YouTube's Battle For YouTube.CL
The domain wars continue. Today’s bout: YouTube.com, Google's popular video site, is threatening to launch a lawsuit to gain control over YouTube.cl, a domain that currently hosts a website developed for Chilean audiences, aggregating online videos from YouTube.com.
The issue at stake in this confrontation is whether Andrés Chapero, the man who registered YouTube.cl with knowledge of the North American website YouTube.com should have to give up the domain because it was registered in “bad faith”. According to YouTube, Chapero absolutely should hand over the domain.
Chapero, on the other hand, says he absolutely should not have to give up YouTube.cl domain because he registered the domain in early 2006, before YouTube.com had gained worldwide popularity. Plus, Chapero claims that as early as 2005, he had asked YouTube North America if they were interested in cooperating with him to reach Chilean audiences. He says YouTube North America basically told him “no,” saying they only wanted to focus on North America. According to Chapero, YouTube had its chance to get in on the Chilean market and they didn’t take it.
One could argue that since YouTube North America knew that Chapero was interested in having YouTube in Chile that they could have taken the precautionary measure of registering the domain YouTube.cl themselves. But the decisive point here is that Chapero registered YouTube.cl in full knowledge of the existence of YouTube.com and is even using the domain to aggregate Chile-related videos from YouTube.com. If that's not bad faith then what is? (Let us know your thoughts.)
There has yet to be a decision on this case but persons holding Chilean variations of the YouTube name such as YouTubeVideos.cl, Youtube-videos.cl, and Youtubechile.com have already given up their domains. Will Chapero follow or will he wait until YouTube proceeds with the threatened lawsuit? Only time will tell.
According to Alexa, YouTube.cl is the 383th most popular website in Chile.
Read more about this issue here and here (both in Spanish).
Well, I don't think there is any bad faith involved in it. He says that he already offered to YouTube about domain, than whats wrong now?
youtube.cl appears to be done just now so I can't check on the site itself, but if the image in this post is the one from their website I would say that YouTube, Inc. have every right to the name. I would say there is a large difference in not having an interest in a name or country at one time, and then having the owner of that name use their brand brand, logo and content to drive the website. Users to the site could be under the assumption that it is associated with YouTube, Inc. when it is not - and that is no good thing. In this situation, he should not be entitled to profit from this 'passing off'.
Again, I can't say with complete accuracy that this is the case, as I cannot view the website and so don't the full details of how it works, if there is advertising, a sign-up procedure and such.
Let's just say I doubt someone would get away with asking Coca Cola if they want to break into the market of Estonia and, if they get a negative answer, start shipping in the drink from America just to sell there. As a rough, and possibly bad, example.
Amos
[...] YouTube's Battle For YouTube.CL (La batalla de YouTube por YouTube.cl): Hace unos días descubrí algunas acciones legales que YouTube está efectuando en Chile a través de una oficia de abogados acá en nuestro país. Mi descubrimiento, que plasmé en una nota de Emol, literalmente dio la vuelta al mundo: fue publicado en Argentina y en DailyDomainer, aparte de tomarla la agencia Orbe y La Tercera (:P), me llamaron de la radio Concierto para preguntarme algunos datos y ahora lo leo en la radio Cooperativa. Reconozco que este post es sólo respondiendo a la satisfacción que siento por mi descubrimiento jeje… [...]
interesting how the article didn't address, and no posters are mentioning…. but what about chilean tm registration?
is there one?
if so, who regged the tm?
without knowing how can anyone claim bad faith by anyone?
oh.. because google says so,,, huh?
google has already been shown to be sneeky, crooked and over bearing.. if you let them.
google has also been shown that they can be beaten.
appearing to blindly agree with google may make a fool of yourself.
without a chilean youtube tm, they have no hope.
with that tm, they have some, but will probally lose if Chapero can show youtube had a chance and made no effort to claim tm over youtube.cl, but instead flattly refused the chance? pffftp, they GAVE AWAY any Tm hopes they could have had.
without a chile tm, I see no bad faith on the part of Chapero.
If youtube/google is trying to pressure the domain out him, then that is bad faith on google.
something they have done several times, so we read on the net.
didn't work in a similar case thouigh…
google.cn cost google $1 mil
how is it any different this time?
BTW, my previous comment is just my own opinion.
but, Chapero, if you heed it, and you get a big check, you could send and I wouldn't refuse a .% consultion payment.
BTW2… to my understanding of reading some u.s. tm legal codes.. youtube.com TM does not EXTEND OUTSIDE U.S. JURISDICTION.
meaning, i beleive, they must file a tm in every country.
hence the importantance if a chileam TM exist or not.
The TM YouTube in Chile is on process to be accepted.
Chapero is in the process to regist the TM YouTube.cl (the domain).
The TM of YouTube Inc. and Chapero's are ind different categories, but YouTube Inc. lawyers in Chile are trying to abort the Chapero's TM…
In Chile you can have the same TM but you can only if you have registered it in different categories (for example, e-commerce and candies).
YouTube.cl was aggregating videos from YouTube.com and was even
using an almost identical logo.
And now the owner wants to file a trademark in a different category?
We're with Google on this one.
[...] Youtube's Battle for Youtube.cl - Daily Domainer [...]
Youtube.com lanza el sitio en diciembre 2005.
Chapero y su socio,con el que llevan años desarrrollando websites de entretención,
consideran que es la plataforma ideal para adaptarla a la realidad chilena donde se pudieran incluir otros múltiples contenidos.Chapero consulta a youtube.com entre diciembre 2005 y enero 2006 si tienen planes para Chile y contestan: ¨no,ni siquiera en español¨ y que no les interesa ni importa un sitio de dominio local(.cl).En abril 2006 Chapero inscribe el dominio .cl en el NIC chileno y el sitio online. Se puede inferir mala fe ??
Con repecto al logo, fue el primer diseño que partió en base a su matriz.La inscripción de la marca no es YOUTUBE sino YOUTUBE.CL,sólo en el área de internet y para proteger la marca del dominio.
Alguien que conozca la mecánica de internet,podría haber afirmado con mediana certeza el fenómeno en que se convertiría youtube.com ?
Alguien podría sostener mala fe en cuatro meses cuando youtube.com ni siquiera se conocía en Chile ?
Con respecto a agregar videos de youtube.com,…no sólo se agregan videos de ahí,sino de muchos otros sitios además de la producción propia de youtube.cl.
Existen más de 85.000(sí,leyó bien),ochentaycinco mil sitios en internet que postean videos desde youtube.com.se puede verificar en alexa.com
Por último,Chile es el segundo país del mundo después de USA,con más visitas a youtube.com.
O sea,tampoco se puede inferir confusión.
Dónde está el pecado ?
v4w
http://002evolves.blogspot.com