What is Digg?523 Comments
- johnvm, on 10/12/2007, -123/+713Not cool Kevin, not cool at all.
- Saintlink, on 10/12/2007, -85/+489This is unwelcome. Digggames.com is NOT a viable threat to digg's legitimate business interests. Again, I repeat this is not welcome, nor needed. Kevin, you need to fix this.
- m3rlinb, on 10/12/2007, -13/+259well what about http://duggmirror.com/ they copy everything, including the frontpage, is that coming down next???
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -192/+348Are you guys smoking crack? First, using the trademark "digg" in the domain name. Second, directly sucking up Digg content (ie, the games category). Kevin and gang are completely reasonable in not wanting that to happen. They could have changed the domain name. They could have made their content more varied but somehow centered around the Digg games section. But it sounds like they essentially just sucked off the Digg teat.
As for banning the word from being entered in urls... Gee, why do you think that is? Maybe it was because they didn't want the guys from that website spamming digg with articles about it because they might be pissed or something?
Seriously, this isn't a huge deal. A company has a right to protect their trademark and someone taking their NAME and COPYING WHAT THEY DO is a clear infringement on that. It isn't like they were called "Digg Donuts" or something. It was DIGG GAMES and built around the DIGG.COM GAMES SECTION. Duh!
Also, if you don't protect your trademark and business from the small guys, you wont' have a foot to stand on when trying to protect it from the big guys. - EmileVictor, on 10/12/2007, -26/+163... Kevin isn't the CEO of Digg, Jay is. Chances are that Kevin didn't make this decision.
- staan, on 10/12/2007, -3/+104Or that he's selling fans with the Digg™ logo printed on them.
Please don't sue my comment. - mkline718, on 10/12/2007, -19/+118I own diggpodcast.com I bought that in April or May 2005 (I forget the exact date). I was going to run a podcast similar to the slashdotreview podcast. I recorded a few then played them back and honestly I suck at it and even I wouldn't listen to myself. Also once Kevin and Alex started their own podcast then I also realized I wasted money on that domain.
If anyone from digg reads this and wants me to redirect or you want the domain just email me.
Thanks
Mike - vorsicht, on 10/12/2007, -29/+121The law is very simple here. You enforce your trademark or you lose it. There is no selective enforcement option. Digg games forced the choice let anyone use the digg name or enforce the trademark. Obviously Kevin would like to keep the trademark he worked and spent a lot of money for. Digg games may want to sound like the victim here but they are not in any way.
- PunkRampant, on 10/12/2007, -27/+110DIGG IS STILL A DEMOCRATIC NEWS BOOKMARKING WEBSITE!!
If Digg takes this story down to quiet the negative hype, then I would be seriously worried about their true colors. But for now the company is just covering its ass - anyone who used DiggGames can go to the new domain, or hey, maybe even use the games section here on Digg itself. - locojones, on 10/12/2007, -22/+95If you'd look at the area covered by Digg's mark, it only protects the following from infringement by likelihood of confusion: "Providing online news and information in the field of technology, namely, computer software and hardware; providing customized online web pages featuring user defined information, which includes search engines and online links to other websites."
You see, this is what we call a goods & services confusion case. Because the mark is identical, and because they cover similar geographical scope, we look to whether the mark is used in the same area of goods & services, and whether that would result in confusion of the consumer. Here, digggames.com's use applies only to online flash-base games. Nothing about the site relates to news, voting, community participation, software or hardware, search engines, or the like.
Digggames is not using a confusingly similar logo, layout, or mimicking of the Digg.com website, so it would be a very strained argument to say that the average online consumer of news information would believe that one site is associated with another.
This is an example of overreaching IP mania where online companies feel as if they are entitled to occupy an entire electronic field merely because they have a particular domain name. However, this is not how real trademarks work. For instance, Top Ramen has a valid trademark for chinese noodle soups, but there is nothing to stop me from using Top Ramen on my own brand of computer hard drives. The same rational applies here. Digg made its claim to online community driven news, but that does not mean others cannot use it on wholly-unrelated services. I feel the provision of flash based games is such a service.
Moreover, the more cease and desist letters I read, the more I realize that they're mostly full of *****.
The letter claims, for instance, that Digg is a "famous mark." That part made me laugh. Famous means just that -- you walk out onto the street and ask anyone what X means or what X makes, and virtually everyone can tell you. Monopoly, Cadillac, Coca-Cola are good examples. Digg? Hardly.
And frankly, the $100,000 damages plus punitives is absolutely laughable as he's just pulling the high-end numbers out of the statutory language to scare the domain owner to death.
Just another C&D for the circular file if you ask me. - warkro, on 10/12/2007, -11/+79its still here http://games1.org/
- sfacets, on 10/12/2007, -49/+105...And I thought Digg were the good guys.
Digg, power getting to your head? - PunkRampant, on 10/12/2007, -8/+56And one more thing - after looking at Games1.org (assuming this is how DiggGames looked) I see that they're giving links to the flash games but no option to digg it, or any link to the Digg story at all. Um, what?
