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Utube Sues YouTube

Posted by samzenpus on Thu Nov 02, 2006 04:43 AM
from the koca-cola dept.
The Courts The Internet IT
An anonymous reader writes "From The Age article: Universal Tube, which sells used machines that make tubes, has said it has lost business because customers have had trouble accessing its site." So now Utube is suing YouTube seeking a cease and desist on the youtube domain. (I wonder if they think Google's pockets might be deeper that the previous owners'.) This again raises the problems of domain names colliding across different industries and countries, and reminds me of the etoys/etoy tussle a few years back. Should domain name simply be exempt from trademark legislation in all countries or is it a legit thing to fight for?"

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[+] IT: uTube.com Business Stalled by YouTube Purchase Hype 202 comments
prostoalex writes "Google's acquisition of online video sharing site YouTube.com resulted in massive traffic headed to uTube.com, "the number one supplier of used Tube & Pipe equipment in the world!", according to the site. CNN Money reports: "The company, which sells used machinery for making tubes to clients worldwide, has seen its site utube.com knocked off line by millions of online searchers looking for video site. "It's killing us," said Ralph Girkins, president and owner of the 22-year-old business. "All my worldwide reps use our Web site. Customers all over the world use it to bring up photos of the machinery, descriptions and specifications there."""
[+] No EToy for Christmas 376 comments
It's been a long week for etoy.com. On Monday, a judge issued a preliminary injuction fining them $10,000 each day that their website was hosted at their domain. They shut it down right away, of course. They're just internet artists. They don't have six billion dollars like the company that filed the suit: eToys.com. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Click More. Update: For more information about etoy, see the freshly-updated dmoz category.
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  • Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)

    by RichPowers (998637) on Thursday November 02 2006, @04:48AM (#16686097)
    "Universal Tube, which sells used machines that make tubes..." Well now we know who built the backbone of the Internets
    • Well now we know who built the backbone of the Internets

      Obviously, because the internet is clearly not a truck, that you can just dump things on.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by Feanturi (99866)
        Of course it's not a truck, everyone knows that data takes the bus.

        • Um... (Score:3)

          by ari_j (90255)
          No, Data flies a starship. His evil brother Lore takes the bus.

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by morgan_greywolf (835522)
            The quality of geeks is really declining these days.


            You missed a word in that sentence. s/geeks/geeks on Slashdot/

  • this sounds like a simple case of getting publicity by suing a big name!

    meanwhile, on the other news channel, I am suing google for US$1M for no other reason than that Google have more money than me, and thus Google are causing me to feel anxiety about

  • What about... (Score:5, Funny)

    by SnowZero (92219) on Thursday November 02 2006, @04:50AM (#16686113)
    How long before they go after ewetube [ewetube.com]?

    I know, that was baaaaad.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by aerthling (796790)
      The owners of that domain will probably feel a bit sheepish if they do.
  • You have to ask yourself. Whose fame came first? YouTube or Utube?

    If Utube came first, then yes, this is valid if YouTube is exploiting their fame. However, this isn't the case, if I'm not mistaken. YouTube is the one that is famous. Utube is the one that

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kubla2000 (218039)
      To give another example, imagine if I created a site with a name similar to Microsoft, and whenever someone Googled Microsoft, my domain would come up, and a significant number of people came to me first. No, it would be more like if you had a company nam

  • The Amazon tribe of Brazil has sued Amazon.com for $1,000,000,000, complaining that they have potentially lost hundreds of dollars in sales of beads and feminine hygiene products while having to deal with dozens of accidental hits to their website.

  • I'd suggest Utube to also sue ntube [ntube.com], mtube [mtube.com], cuetube and so on. [cuetube.com]
    Because they have customers so deeply confused by mistyping and misreading, they need to get as much cash as possible out of anything in order to remain alive in the market.

  • Eh? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Spad (470073) <slashdot AT spad DOT co DOT uk> on Thursday November 02 2006, @04:58AM (#16686179) Homepage
    Remind me to sue my neighbours for their house being #41. People are always knocking on my door (#41a) instead, wasting my time and causing a loss of earnings.

    After all, it's clearly their fault that people are idiots.
    • Remind me to sue my neighbours for their house being #41.

      I take the fact your neighbours are wealthy and that you're not to be a mere coincidence.

  • Google Provides Servers? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Psychotext (262644) on Thursday November 02 2006, @05:01AM (#16686189)
    I can't help thinking that the best thing Google could do on this is provide the server needs for utube.com to function whilst being hammered by the people incorrectly hitting the site. I don't think they would have much to complain about after that... though I'm sure that probably wouldn't stop them.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Dolly_Llama (267016) *
      As the market matures, it makes sense to me that business insurance should cover unexpected things like this that impact business.

