Hawker
Well-known member
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2015
- Messages
- 287
- Points
- 0
This might not belong here but looked the best category at first. Feel free to suggest me a better cat and I'll move her.
I kind of need to seek some advice about a possible legal matter.
If you own a website. Just what rights do you have as a webmaster?
Strange question? Let's say you are an Internet Marketer / Affiliate Marketer. You have found a great product and a great brand that you want to promote.
So you register a domain name. Get hosting for it and then start building your site that will be selling this great brands product.
You want your site to rank for those terms that are related to that brand/product. And you want to use social media as a way to reach your target market.
So you go about creating and setting up social media profiles on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc etc
And on your site, you start talking about it, doing reviews on it, adding content, images etc about it.
You add images to it that you found in a Google search that were in the "Public Domain" as far as you need to be legally concerned.
You then took those images and modified them slightly maybe changing their size before adding them to your site.
Eventually, you start to make sales, and you either act as a registered affiliate for that brand/product and redirect visitors to their site.
Or you just sell their products, take payment and then have to buy the actual product yourself and send it to the buyer. Unless you've already bought it/some.
Obviously, selling the product yourself comes with more benefits like being able to set your own price, charge for shipping too.
Where as being an affiliate, you're only going to get a cut of what they get which could be around only 10%.
Say it was a product that sold for $100. You'd only get $10 as an affiliate but if you sold it for $150, you would get $50.
For bigger ticketed items that go into 1000+ selling the product yourself can be much more worthwhile but at the same time that has its downsides too.
By selling it yourself, you will have to be responsible for handling shipping and delivery, keeping track of orders, files, documents, forms etc.
However, despite these reasons, it can help you to accumulate earnings quicker that you can then use to scale up with.
Anyway, you'd think that if you had done something like that, the brand would be happy you're selling THEIR product and not someone else's like a competitors or even trying to imitate them.
You'd think that most brands would be happy with this and want to work with a site like that as after all, it's all about their product and they are smashing it with sales.
The reason for all this? Well I recently have done something similar and been doing the same thing. Well I wanted to see how friendly and open this one particular brand were. So I emailed them telling them that I own this site and that I wondered if they would kindly do fulfilment shipping for us. I told them my site was about them and sells their product and that we're getting a lot of sales so would they do fulfilment shipping.
You know what fulfilment shipping is right? The buyer buys from my site, pay me, I then buy it from the brands site, and give them the buyers address details and they handle it.
It's not exactly a new concept. Affiliates and big companies have been doing that for years. New starter companies often do it for a boost and for some is how they got as big as they are now.
However, following on I received a response back that wasn't quite what I had in mind. I'll put it here for the sake of this thread.
And blatant breach? I don't get what they mean by that. They might need to be a bit more specific. I think they've mistaken me as someone thats trying to mimic them, I'm not.
I was a bit miffed at the time so have responded with this.
And that would be understandable because in this particular niche, there has sprung up many copycats. But they all sell their own product or a spin off of it. Where as my site, actually sells their product. So in effect, we're promoting them and helping them to grow and making them more sales.
However, like I said, even though most or many startup companies would appreciate the extra sales it could bring in, and be willing to work something out with people who are fans of their product and want them to succeed too.
But apparently that doesn't appear to be the case here with this one particular brand.
Now then I must admit. Most of the main social profiles I created were using their images and product images in their header images etc but I have now remove all of them and made them look like my own brand with my own brand and logo and that on them and not their stuff. So they can't tell me now to remove those social profiles. I know my rights here. I know that I have rights to create social profiles as fan pages of other brands. Hell, Facebook even lets you set the main brand your page is a fanpage of. But regardless, if they don't want to play ball, and they were serious. Which I have no doubt they weren't, then although I'm confident, I'm sort of a bit questionable too.
See, like I said, I know my rights, and if I'm honest, I think I detect some unsureness or insecurity in his message to me like he wasn't quite sure of himself either. Me thinks he has not only gone about it in the wrong way, I mean, whatever happened to a good old fashioned kind request? What's with the threat of legal action right off the bat when I'm clearly not a copycat site?? What's with the hostility you know? Like whoa hold on a minute.
But do they really want to get involved with paying expensive legal fees? My host has even said that they will do all they can to protect me and that I have not breached any trade marks, copyright and IP as far as they can see. Having a brands name and images on your site does not equate to breaching their tm, copyright and IP as that is the whole purpose of the Internet. It would mean they would have to get all the other x million of sites that also have that brands name on it in some form or another, be it through text written in the context of a review, or a screenshot of their website. And then you start interfering with human rights.
I read it and thought, many of my friends right now and forumers would say that you have a strong case here and they have not right to seek damages as no damages have been caused.
Idk if it's just me naivety, but I always thought that in a court of law, to claim damages, the other party must first have damaged something.
What have I damaged? Why don't they like my site?
Am I going to get into trouble?
LOL
Grab your microwave popcorn people and get ready for the next episode coming soon!
This should be interesting to say the least.
All in all, I think they are jealous because I have a better domain name than them and I think they know it.
But maybe that's illusion de grandeur.
Time will tell.
What say you about this?
I kind of need to seek some advice about a possible legal matter.
If you own a website. Just what rights do you have as a webmaster?
Strange question? Let's say you are an Internet Marketer / Affiliate Marketer. You have found a great product and a great brand that you want to promote.
