Trademark infringement
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Mods, please garage this if it's a concern.
I have a thread on my nodebb forum that basically has this on it. The thing in the box is iframely.
I allegedly received an email back on January 26, that I do not have in my mailbox (because even if they actually did send it, as they allege, I'm sure gmail blocked them).
The email states:
Dear Sir/Madam:
I hereby state under penalty of perjury that I am authorized to act on behalf of the American National Red Cross, known as the American Red Cross. American Red Cross is the owner of a wide range of intellectual property rights (“IP Rights”) in connection with its successful range of products and services including, without limitation, in the areas of emergency preparedness, disaster relief, charitable fundraising and services, blood services, nursing services, and health and safety training industries, for its famous and iconic “RED CROSS” trademark and the Red Cross emblem, which is sometimes identified as a Greek red cross based upon the equal size of the vertical and horizontal elements. As you undoubtedly know, American Red Cross is one of the most recognizable brands in the United States and abroad. American Red Cross has obtained several federal trademark registrations, including among others, for the wordmark “RED CROSS” under U.S. Registration Nos. 2818966; 2752477; 2820772; and 2740132 and the design mark of the Greek red cross under U.S. Registration Nos. 2818967; 2740133; 2797013; 2771239; 4319642; 4612314; 4612315; 4773009; 5793662; 5793664; and 5850931. Copies of the registration certificates or this registration are attached hereto. The trademarks “RED CROSS” and the Red Cross emblem are famous and distinctive, and American Red Cross has made extensive use of these marks. Moreover, the trademarks “RED CROSS” and the Red Cross emblem enjoys federal statutory protection in the United States, under 18 U.S.C. § 706 which states in relevant part:
Whoever, whether a corporation, association or person, other than the American National Red Cross and its duly authorized employees and agents and the sanitary and hospital authorities of the armed forces of the United States, uses the emblem of the Greek red cross on a white ground, or any sign or insignia made or colored in imitation thereof, or the words “Red Cross” or “Geneva Cross” or any combination of these words — Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.
Any exploitation (including but not limited to the use) of the trademarks “RED CROSS” and/or the Red Cross emblem must be expressly authorized by my client, or its authorized agents.
It has recently come to our attention that on the website URL REDACTED, you are promoting a coupon code under the trademarks “RED CROSS” and/or the Red Cross emblem of American Red Cross. This code is not active on the American Red Cross online store and your use of the American Red Cross Marks is of great concern to American Red Cross because it is likely to deceive consumers into believing that the discount code is active and that the website is endorsed, sponsored, authorized or licensed by, or is otherwise affiliated with, American Red Cross when it is not.
Therefore, on behalf of American Red Cross, I request that you remove this inactive coupon code and cease and desist all infringements of American Red Cross’s IP Rights within 1 day after receiving this letter.
The information contained in this letter is accurate and shall not affect in any way, the rights, remedies and/or defenses my client has, had, or may have for acting in this matter.
Sincerely,
Corsearch, Inc.
on behalf of
American Red Cross
When they didn't get a response to the email that I never received, they contacted AWS EC2 abuse team, albeit after waiting 2 months.
Hello,
We have received the attached notice that you are posting, hosting or distributing trademark infringing content on our network. Please review the attached notice and take appropriate action.
Regards,
AWS Trust & Safety
Amazon Web Services, LLC
====== Details ======
Case Number: REDACTED
- Log Extract:
<<<
Dear Amazon Technologies Inc.
Please review the attached email sent to the registrant of WEBSITE REDACTED
Given the egregious use of the registered trademark please do anything you can to disable this content.
Sincerely,
Corsearch, Inc.
on behalf of
American Red Cross
Now I've gone ahead and removed the content, as I don't really care about a post that's 2 months old and is no longer valid, but my question is WTF? What happened to section 230? How am I somehow in trouble for posting what is essentially a link? Also, they seem to have gone to a lot of trouble over said link. Seems like a human (probably even a paralegal) looked at this issue, not once, but twice.
