Do you patent your website ???

I don't really know what the proper terminology, to protect your website from getting used and hijacked by others. There is a website - nissan.com which is owned by a certain individual, then the vehicle company tried to use it and they sued the owner, etc...meanwhile, the owner mentions, his website has been there ever since "NISSAN" was still known as Datsun... yup I remember that vehicle from a young age...

And with .com domain names, almost everything has been taken... so now there is another TLD domain name called .xyz which is not yet over populated. So how does one protect their domain on .xyz when there is already a .com version of the new .xyz domain?

example - the photography.com website is already being used, I want to register and own photography.xyz - how do I protect my website and make sure it doesn't get taken, or I don't get sued by the owner of the photography.com domain

From the moment you publish a page or blog post on your site, it's automatically protected by copyright, regardless if there is a “©” somewhere on the page. The Copyright Office does, however, recommend registration (even on websites) if you should require protection in a court of law.

Domain Name Laws pertain to the rights associated with a website's domain name. It is possible to select a name that directly impugn the reputation of another company, or to accidentally tread on someone's trademark by mistake. One could violate a regional company's intellectual property rights without having ever heard of the property holder in the first place. An attorney experienced in internet law and intellectual propertycould be a good idea.

A mark comprised of a domain name may be registered as a trademark or service mark in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The domain name is registrable only if it functions to identify the particular source of goods or services offered.

strobe monkey wrote in post #19237611
I don't really know what the proper terminology, to protect your website from getting used and hijacked by others. There is a website - nissan.com which is owned by a certain individual, then the vehicle company tried to use it and they sued the owner, etc...meanwhile, the owner mentions, his website has been there ever since "NISSAN" was still known as Datsun... yup I remember that vehicle from a young age...

And with .com domain names, almost everything has been taken... so now there is another TLD domain name called .xyz which is not yet over populated. So how does one protect their domain on .xyz when there is already a .com version of the new .xyz domain?

example - the photography.com website is already being used, I want to register and own photography.xyz - how do I protect my website and make sure it doesn't get taken, or I don't get sued by the owner of the photography.com domain

Well, Nissan began using "Nissan" in the US for their cars in the 60s, which was before anyone could have put up a website, so there must be something more to that story.

RDKirk wrote in post #19237957
Well, Nissan began using "Nissan" in the US for their cars in the 60s, which was before anyone could have put up a website, so there must be something more to that story.

I think you confused something...in 1968 my dad purchased a Datsun 510 for himself, from a Datsun dealership in US. A couple years later, the famously popular Datsun 240Z was marketed, while it was named the Nissan Fairlady Z in the home market

Wilt wrote in post #19237993
I think you confused something...in 1968 my dad purchased a Datsun 510 for himself, from a Datsun dealership in US. A few years later, the famously popular Datsun 240X was marketed, while it was named the Nissan Fairlady Z in the home market

No, I'm not. The company had been using "Nissan" since the 1930s. It used both names in the US since the 60s. They began to completely phase out "Datsun" in the latter 70s. My point is that they owned "Nissan" far before friendly domain names were conceived for the Internet. So there must be more to that particular story than the idea that "Nissan" was not yet in use.

As far as I've heard, domain names were never restricted by copyright laws (names and titles cannot be copyrighted), and some companies have had to pay a pretty penny to purchase the domain names of their own trade mark names because someone beat them to the punch. Someone would have been totally in his rights to have pounced first on nissan.com.

Wikipedia offers insight into name use:

"The Datsun (UK: /ˈdætsən/, US: /ˈdɑːtsən/)[1] is an automobile brand owned by Nissan. Datsun's original production run began in 1931. From 1958 to 1986, only vehicles exported by Nissan were identified as Datsun. By 1986, Nissan had phased out the Datsun name, but re-launched it in June 2013 as the brand for low-cost vehicles manufactured for emerging markets. Nissan has considered phasing out the Datsun brand for a second time in 2019 and 2020.[2]

In 1931, Dat Motorcar Co. chose to name its new small car "Datson", a name which indicated the new car's smaller size when compared to the DAT's larger vehicle already in production. When Nissan took control of DAT in 1934, the name "Datson" was changed to "Datsun", because "son" also means "loss" (損 son) in Japanese and also to honour the sun depicted in the national flag – thus the name Datsun: Dattosan (ダットサン, Dattosan).[3] Nissan phased out the Datsun brand in March 1986. The Datsun name is internationally well known for the 510, Fairlady roadsters, and the Z and ZX coupés."

I remember buying a Datsun 200SX in 1983, after I changed employer and no longer had a company-provided leased vehicle to use.