  • Dammit (Score:2)

    by Rogerborg (306625)
    Next they'll come for my site about ovine obstetrics, ewetube.com
  • ...by simply adding Google ads to their homepage [utube.com].

    Most sites would kill to get this level of traffic, and all these guys [utube.com] can think of is getting it stopped.

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by Pollardito (781263)

          There is genuine confusion here, between the two names -- if you just pheonetically say "You Tube dot com", the listener can't tell the difference. The proper party for Utube.com to be sold to use Youtube.com, then it can just be made to point to the main
  • Google should now buy out utube. Certainly a good deal, after all they've been buying out all the dark fiber, now they'd have even more pipes for the intarnets.
  • They're mad because their servers couldn't stand against traffic?
  • If I were Google, I'd simply settle the case by purchasing them two DL360's. All they have to do is serve the single homepage 2.2 million times a day (68 mil hits month /30 days a month. As long as the homepage is static content (looks like a bajillion g
  • Rather than sueing YouTube, why don't they sue the marketing morons who decided that "u" made a good abbreviation for "you" in product names and marketing campaigns? If people didn't automatically skip the y and o then this wouldn't be an issue.

  • It's the all encompassing .com that's the problem (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Colin Smith (2679) on Thursday November 02 2006, @05:49AM (#16686411)
    Hence stuff like .bank, .retail, .energy, .telecom etc etc.

    ooh, the wayback machine is fabulous, here's a rant I wrote years ago about ICANN and the flatness of the current DNS system.

    ICANN fuck up the worlds DNS

    Well, Ok, but if you're going to call yourself ICANN then what do you expect?
    Here's my DNS heirarchy diatribe.

    The DNS is not being used appropriately.

    It's a heirarchical system that has been abused by the registrars to the point where it's effectively a flat naming system; *.com.

    End users should not have access to domains above 3rd or 4th level. First, second and maybe even the third level domains should be reserved exclusively for domain administration purposes.
    Think of it as a filing system. Would you allow users to randomly create directories off root or /usr or even /home? No, only a fuckwit would do that but this is essentially what ICANN are doing. As a responsible administrator you should administer that heirarchy and create areas where users can create and access information in a consistent fashion.

    An example of a managed heirarchy
    microsoft.vendors.software.com
    apple.vendors.software.com
    opensource.vendors.software.com
    ibm.vendors.software.com
    microsoft.operating-systems.software.com
    apple.operating-systems.software.com
    open-source.operating-systems.software.com
    amazon.vendors.books.com
    barnes&noble.vendors.books.com
    waterstones.vendors.books.com
    hoover.US.trademarks.org
    persil.UK.trademarks.org
    fred.new-york.US.plumbers.com
    tesco.superstores.shopping.com
    asda.superstores.shopping.com
    whsmiths.newsagents.shopping.com
    menzies.newsagents.shopping.com

    You see the kind of thing I mean? Web browser and other software could then make use of the structure of the heirarchy.

    The DNS needs to be re-organised or even just organised. ICANN and the registrars should get off their fat arses and design the heirarchy rather than completely abdicating responsibility and allowing chaos to ensue the way they have done so far.

    A properly designed heirarchy would allow everyone to have their place without all this domain squatting and trademark infringement bullshit.

    The new TLDs that ICANN are proposing will simply cause more chaos. They will not solve anything. ICANN are just abdicating their responsibilities again. Do you really think that the IBMs, Microsofts and Apples of this world will not simply register their names and trademarks in every existing TLD?

    They can, they will and things will only get worse.


    And of course we now have phishing problems as well. Oh happy days.

  • This story (sans lawsuit) hit the big time October 12-ish [cnn.com]. It's amusing to note that while Universal Tube foolishly complained to the press before looking into other opportunities, there's at least one person out there who was paying a bit more attention:
  • I wouldn't even know about utube if I hadn't accidentally typed it in once while trying to hit youtube. And yes, this was well before this story broke. Gootube should be bargaining for ad / referral fees :P

    I sure hope I don't get sued by someone someday.
  • How much would a link farm pay for the name?

    How much would a YouTube competitor pay to auto-redirect to their site?

  • Imagine the scene (Score:3, Funny)

    by 19061969 (939279) on Thursday November 02 2006, @06:32AM (#16686625)
    In a busy boardroom of a company that, well, uses industrial tubes.

    MD: "Ok folks! We need to buy 3 miles of indutrial tubing to complete this job, get paid, and then we can have our bonuses for working hard!"
    Lackey1: "Ok boss! I'll just go to U-Tube to buy the tubing."
    MD: "Good one lackey1. You make sure we place that order by 5.00pm tonight."
    Lackey1 goes off to his computer in his office.
    Lackey1: "Duh, ok! Let's type in youtube.com and order them tubes."