So you register a domain name. Get hosting for it and then start building your site that will be selling this great brands product.
You want your site to rank for those terms that are related to that brand/product. And you want to use social media as a way to reach your target market.
So you go about creating and setting up social media profiles on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc etc
And on your site, you start talking about it, doing reviews on it, adding content, images etc about it.
You add images to it that you found in a Google search that were in the "Public Domain" as far as you need to be legally concerned.
You then took those images and modified them slightly maybe changing their size before adding them to your site.
Eventually, you start to make sales, and you either act as a registered affiliate for that brand/product and redirect visitors to their site.
Or you just sell their products, take payment and then have to buy the actual product yourself and send it to the buyer. Unless you've already bought it/some.
Obviously, selling the product yourself comes with more benefits like being able to set your own price, charge for shipping too.
Where as being an affiliate, you're only going to get a cut of what they get which could be around only 10%.
Say it was a product that sold for $100. You'd only get $10 as an affiliate but if you sold it for $150, you would get $50.
For bigger ticketed items that go into 1000+ selling the product yourself can be much more worthwhile but at the same time that has its downsides too.
By selling it yourself, you will have to be responsible for handling shipping and delivery, keeping track of orders, files, documents, forms etc.
However, despite these reasons, it can help you to accumulate earnings quicker that you can then use to scale up with.
Anyway, you'd think that if you had done something like that, the brand would be happy you're selling THEIR product and not someone else's like a competitors or even trying to imitate them.
You'd think that most brands would be happy with this and want to work with a site like that as after all, it's all about their product and they are smashing it with sales.
The reason for all this? Well I recently have done something similar and been doing the same thing. Well I wanted to see how friendly and open this one particular brand were. So I emailed them telling them that I own this site and that I wondered if they would kindly do fulfilment shipping for us. I told them my site was about them and sells their product and that we're getting a lot of sales so would they do fulfilment shipping.
You know what fulfilment shipping is right? The buyer buys from my site, pay me, I then buy it from the brands site, and give them the buyers address details and they handle it.
It's not exactly a new concept. Affiliates and big companies have been doing that for years. New starter companies often do it for a boost and for some is how they got as big as they are now.
However, following on I received a response back that wasn't quite what I had in mind. I'll put it here for the sake of this thread.
Well I have to say, I had to respond to that. For starters, I had not received any such email asking me to cease or anything like that and to say that I think they are largely mistaken.
And blatant breach? I don't get what they mean by that. They might need to be a bit more specific. I think they've mistaken me as someone thats trying to mimic them, I'm not.
I was a bit miffed at the time so have responded with this.
I haven't heard back from him since then. I think I was a bit too blunt with him and he didn't like my arrogant tone I guess Idk. So next day I sent another saying
Obviously I want to be honest and open with him otherwise I wouldn't have emailed them from the start. It seems to me that they have either mistaken me for someone else, or they think that I'm trying to pretend to be them. Because my domain is sort of similar to theirs and the site looks sort of similar to theirs and the product selling at same price (excluding postage). So they think that I'm a copycat business trying to sell their own product that is similar to theirs.
And that would be understandable because in this particular niche, there has sprung up many copycats. But they all sell their own product or a spin off of it. Where as my site, actually sells their product. So in effect, we're promoting them and helping them to grow and making them more sales.
However, like I said, even though most or many startup companies would appreciate the extra sales it could bring in, and be willing to work something out with people who are fans of their product and want them to succeed too.
But apparently that doesn't appear to be the case here with this one particular brand.
Now then I must admit. Most of the main social profiles I created were using their images and product images in their header images etc but I have now remove all of them and made them look like my own brand with my own brand and logo and that on them and not their stuff. So they can't tell me now to remove those social profiles. I know my rights here. I know that I have rights to create social profiles as fan pages of other brands. Hell, Facebook even lets you set the main brand your page is a fanpage of. But regardless, if they don't want to play ball, and they were serious. Which I have no doubt they weren't, then although I'm confident, I'm sort of a bit questionable too.
See, like I said, I know my rights, and if I'm honest, I think I detect some unsureness or insecurity in his message to me like he wasn't quite sure of himself either. Me thinks he has not only gone about it in the wrong way, I mean, whatever happened to a good old fashioned kind request? What's with the threat of legal action right off the bat when I'm clearly not a copycat site?? What's with the hostility you know? Like whoa hold on a minute.
But do they really want to get involved with paying expensive legal fees? My host has even said that they will do all they can to protect me and that I have not breached any trade marks, copyright and IP as far as they can see. Having a brands name and images on your site does not equate to breaching their tm, copyright and IP as that is the whole purpose of the Internet. It would mean they would have to get all the other x million of sites that also have that brands name on it in some form or another, be it through text written in the context of a review, or a screenshot of their website. And then you start interfering with human rights.
I read it and thought, many of my friends right now and forumers would say that you have a strong case here and they have not right to seek damages as no damages have been caused.
Idk if it's just me naivety, but I always thought that in a court of law, to claim damages, the other party must first have damaged something.
What have I damaged? Why don't they like my site?
Am I going to get into trouble?
LOLGrab your microwave popcorn people and get ready for the next episode coming soon!
This should be interesting to say the least.
All in all, I think they are jealous because I have a better domain name than them and I think they know it.
But maybe that's illusion de grandeur.
Time will tell.
What say you about this?
