Nintendo Cease and Desist
 

Just received a cease and desist letter from Perkins Coie, the law firm representing Nintendo of America Inc for "Unauthorized use of Nintendo's intellectual property".

Basically for having 123pokemonhentai.com used to promote a cartoon sponsor ("Pokemon Hentai" is a fairly popular search according to Overture's inventory). I did not have any "Pokemon" on the site, just a half page ad from my sponsor. The only place "Pokemon" is mentioned is within the URL, Title, and meta tags. Is this illegal?

I remember reading an update to the Amber Alert bills saying that you cannot "hide" the content of a site through another URL, but this really is not "hiding" anything. The term "Hentai" within it is very suggestive towards cartoon pornography.

Should I roll over and die and forfeit this site? Is what I'm doing illegal?

http://www.123pokemonhentai.com/page1s.jpg http://www.123pokemonhentai.com/page2s.jpg

The word Pokemon is probably trademarked. Dump the site and call it a day.

Well there going to file against you in washington state if you dont stop, do you have the cash to defend it in washington?

You might be safe with the amber alert bill, but do you want to be one of the first to have to show up to court... The fact that your using there trademarked term "pokemon" is enough to cause a bit of heat....

Do you think Nickelodenporn.com would be safe under amber alert, or how bout cartoonnetworkfuckfest.com

Hell yeh its illegal. You're taking pokemon's clean public image for children and debasing it with pornography.

You're looking at serious legal bills if you go fucking with Nintendo's lawyers.

Say bye bye to that domain pronto.

what he said...

dump that shit faster than a krusty herpes infected .50 cent hizore...

Dude no offense but you were asking for a C and D

Yeah, fight them. Tell the judge all you are doing is infringing a trademark and using a childrens brand name to market porn, fuckwit.

Are you fucking shitting me?

exactly

What the fuck is wrong with you? Sending a kid to a porn site? That's what you're doing with that domain. The average user searching for "pokemon hentai" is probably a 10-13 year old KID.

If it was 123pokemoncartoons.com or something, I can obviously understand it being trouble. But the word "Hentai" refers to cartoon pornography. And I highly doubt that "10-13 year old kids" are looking for "hentai" on the internet. If I pasted the logs, the traffic comes from adult searches only, not stuff like "Pokemon Beanie Baby" or anything like that. The target is not to get "little kids to buy porn" (dumb concept in the first place, not of legal age, and have no credit card).

The only thing on the site was a half page add for a sponsor's program. It's hardly worth the trouble of "fighting" though (even if I do have a case - which I may not). I'll probably just put something nice up there about Nintendo, and call it quits.

The point is how much do you make on the site?

How much will you make after you get all the pr?

How much will the fight with their lawyers (Their Lawyers!) cost?

How will your mental state be in the end?

current income + pr increased income = ?????
minus legal costs to defend against them = ?????
plus/minus peace of mind gained or lost by walking or not walking

You do the math

Just my humble :2 cents:

I hope it is illegal. I seriously hate people ruining my childhood cartoons with fucking nude drawings of beloved heros having sex. So in the case of pokemon I would hate it for the generation before me.

Most of all I hate the Furry Community, who are netorious for doing this. If there is one community of people I feel should be exterminated it is that community.

Good thing there are no "nude drawings of beloved heros having sex" - it's just random non-name cartoon characters (haven't even viewed the content of the pay site, I don't really care to) - I just promote it. But it's not "Pokemon" characters having sex. The only way "Pokemon" is affiliated is in the URL/Title in increase traffic for searches such as "pokemon porn" and "pokemon hentai". Regardless of what you search for about "pokemon hentai" you will not find any such thing through my site.

You apparently don't get it...

You have pokemon as part of your domain name... wouldn't matter if it was pokemonhentai, pokemonsites, or whatever...

You are using their trademarked name.. just as if you used playboysites in a domain name.. they'd be on you in a heartbeat...

They have every legal right to come after you for that reason.. no matter if your site was just a blank page...

It is guaranteed trouble to use trademarked names..


You have a choice to make and so do they..

If you don't make the right one, then they'll make theirs..

That simple..

well then try your luck in court and see how far you get

Not worth the troubles, whether I "won" or "lost" (would probably lose, I understand the problems here).

Turn teh site off release thee domain and be gratefull they dont turn you in on the misleading domain amber alert bill..


Anyone who has domains that might in any way draw children is really asking for it is so many ways. Not to mention the trademark infringement..


