nothing to those who REALLY know a thing or two about trademarks and trademark law.
@soundly reasoned
Funny … our attorneys completely agree with my assessment.
Sorry that you don’t, and cannot admit when you are wrong.
Have a great day (and nice how you hide behind a fake name and not even begin to show your so-called credentials, yet describe me as “pompous.”
“registration is a form of PROTECTION” Mr. Hinman
Sir,
This singular statement which you repeat over and over again throughout your underachieving efforts to convince the readership perfectly sums up the totality of your ignorance to trademarks and the laws which govern them.
A Federal trademark registration “protects” you no more than a drivers license would give you protection from someone stealing your identity. You fail to understand the very simplest aspects of trademarks and I am not about to be the one to teach you here.
Please consult with your “attorneys”. I’m certain they would love nothing more than for you to maintain these beliefs while they bill you for their monthly retainers after you finally make the mistake of perpetuating these falsehoods in your first Federal case. Good luck to you sir.
@Soundly Reasoned
Because you insist on being nasty about how you think you are right, I asked my attorney to locate something online that describes the trademark process, and I received the following link:
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/metaschool/fisher/domain/tm.htm
Now, this is from Harvard, and is a very detailed explanation on trademarks.
Why don’t we explore what it says, shall we? And feel free to visit the link and follow along.
A trademark is a word, symbol, or phrase, used to identify a particular manufacturer or seller’s products and distinguish them from the products of another. 15 U.S.C. � 1127
The “SyFy” mark was used to distinguish ourselves from other products, in this case, online news outlets, that allowed us to singularly identify ourselves.
Assuming that a trademark qualifies for protection, rights to a trademark can be acquired in one of two ways: (1) by being the first to use the mark in commerce; or (2) by being the first to register the mark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“PTO”). 15 U.S.C. � 1127(a).
Notice the wording … there are two ways to receive trademark protection: Be the first to register the mark, or be the first to use the mark in commerce. The key phrasing here is “one of two ways,” meaning that you can do one or the other in order to protect you mark, as I have explained quite specifically above.
Although registration with the PTO is not required for a trademark to be protected, registration does confer a number of benefits to the registering party.
I’ll repeat that first part for you … although registration with the PTO is not required for a trademark to be protected, doing so brings benefits that you might not have otherwise in making it easier to protect and defend your copyright, EXACTLY what I have been saying this entire time.
Registration also allows infringement cases to be dealt with in federal court, rather in state courts. So yes, there are added benefits to registering, but it is NOT necessary or required in order to have a mark or even protect a mark.
Thank you, and I believe that this ends this particular line of conversation.
Mr. Hinman,
Please let me quote from your nonsensical “legal” reasoning:
1. “ASSUMING that a trademark qualifies for protection …” mr. hinman
2. “You do an awful lot of assuming …” mr. hinman
3. “Don’t assume.” mr. hinman
Let me help you out here and give you some advice that your “attorneys” should of told you when first started out. Keep quiet.
Mmhmm.
I will take that as an admission that you were wrong.
Thanks!
“Soundly Reasoned” I don’t accept criticism from anonymous sources, from people that don’t have the testicular fortitude to sign with their name or business moniker; and especially statements that are just personal attacks.
mr. hinman,
I was wrong to think you could possibly listen to sound reasoning. I did not even begin to scratch the surface on your failed logic. Instead you go off on tangents of misguided “legal” advice and Wiki references in pointlessly long diatribes. Didn’t this whole mess for you start because you failed to properly negotiate and only realized that after the fact? Again you jump in here without any thoughtful consideration.
mr. frager,
You don’t accept criticism period. There is no personal attack here except your references to how strong my balls may or may not be. What you did in this thread was clearly “copyright infringement”. Maybe you and mr. hinman can trade notes over some coffee about your seemingly endless “knowledge” of trademarks and copyrights.
@Soundly Reasoned
I was wrong to think you could possibly listen to sound reasoning.
Umm, I listened to everything you had to say, and unlike you, was able to refute you point-by-point. And not just with “diatribes,” but with literature to back up exactly what I was saying, despite your claims that I was wrong.
You have repeatedly told me to “keep quiet” and that I was wrong, yet, you have not shown a single scrap of anything to back up your claims. I have quoted sections of the Lanham Act to you, and even pulled up a White Paper from Harvard Law.
Hell, I could probably get a lawyer and a judge in here that specialize in trademark law to back me up, and you would continue with this crap as if I never did it.
So let me see … I have presented a tremendous amount of literature to back up my statements. You have presented nothing.
Who is presenting “sound reasoning” again?
I love a good debate. I’m taking the time to debate this because it really fires me up.
Why do I like a good debate? Not because I like to be right, but because I like to LEARN SOMETHING. If I had gone all these years believing that my take on trademark law was right, and you challenged me, and I either read the proof you provided, or looked it up on my own (I did the latter), then I would be grateful to have learned something from you, and even conceded I was wrong.
But I have presented direct evidence that I am right. And instead of showing me additional evidence compiled by you to refute my claims, you just sit back and try to stab annoyingly at me with a stick.