    Watches screen.

    Lackey1: "Hey! There's a video of some fat guy miming to Shakira!"

    Later, in boardroom at 5.00pm.

    MD: "So did you order those tubes we need to make money and get bonuses?"
    Lackey1: "Duh, no boss! All I could find was videos of people! They didn't sell no tubing!"
    MD: "What the f___?!?!"
    Lackey1: "S'true I tells yah! I typed in youtube.com and never realised that it was the wrong website. That honestly never occurred to me!"
    MD: "Gahh! We're going to go bust! If only we could have found u-tube's website, we'd have been rich! Wahhhhh! I want my mommy!"

  • Whatever (Score:2)

    by Daath (225404)
    I think google should just buy the utube.com domain from them (they're willing to sell). They gotta be willing to pay a little more than normal though :P Universal Tube is small fry too, making just about 15 million US$ per year.
    Anyway, utube is a better d

  • What utube should have done (Score:5, Insightful)

    by slapout (93640) on Thursday November 02 2006, @11:05AM (#16689553)
    Redirect everyone coming to their site to a youtube.com video of an advertisement for utube. And in the description say "if you would like to purchase our product, click here". Then people who are really looking for youtube will get there (and see a utube ad). And people who are looking for utube will think they're just watching a utube ad before entering the utube site. Problem solved.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by strider44 (650833)
      You could have just read the first few paragraphs of the article. Utube was first by about 10 years apparently.
        • Given that universaltube.com is older than utube.com, it's more likely the company running universaltube.com who could sue.
          Maybe a good strategy for YouTube/Google would be to offer universaltube.com to pay legal expenses if they sue utube.com ... :-)

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by REBloomfield (550182)
          Because when Billy says to Jimmy check out youtube.com, Jimmy isn't going to accidentally type universaltubes.com....

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Antony-Kyre (807195)
      I don't think it's about who registered their domain first. I think it really comes down to who became famous first, and who is trying to exploit whom. Is YouTube piggybacking off of Utube's fame? No, it's the other way around.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by aug24 (38229)
      Actually, and I think also legally, they can just fuck off whatever. There's no trade mark restriction cos they aren't in competing markets, there was no intent to confuse, so what is the basis for restitution?

      Really it's just a combination of free public

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Spacejock (727523)
      They ought to upgrade their webserver account and plaster Google adwords all over the first page. Probably make from from that the plastic pipes, and even if they don't the revenue would no doubt fund the server upgrade.

      I can't help thinking there are t
    • I would be interested to know how many of those hits where from spambots.

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by MS-06FZ (832329)
          Except it costs you more money, too - you need a bigger pipe


          Wait a minute... don't these people make pipes? If they strung together a series of their tubes, I bet it just might work...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by CmdrGravy (645153)
      In Wales they do the same thing, everyone is called Jones but they differentiate by calling each other Jones e.g. Jones The Drunk, Jones The Heroin, Jones The Fence, Jones The Raper etc etc

    • Re:Icons are incorrect for story (Score:5, Informative)

      by drawfour (791912) on Thursday November 02 2006, @05:19AM (#16686291)
      Did the World Wildlife Fund sue the World Wrestling Federation? No, they simply put a link on their site pointing people to the other site if they mistakingly stumbled across it. utube and youtube should just do the same.
      Is simple fact-checking really that hard? Try reading this wikipedia article [wikipedia.org] about the world wildlife fund, and be sure to read the section labeled "Lawsuit". Yes, the World Wildlife Fund did sue the World Wrestling Federation, leading to the name change to World Wrestling Entertainment. It happened in British courts.
      [ Parent ]
    • World Wildlife Fund did indeed sue the World Wrestling Federation, as other posters already pointed out. If his post doesn't deserve a smackdown, no post does.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mabinogi (74033)
      Maybe if they had less than 107 images [websiteoptimization.com] on their front page they wouldn't have so much of a problem.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by cliffski (65094)
        wow a site called websiteoptimisation thats mega-slow AND doesn't work on firefox?
        Thats l33t.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by cliffski (65094)
          actually I take that back, now its working its quite cool, albeit under IE.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by maxwell demon (590494)
      Of course, Cisco routers don't power the internet. Unless they now make routers with integrated power plants. :-)

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by geoffspear (692508)
      Also stop saying "tinfoil hat". For a bunch of geeks who pride themselves on being "accurate", aluminum foil and tin foil are distinctly different things.

      Yes, and we also know that aluminum doesn't stop the mindcontrol rays like tin does, asshat*.

      * So
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