Take it from someone who has a lot of experience in this area dump it and run

It's the same as playboy123centerfolds.com or whatever. If their trademark is on your site without permission, they can come after you.

On a related note...obviously the term "Nintendo" is copyrighted and I assume trademarked. Would it be illegal to have a site called "nintendocheats.com" (with cheat codes for the 'Nintendo Entertainment Sysytem') or how about "NintendoNews.com" where you post daily news clips about NES, SNES, Nintendo 64, Game Cube, etc.

You're using the word "Nintendo" which is trademarked/copyrighted. What if I post something saying "Nintendo is a great company." That's using a copyrighted/tradmarked name as well. So OBVIOUSLY you can USE a trademarked word/phrase, it's just how you go about using it.

At what point does it cross the line? When I open a site called "NintendoBlowsBalls.com" is that against using the term? Beacuse it's slanderous? What happened to freedom of speech? Does that not apply to these situations.

As far as my site goes, I can see WHY they have a problem with it, it's directly associating "Pokemon" to "Hentai" (Cartoon Porn) thus damaging their reputation. But...what if I posted "PokemonFuckingSucks.org". That's tarnishing their reputation as well - so where do you draw the line versus what's legal and what's illegal (I guess that's what the judge is for?)

I hate to tell you, but youre probably loosing the site, we had a friend who got a similar letter and his lawyer told him say goodbye to the site.

sorry hun

Losing the site isn't a big deal to me...it's one of many, and doesn't produce a whole lot of revenue. Read the post right before yours though...that's one of the questions I have (not arguing it, just wondering).

Like some 8 year old kid searching for Pokemon is going to know that??????? All he's going to see is Pokemon in the domain and then bam - he's got your nasty shit in his face.

Nintendo is right - and you'll be damn lucky if they don't get the gov't on your ass for misleading domain names.

People who purposely put kid's search terms into their domain names... :BangBang: :ak47: :boid

As with any copyright, trademark, or patent, the owner/holder has a choice to either come after you or not.

Sometimes if a site using a trademarked name is lending to the credance of the company, they may leave it alone. Then again, some companies want total control over the use of their name and will go after anyone who uses it..

I would suggest, if you're serious and the Nintendocheat thing, that you contact the proper folks at Nintendo and see what they say.. Maybe if you agree to advertise their products all over your site, they might just go for it, but never just assume that because a site isn't porn related that they'll leave you alone..

Rule of thumb... contact the company for permission or don't do it..

Since it's Pokeman and definately kid oriented search term, I say drop it and hope someones kid didn't get exposed to porn for the very first time there.



If it were any other company, I would say turn it into a parody site, with links to your full page ad, making sure to keep their trademarks/copyright marks in order, etc...

Companies compare their products to other products all the time.
Pepsi against Coke
Bayer against Advil
and so on

Scootermuze: So EVERYTHING is copyrighted/tradmarked and can be prosecuted. If you did a "NintendoNews.com" saying nothing but good about them, they COULD shut it down if they really wanted to (have no motivation to). I wasn't aware that this was the case.

RockDaddy: Where is the line drawn between "the right to parody" and "using their name"? I've already said "fuck it" with this specific instance...but I'm wondering where the line is drawn. Is the "right to parody" the only case in which I'd have legal ability to use a trademarked name?

That sucks. Looks like everybody is crackin down

The line is drawn in a court of law. I think the current benchmark is the ballyssucks.com case, where freedom of speach allowed the use of the trademark as part of an editorial comment. But clearly that doesn't apply in your case. You were trying to profit from the use of the trademark.

Consider yourself lucky if you are allowed to just walk away from it - using the trademark of a popular children's product in a url for a porn site was VERY fucking stupid and irresponsible - if I was the federal prosecutor in your local area, I would be asking myself how many kids were "lured" to his site every day by use of the trademark? What were you thinking?! You really should talk to a lawyer. I would have him send Nintendo a very nice suck-up letter and pray they don't go to the feds.

Actually, a few years ago I had no idea what hentai WAS until my friend's 13 year old son showed me some he had printed off the internet when he was at a friend's house. He's the one who told me what hentai was and what it meant. It was mostly Pokemon and Sailor Moon stuff that he'd printed. His mother knew what he was doing, so I didn't ly off the handle or anything, but it was a little surprising that a 13 year old kid was able to print this stuff out so easily.