Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Are you ripping off Sports Ilustrated?
A few people have suggested I start over on the title of this blog. Friends fear I'll get sued and some email happy athletic supporters think I am ripping off Sports Illustrated and shouldn't make fun of them. "not all jocks are bad" and "I hope you get sued by the magazine" are a couple of the initial responses from sports fanatic visitors.
So, do I fear a lawsuit or think my title or logo is just a little too close to the popular sports magazine to be fair or legal?
A little guy like me with such strongly anti jock opinions is a possible target for the corporate lawyer army at the disposal of such a large sports publishing giant. I'm sure to enrage many who work at Sports Illustrated and much of their loyal readership. Rich sports guys hate to hear discussions like I intend to initiate and someone is sure to try and stop me eventually. Sports Illustrated would be the obvious choice as a vanguard to any assault on my domain name or attempt to scare me into silence if by some miracle my site becomes popular with the masses.
So I'll get rid of my brilliant title and eye catching logo, right? Hell no I won't change a thing. I worked hard on this title and it's perfect for the intentions of my own brand of online "sports magazine". I see no reason to change it and see no basis for any trademark infringement claims or the possibility that anyone might mistake my blog for the official site of this fine sports publication.
I'm no cybersquatter or plagerist and I don't wish to steal anyone else's creative ideas. I've spent my life in creative fields where all I had was my intellectual property and ideas to sell. I understand and support the importance of copyright and trademark laws in ways most people do not since the basis of my very livelihood depends on these laws being fair and enforceable.
But I also will not change my title simply because if you run all the words together and add an "l" it makes a different string of words that happens to be the title of a popular sports magazine. That is also not fair and would make the titles of many publications illegal. If the publishing world had to worry about anagrams and words ran together, we wouldn't have any titles left at all.
I'm not attempting to lure Sports Illustrated's readership, stealing their design, competing with them or affecting the strength of their trademark in any way. Our reader market, subject matter and intentions are in no way similar and our content is vastly different, as are our titles and our logos.
My title contains three words, only one of which can be found in the title of Sports Illustrated. The word "sports" is a word shared in the titles of many sports related publications, as would be expected. The word "illustrated" doesn't seem to have any relation to my verb of "lustrate" and these words have completely different meanings and popular usage. Illustrated is also a word shared by many in the publishing world as a popular title and you don't see them suing each other over it as long as the titles are not identical or intended to decieve the public.
You can't trademark single words and I'm not using the same words anyway. "Sports I lustrated" is not a misspelling of a popular title; it's a sentence and one that has nothing to do with the goals or content of any popular sports publication.
My logo is also vastly different and unique. While we may share the same title font and it may have actually been commissioned by Sports Illustrated to start with, it has since become a standard font in wide circulation in all types of publications, especially on the Internet. I also use a different font, Georgia, for the I and my L is lowercase and italicised. I doubt there would be much confusion amongst the general public between our two logos.
I've searched all Sports Illustraded's current and recently expired trademarks and see none that are in any way similar to my own.
So, no, I don't fear a lawsuit by this well known magazine. I do not copy them nor compete with them in anyway. There is no basis for them to complain at all.
While I might enjoy some extra traffic if sports fans can't spell, I'm sure the people searching for "sports lustrated" or "sportsilustrated" are probably not the type of people who are going to enjoy my views or frequent my blog.
But thanks for the concern and I'm always open to criticism and comment from both sides of the fanaticism fence.
Read the full story of how Lustrated became the title here.
So, do I fear a lawsuit or think my title or logo is just a little too close to the popular sports magazine to be fair or legal?
A little guy like me with such strongly anti jock opinions is a possible target for the corporate lawyer army at the disposal of such a large sports publishing giant. I'm sure to enrage many who work at Sports Illustrated and much of their loyal readership. Rich sports guys hate to hear discussions like I intend to initiate and someone is sure to try and stop me eventually. Sports Illustrated would be the obvious choice as a vanguard to any assault on my domain name or attempt to scare me into silence if by some miracle my site becomes popular with the masses.
So I'll get rid of my brilliant title and eye catching logo, right? Hell no I won't change a thing. I worked hard on this title and it's perfect for the intentions of my own brand of online "sports magazine". I see no reason to change it and see no basis for any trademark infringement claims or the possibility that anyone might mistake my blog for the official site of this fine sports publication.
I'm no cybersquatter or plagerist and I don't wish to steal anyone else's creative ideas. I've spent my life in creative fields where all I had was my intellectual property and ideas to sell. I understand and support the importance of copyright and trademark laws in ways most people do not since the basis of my very livelihood depends on these laws being fair and enforceable.
But I also will not change my title simply because if you run all the words together and add an "l" it makes a different string of words that happens to be the title of a popular sports magazine. That is also not fair and would make the titles of many publications illegal. If the publishing world had to worry about anagrams and words ran together, we wouldn't have any titles left at all.
I'm not attempting to lure Sports Illustrated's readership, stealing their design, competing with them or affecting the strength of their trademark in any way. Our reader market, subject matter and intentions are in no way similar and our content is vastly different, as are our titles and our logos.
My title contains three words, only one of which can be found in the title of Sports Illustrated. The word "sports" is a word shared in the titles of many sports related publications, as would be expected. The word "illustrated" doesn't seem to have any relation to my verb of "lustrate" and these words have completely different meanings and popular usage. Illustrated is also a word shared by many in the publishing world as a popular title and you don't see them suing each other over it as long as the titles are not identical or intended to decieve the public.
You can't trademark single words and I'm not using the same words anyway. "Sports I lustrated" is not a misspelling of a popular title; it's a sentence and one that has nothing to do with the goals or content of any popular sports publication.
My logo is also vastly different and unique. While we may share the same title font and it may have actually been commissioned by Sports Illustrated to start with, it has since become a standard font in wide circulation in all types of publications, especially on the Internet. I also use a different font, Georgia, for the I and my L is lowercase and italicised. I doubt there would be much confusion amongst the general public between our two logos.
I've searched all Sports Illustraded's current and recently expired trademarks and see none that are in any way similar to my own.
So, no, I don't fear a lawsuit by this well known magazine. I do not copy them nor compete with them in anyway. There is no basis for them to complain at all.
While I might enjoy some extra traffic if sports fans can't spell, I'm sure the people searching for "sports lustrated" or "sportsilustrated" are probably not the type of people who are going to enjoy my views or frequent my blog.
But thanks for the concern and I'm always open to criticism and comment from both sides of the fanaticism fence.
Read the full story of how Lustrated became the title here.
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