Here's an interesting one...
There's a website upon which exists a bulletin board surfers can register themselves on and engage in discussions with one another about porn in.
On this board, there was a thread (a few, in fact) about a particular porn star we shall call John Doe.
Now, the individual known as John Doe (which is to say, the actor whose stage name is "John Doe") registered on the board in order to interact with his fans and talk to them and made several posts under the username with which he registered on the board: JohnDoe.
Very soon thereafter, the owner of the video production company for which this model works under the alias "John Doe", and that we shall call His Video Company, sent an e-mail to the webmaster of this bulletin board threatening to sue for trademark and copyright infringement. The owner of the production company claims that his company has trademarked "John Doe" and therefore, without their permission, their model should not have been allowed to register under that name.
As a gesture of kindness, the webmaster of the bulletin board edited the model's username on the board so that it reads "JohnD" - a name and term not trademarked by anyone and quite generic.
The video company owner now says that regardless of any copyrighted terms no longer appearing in the thread and his own (probably former) model's username being changed, he can still sue for trademark and copyright infringement over any references made to "John Doe" or "His Video Company Name" in the bulletin board. That mere conversational reference and expression of opinion by bulletin board members in which the name of the model or name of the video company appear are trademark/copyright violations for which the bulletin board operator can be held liable.
It was pointed out to the video company owner that without the bulletin board owners/operators having registered the name "JohnDoe" themselves - much less for actionable commercial use or commercial engagements - and with occurrences of the alleged trademarked phrases appearing as part of discussion and conversation in the bulletin board between 3rd party registrants, there is no grounds for legal action.
In other words, say there's a discussion board on websiteA.com on which people are talking about Coca Cola and how they prefer Pepsi to Coke. Coke can not sue the bulletin board's owner for discussion about "Coke" even though "Coke" is a registered trademark and even though unflattering comments about "Coke" are being posted. Furthermore, just because someone registered with the username "CocaCola" or "CocaColaHater", Coke can not demand anything posted by that user constitutes a trademark/copyright infringement by the bulletin board owner.
Further, that although it's possible for JohnDoe model to have violated terms of some contract between himself and His Video Company, that has nothing to do with the bulletin board or the bulletin board's owners/operators, much less could it be considered a trademark or copyright violation by them.
What's your opinion on the matter?
BTW - there is no solicitation of legal advice taking place here. Simply an effort to use this particular incident to initiate a discussion on it and see what others' opinions might be. If lawyers were in need of being consulted, they most certainly have already been
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Originally Posted by Squirt
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