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strobe monkey wrote in post #19237611
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example - the photography.com website is already being used, I want to register and own photography.xyz - how do I protect my website and make sure it doesn't get taken, or I don't get sued by the owner of the photography.com domain
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You BUY your domain name, and pay money each year to keep ownership to it. . Most folks go through a company like GoDaddy for this.

You can buy just about any domain name that hasn't already been taken (of course there are probably a few exceptions due to government regulations). If you want to use a domain name that has been taken and is being paid for annually, then you will have to negotiate to purchase the rights to that domain from the entity which currently owns it.

I wanted my website address to be tomreichner.com, and I feel fortunate that it was unclaimed and that I only had to pay the regular fee to use it annually, instead of having to purchase it from an owner, and then have to pay the annual fee. . People with names like "Robert Townsend" or "James Blackman" or "Shelly Allen" wouldn't have it nearly so easy, and then they have to do awkward things like include their middle initial or middle name in their domain name ..... and yes, using a middle initial is awkward, and it sucks to have to do that, in my opinion.

If you see an individual or a company that you think will have a big commercial presence someday, you can grab up the domain names that you think they will want to use when they start a website, and then they will have to come to you and pay you whatever you ask if they want to get it from you. . Otherwise, they will have to choose another name that isn't already claimed.

When you see rather big companies using domain names that seem a bit awkward, the reason is usually that someone already claimed the "usual" domain names and are "holding them hostage" for an exorbitant amount of money that the company isn't willing to pay ... hence the big company must resort to using a domain name that isn't as smooth or obvious.

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RDKirk wrote in post #19238014
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As far as I've heard, domain names were never restricted by copyright laws (names and titles cannot be copyrighted), and some companies have had to pay a pretty penny to purchase the domain names of their own trade mark names because someone beat them to the punch. Someone would have been totally in his rights to have pounced first on nissan.com.
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Exactly right. . First one to claim it and pay for it owns it.

Some folks have made a good deal of money by grabbing up domain names that they thought companies would want, and then they set extremely high prices on those domain names. . If the company wants that domain name, then they have to pay whatever the current owner says they have to pay.
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Wilt wrote in post #19238015
Wikipedia offers insight into name use:

"The Datsun (UK: /ˈdætsən/, US: /ˈdɑːtsən/)[1] is an automobile brand owned by Nissan. Datsun's original production run began in 1931. From 1958 to 1986, only vehicles exported by Nissan were identified as Datsun. By 1986, Nissan had phased out the Datsun name, but re-launched it in June 2013 as the brand for low-cost vehicles manufactured for emerging markets. Nissan has considered phasing out the Datsun brand for a second time in 2019 and 2020.[2]

In 1931, Dat Motorcar Co. chose to name its new small car "Datson", a name which indicated the new car's smaller size when compared to the DAT's larger vehicle already in production. When Nissan took control of DAT in 1934, the name "Datson" was changed to "Datsun", because "son" also means "loss" (損 son) in Japanese and also to honour the sun depicted in the national flag – thus the name Datsun: Dattosan (ダットサン, Dattosan).[3] Nissan phased out the Datsun brand in March 1986. The Datsun name is internationally well known for the 510, Fairlady roadsters, and the Z and ZX coupés."

I remember buying a Datsun 200SX in 1983, after I changed employer and no longer had a company-provided leased vehicle to use.

Yes. And so Nissan was using the name "Nissan" before anyone was able to purchase nissan.com as a domain name. Therefore, it was not a case of "their lawsuit failed because weren't using it." It was a case of someone having purchased it first and there being no law to have prevented someone from purchasing it first.

I just did a quick google, and I have to say that Mr. Uzi Nissan of Nissan Computers has been unfairly run through the ringer. But I don't think that's the kind of thing that is really waiting to pounce on the average person innocently purchasing a domain name.

strobe monkey wrote in post #19237611
I don't really know what the proper terminology, to protect your website from getting used and hijacked by others. There is a website - nissan.com which is owned by a certain individual, then the vehicle company tried to use it and they sued the owner, etc...meanwhile, the owner mentions, his website has been there ever since "NISSAN" was still known as Datsun... yup I remember that vehicle from a young age...

And with .com domain names, almost everything has been taken... so now there is another TLD domain name called .xyz which is not yet over populated. So how does one protect their domain on .xyz when there is already a .com version of the new .xyz domain?

example - the photography.com website is already being used, I want to register and own photography.xyz - how do I protect my website and make sure it doesn't get taken, or I don't get sued by the owner of the photography.com domain

Filing for a Copyright is inexpensive, so just do it.

However what I consider more important than someone trying to take over your Domain Name is to copy your web site and giving it a different extension.

Lets say your site is photography.com, so someone downloads your entire web site and has it hosted as photography.net, so what you need to do is box in the URL.