That’s rather boring, and way too easy. I prefer to have actual challenge in my debates.
I did not even begin to scratch the surface on your failed logic.
Please, at LEAST scratch the surface. Show us some evidence, like I did with the White Paper and the actual Lanham Act — the backbone of federal trademark law — that shows me how my logic is failed. You keep saying it’s failed, and keep saying I’m wrong .. but it takes more than repeating yourself to make what you say true.
Instead you go off on tangents of misguided “legal” advice and Wiki references in pointlessly long diatribes.
I used a single Wiki reference, and later used a very detailed White Paper from Harvard Law. I don’t think any of my discussion, which effectively refuted what you had to say, as pointless. What’s actually pointless is your whining about losing this argument.
Either give us some proof to back up your statements, or admit you’re wrong, or bow out gracefully. But if you’re just going to cry about this, I am all out of tissues.
I WANT to be proven wrong, because only when I’m proven wrong will I learn anything. And I’m ALWAYS the first to admit when I’m wrong, and I smile about it, because I WANT TO LEARN SOMETHING.
All I am learning here is that even with a stack of evidence against you, you’re still not convinced you are wrong. I feel bad for any prosecutor that ends up with you on a jury.
Didn’t this whole mess for you start because you failed to properly negotiate and only realized that after the fact? Again you jump in here without any thoughtful consideration.
Nope. It had nothing to do with negotiation. You are so lost in your own world of how all this works that you forgot the real reason why all of this was being talked about.
So let me spell it out, and connect the dots:
1. NBCU purchased the “SyFy” mark from me, as well as potentially confusing (and sometimes already used) alternatives, “Sy” and “SFY.”
2. NBCU used that newly acquired name to rebrand a network.
3. Initial coverage in March talked extensively about how I created the name. Many times I was asked if I was upset about how the deal was negotiated, and while I acknowledged that I could’ve received more if I knew who they were, I also stated that getting credited with creating a word that is now gracing a major television cable channel, was a perfect trade for me.
4. NBCU does interviews leading to the actual launch of Syfy, and two publications either imply or are explicit about Michael Engleman coining the term, while leaving out the truth of the actual origin of the name.
5. I try to reach out to NBCU to get this resolved quietly, but get no response. I keep trying, and eventually write a column about it, which was quoted here (although originally in poor context, which created even MORE confusion). In my column where I am EXPLICITLY stating that I simply want to be given the proper credit for the creation of a mark that is due to me, I make it clear that I shouldn’t just shut up about it because they gave me a lot of money, because in actuality, they gave me just $250,000, when an actual fair deal if all sides were properly identified in the discussion would’ve likely been closer to $2.5 million. I, of course, make it clear that this is all hindsight discussion, but use that point to emphasize that I shouldn’t just take a bunch of money and shut up about it, that because NBCU paid what they did, I had every right in the world to demand that I be given proper credit for the creation of the word in the form and context that it was not being used in.
Everything else that has been brought up has been superfluous. That is the whole story right there.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have much more interesting things to do than to keep beating this long-dead horse.
Actually that statement, like most else you’ve noted, was not an original thought. I simply googled you and cut and pasted what was posted on another blog. (http://acro.net/blog/2009/07/03/domainingcom-acquires-dngatorcom/)
You have too good a grasp of the law to expect original thinking for free- that’s the billable side of my life… not what I offer for free.
What I did was quote from an article in AdAdge with proper attribution to support both branding and media experts agreeing that the name change was silly and unnecessary.
Studies show that most people don’t trust links in comment sections, nor do they have the time or patience to register their email address at a linked site and wade through an entire article (and the other articles linked within) to find the salient points. So if you want to call it copyright infringement, so be it. Drudge Report, Twitter, Digg, Technorati and Apple Investors News call it a business plan.
In all too many years of business you will never find a single suit against me for anything. Not even one WIPO. But you will find mounds of letters and emails thanking me for the coverage, mentions and traffic… and this includes AdAge, NY Times and Business Week, so I keep doing what I do.
btw, How is our friend yy?
Will this ever end. I vote that those going back and forth please turn off the computer and find a loved one or a drunk one and have some fun. These comments take sooo much time to write so please … forget about trademarks, who said what, science fiction, star trek, planet zenon or whatever floats your boat and move on.
There comes a point when its easier to start over – this my friends has reached this point – NO ONE will ever win here.
With that said – thank you for the amusement and confusion 🙂
Alan … I dunno about you, but unless someone can provide evidence to refute me, a winner has been declared. =P
“So if you want to call it copyright infringement, so be it.”
Mr. Frager,
Actually, it is infringement and it’s a common misconception among bloggers. Even with attribution posting a substantial portion of an article, especially one from a subscription service, is most definitely copyright infringement.
Fair use revolves around the concept of depriving the copyright owner of income. By posting a substantial portion of the article it diminishes the likelihood that someone will purchase either a subscription or a reprint.
This is common knowledge in the publishing and advertising industries. If you happen to know someone employed in either of those businesses, they can give you more detail on how it works.
Hmm
There are more useful topics here. I will follow you every day for updates. Thank you.