owned by subaru?

http://www.iwsti.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27448


i can understand but come on, we're all here to help promote

 

damn... wonder if they will be breathing down our backs

 

I vote for an immediate domain name change to "thesiteforthatcar.com" to avoid future hassles.

 

:rofl:

 

Unreal... Life is too short for this kinda crap. IMHO, a site that is owned, operated and visited by Subaru owners and enthusiasts only helps promote the cars that Subaru sells. What honestly do they hope to accomplish? Come on...how do enthusiast sites "tarnish our client's business reputations and dilute the distinctive qualit of our clients' famous IMPREZA, WRX and STi marks" I don't get it. It's flat out ridiculous. ssh:

 

i think they went after them cause there was no mention of a club or group in there title. just the car make and modle. i dont think they will go directly after the 3 alex mentioned cause they all say something with the wrx or subaru. plus alex is safe guarded us with his trusty disclaimer.

 

yes... he is our guardian angel :bowdown:

 

JT got it right. The problem is not that it's an enthusiast club, but that the site was a specific trademark of Subaru "Impeza WRX STi." Even if they had the disclaimer that Alex put, they would probably still have to change their name. We're safe because we're using a blanket or condensed version of the trademark "Impreza WRX." Furthermore, it's specifically tied with a location: Atlanta, separating it from all other WRX forums. iwsti's (i'm just using this because it's shorter) problem was that it was simply the car's name with no identifier. Think about most official sites: WWW.swrt.com, www.subaru.com, www.subaruofamerica.com, etc etc. They are the name, title, whatever of a company or product. It's reasobale to assume that someone wanting to know what exactly a WRX is would go to www.impreza.com, www.subaru.com, www.subaruwrx.com, or something like that. By letting iwsti use the full name, subaru is giving away a trademark for free that it could use to set up a dedicated site for the STi... Legally, they own the trademark. Is it a good move? I don't know that it'll hurt anyone at all in the end, and i don't think it will negatively affect customer relations. Becaus elook at this too: If on iwsti someone wrote bad things about the STi, or slandered Evos or Audis, subaru could be considered to share that opinion because the site name is under their trademark. It's a stretch, but not out of the question. Anyway, that's just some things to think about. In the end, i don't see this causing any real disruptions in the subaru community, but subaru does have to cover it's ass when someone owns a domain with their intellectual property because they don't control the posts on that domain.

 

I think what triggered it was them selling shirts and stuff with Subaru's trademarked logos on 'em...

 

You'll notice the Mini community had a similar problem, and there's no record of lancerevolution.com. I suspect Mitsu would also change the name of this site or LancerEvolutionMR.com site. Basically imsti, as moose said, was profiting by selling shirts, hats, etc with the subaru star and all of that on it. Subaru trademarked this so that they could profit from their own logos. If you want to sell things with this, contact subaru. They may let you, but will most likely take a percentage of the profits (after all, it's their logo that they *PAY* to have exclusive rights to use). regardless of what people think, they cannot just use whatever is on the public market as they see fit.

So now the big questions: We're making shirts and hats! Will this cause a problem? I don't think so because we're not using the stars, or the full name. Yes, WRX is in there but I highly doubt this will be enough to trigger a similar reaction.

 

Don't worry, I pro-actively went outside and burned them all. Sorry, Alex.

 

Careful guys, I remember there was a similar problem with Volkswagen and one of their clubs over here. It didn't end pretty for the club.