Since it only costs $12 or so per year to keep a URL alive, when you grab photography.com, also grab photography.net and .org, those are the most popular ones and cause the most fraud of this type.

And yes there many other extensions but .net and .org are the most commonly used to fraud your customers who needed to go to .com but by accident went to .net or .org and thought those sites where yours.

Once you have the .net and .org URL's registered you can apply a redirect so if someone go's to photography.net they are automatically redirected to photography.com.

You basically home them to where they wanted to go to begin with.

GoDaddy is popular but for hosting I have found Superb to be easier to use and less expensive.

RDKirk wrote in post #19238127
I just did a quick google, and I have to say that Mr. Uzi Nissan of Nissan Computers has been unfairly run through the ringer. But I don't think that's the kind of thing that is really waiting to pounce on the average person innocently purchasing a domain name.

In the name change category, someone registered the URL homodepot.com and ripped homedepot.com website modified it and uploaded to it to a host server, it appeared to be Home Depots web site, but on the home page Homer was totally naked, except for an apron that had something erect poking up behind it, whoever put it up had a sense of humor, as they where selling things like solar powered submarines and other strange stuff.

I guess Home Depot Inc. didn't like it and somehow (probably had to buy it for a nice ransom) and now it redirects to homedepot.com

Channel One wrote in post #19239353
Filing for a Copyright is inexpensive, so just do it.

However what I consider more important than someone trying to take over your Domain Name is to copy your web site and giving it a different extension.

Lets say your site is photography.com, so someone downloads your entire web site and has it hosted as photography.net, so what you need to do is box in the URL.

Since it only costs $12 or so per year to keep a URL alive, when you grab photography.com, also grab photography.net and .org, those are the most popular ones and cause the most fraud of this type.

And yes there many other extensions but .net and .org are the most commonly used to fraud your customers who needed to go to .com but by accident went to .net or .org and thought those sites where yours.

Once you have the .net and .org URL's registered you can apply a redirect so if someone go's to photography.net they are automatically redirected to photography.com.

You basically home them to where they wanted to go to begin with.

Yes, I've done that. I've bought the .com, the .net, and the .org of my domain name, as well as several likely misspellings of each, and directed them to my main site.

Channel One wrote in post #19239358
In the name change category, someone registered the URL homodepot.com and ripped homedepot.com website modified it and uploaded to it to a host server, it appeared to be Home Depots web site, but on the home page Homer was totally naked, except for an apron that had something erect poking up behind it, whoever put it up had a sense of humor, as they where selling things like solar powered submarines and other strange stuff.

I guess Home Depot Inc. didn't like it and somehow (probably had to buy it for a nice ransom) and now it redirects to homedepot.com

LOL.

Not long after I put up my website, a prospect notified me that they got directed to a transsexual support forum. It seems that a very common misspelling of my website name would do that. I had to wait over a year before that domain name became available, and I snapped it up--as well as several other reasonable misspellings--and directed them to my real site.

Unfortunately, my actual name domain is already owned by someone, although it's not being used. I've been watching it for years now. But if you enter my name .com, you get "coming soon" page with some photography search verbiage. I guess they're hoping I'll buy it from them.

RDKirk wrote in post #19237957
Well, Nissan began using "Nissan" in the US for their cars in the 60s, which was before anyone could have put up a website, so there must be something more to that story.

There is, see https://jalopnik.com …r-company-with-1822815832

But the short story is Nissan sued Uzi Nissan $10 million because they wanted Nissan.com, a website created in 1994 for his small retail computer business. When the two Nissans went to war, Uzi Nissan prevailed in the end, but lost almost everything along the way.

This reminds me of the Gallo brothers; Joseph made Gallo cheese and Ernest and Julio (E&J) made the wine. Ernest and Julio sued Joe for exclusive use of the name Gallo and won in court. Forget the fact that wine and cheese complement each other; Joseph had to name their cheese products Joseph Farms Cheese.

For those of you into wine, specifically Chianti Classico, there was a time when the neck of a bottle had a label with a black rooster and the words "El Gallo Nero" which translated means the black rooster. In 1990 the E&J wine company successfully sued the Italian Gallo Nero wine consortium of Chianti claiming E&J had exclusive use of the word Gallo. They won! So a twist on which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Ten years later the brothers took the Chianti wine-makers to court again over their domain name, again they won. In the meantime they put pressure on a small domain called Santa Marcellina in Chianti because E&J had a Marcellina trade-mark among the many they had patented. In 1994 they attacked a Mexican company called Pasatiempos Gallo. In 2002 it was the turn of a lady potter in Texas, who used the word gallo because she made ceramic representations of roosters. Gallo himself made no excuses for his behavior, saying: "We don't want most of the business. We want it all."