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@dangeRuss said in Trademark infringement:
Now I've gone ahead and removed the content, as I don't really care about a post that's 2 months old and is no longer valid, but my question is WTF? What happened to section 230? How am I somehow in trouble for posting what is essentially a link? Also, they seem to have gone to a lot of trouble over said link. Seems like a human (probably even a paralegal) looked at this issue, not once, but twice.
I think Section 230 says that when someone notifies you that something illegal has been posted that you're supposed to take it down. Which they did:
Therefore, on behalf of American Red Cross, I request that you remove this inactive coupon code and cease and desist all infringements of American Red Cross’s IP Rights within 1 day after receiving this letter.
A trademark holder has a duty to defend their exclusive use of their mark and this looks like a pretty obvious violation. Aside from the spam angle, it seems legit to me.
EDIT: My guess is that this store was reported to them and they've gone out and searched for all the links to it that they could find and then sent these notices.
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@boomzilla said in Trademark infringement:
A trademark holder has a duty to defend their exclusive use of their mark and this looks like a pretty obvious violation.
Except it was embed of the official Red Cross Store page. And the discount code was also for the official Red Cross Store, and it wasn't even "REDCROSS" like they alleged in the mail. No trademark violation happened because it's all their own first-party materials.
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@Gąska oh, I guess I assumed it was some unauthorized store. Yeah, that's retarded on the part of the Red Cross. I guess you could theoretically fight this retardery, but obviously not worth it.
EDIT: In that case, I'd blacklist their domain from getting oneboxes.
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@Gąska said in Trademark infringement:
@boomzilla said in Trademark infringement:
A trademark holder has a duty to defend their exclusive use of their mark and this looks like a pretty obvious violation.
Except it was embed of the official Red Cross Store page. And the discount code was also for the official Red Cross Store, and it wasn't even "REDCROSS" like they alleged in the mail. No copyright violation happened because it's all their own first-party materials.
Doesn't the embed scrape the site only once and then create a preview image and text for the onebox? That's basically making a copy, and you don't have copyright.
Sounds like all onebox-ing is potential infringement. Which is crazy, but that's par for the copyright course.EDIT: Oh wait, it's about trademarks not copyright. Maybe still problematic? Who
.
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@topspin said in Trademark infringement:
Doesn't the embed scrape the site only once and then create a preview image and text for the onebox? That's basically making a copy, and you don't have copyright.
The iframely server caches those scrapes. So a restart or just falling out of cache would mean it needs to re-generate it.
You can also use iframely's servers (for free if your volume is low enough). So you might be sharing a cache with lots of sites in that case, at which point, who knows how long it would live in there?
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This post is deleted!
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@Gąska said in Trademark infringement:
and the only cross in that post - the tiny one on the bottom of the bottle in the embed - is very clearly on green background.
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@boomzilla ....oh, okay. nevermind.
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@boomzilla said in Trademark infringement:
@topspin said in Trademark infringement:
Doesn't the embed scrape the site only once and then create a preview image and text for the onebox? That's basically making a copy, and you don't have copyright.
The iframely server caches those scrapes. So a restart or just falling out of cache would mean it needs to re-generate it.
You can also use iframely's servers (for free if your volume is low enough). So you might be sharing a cache with lots of sites in that case, at which point, who knows how long it would live in there?
I actually use a plugin that caches iframely things internally, so it's probably cached now, even though the original product is gone from their site. The cross icon is being served straight from their site though.
Also is this site now going to get in trouble because I posted a screenshot with their logo on it?
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@dangeRuss said in Trademark infringement:
Also is this site now going to get in trouble because I posted a screenshot with their logo on it?
Doubtful. Maybe if you posted the link (or another one from their store). How funny would it be if they found you by someone clicking the link and buying stuff there?
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@Gąska said in Trademark infringement:
@boomzilla said in Trademark infringement:
buying stuff there
"buying" stuff there
Also given that the item is no longer available, it's possible that people clicked through and actually bought something.