- treelovinhippie, on 10/12/2007, -38/+84Will be interesting to see if there's a backlash :)
I think Digg basically didn't want to lose traffic to DiggGames (which I doubt they were losing any traffic) - Hurricane, on 10/12/2007, -55/+101Booo Kevin.
- theMurdocVolta, on 10/12/2007, -63/+104It's called Business, maybe you've heard of it?
- beni, on 10/12/2007, -5/+46The way trademark law works, at least in the US, if a company fails to defend its trademark, it can be invalidated. So while this particular website may not have been harmful at all to digg, they needed to go after it to maintain their trademarks. Unfortunate, but ncessary. Duggmirror, on the other hand, should be safe because they do not use the word digg in their domain or site name.
- Gregd, on 10/12/2007, -13/+52Does this mean that I'll have to cough-up the domain "diggfan.com"?
- shoover, on 10/12/2007, -20/+56Everyone is reacting like they've done something terrible, when they'd be stupid not to try and protect the trademark 'digg'. Everyone should think about it for a minute, then quit whining so much.
- Teemu, on 10/12/2007, -29/+65This sucks! I think that sites like these were good for Digg. Not cool at all.
- PAJK, on 10/12/2007, -33/+69And now Games1.org is raking in the AdSense. Worked out very well for the guy...
- steal diggs name
- steal diggs content
- make digg look bad for doing something about it
- gain popularity as a result
- rake in the revenue generated from that
Yeh...very nice. - Dujoducom, on 10/12/2007, -28/+62Wow, with all the "open source" chat and talk of internet freedom and anti-copyright this is really surprising. Definitely not cool at all, looks like digg isn't as "down to earth" as everyone would have you believe.
- gaijin, on 10/12/2007, -4/+37Ha! I just checked http://www.diggpuzzles.com. He's added a banner to the top of his page offering to sell the domain name. Says he is a "motivated seller"! Damn right he is...he just added that banner within the last couple of hours.
- explorer509, on 10/12/2007, -10/+43So Kevin Rose is the Ronald McDonald of digg?
- Shorties, on 10/12/2007, -7/+37What about Duggmirror? That seems like more of a trademark infringement.
- treelovinhippie, on 10/12/2007, -10/+39So Digg must have finally got a Trademark.
lol DIGG(TM) and DIGG IT(TM)
@ owner of digggames.com did you ask Digg.com/Kevin if it would be alright to setup and use that domain/site before starting?
As I know the person who started http://www.diggfans.com and he specifically sought permission from Kevin before starting the site - BIGmog, on 10/12/2007, -14/+40In all fairness, digg is a registered trademark now. That extra g is all it takes to make a brand. I doubt Google would be too happy about someone starting an online game site calling it Google Games.
Before you digg me down, I'm just trying to see both sides here. - PunkRampant, on 10/12/2007, -4/+28DUGG is not a trademark, at least not yet.
- terminalpariah, on 10/12/2007, -2/+24My understanding of DiggGames is that it started *before Digg has a proper web games section*. They just wanted to keep all of the Digg-submitted web games all in one place.
Now, he probably should have shut it down when Digg got its games section. But, he didn't just register the domain a month ago, snag the web games RSS feed, and put a bunch of ads around it (which seems to be what most people here think is going on). - PunkRampant, on 10/12/2007, -4/+25DuggGames.com probably would have worked. But then again the guy didn't wanna push his luck.
- dloko, on 10/12/2007, -5/+25He should have named it duggames.com !
- ormej01, on 10/12/2007, -5/+23Looking forward to an explanation during the podcast....
- longboarder543, on 10/12/2007, -3/+20The letter on digggames.com said Digg owns the trademark or has several pending on digg, diggit, etc. By law, to maintain and continue to assert your ownership rights of a trademark, you have to pursue infringers. Think about it, if say, netscape.com came along in a year and started using "digg" or some variant on their site, and Digg had several cases of not enforcing their trademark on prior sites, that gives them a way to say, hey, Digg doesn't enforce their mark, it must not be important to them. Also, it could be very damaging to digg as digg.com becomes more popular, and if digggames.com became popular, that the uninformed masses would not know that digggames.com wasn't owned by digg. All of a sudden digg would have a problem. They'd have a website which they have no control over, using their trademark, which they didn't enforce. You don't see digg throwing cease and desists at all the digg clones, do you?
- Shorties, on 10/12/2007, -10/+26Those who are complaining should read the letter, its probably the nicest S&D letter I have ever read, and digg's worry makes sense, they don't want people thinking its a part of Digg.
- vorsicht, on 10/12/2007, -11/+26You guys don't seem to get it at all. If digg didn't send the letter to this game site than Netscape could start calling there product Digg. It is that simple. If you let one person use your trademark without any business relation with you than you have to let everyone. I don't get why anyone could think digg did something wrong here.
- LeeVal, on 10/12/2007, -13/+28They take legal action against a games website, but not netscape.
- smb3d, on 10/12/2007, -20/+35Everyone's "Down to Earth" till it comes between them and their money!
- PunkRampant, on 10/12/2007, -8/+22I agree. That would have been smarter, but of course he never expected a cease and desist letter from such a friendly site as Digg.
- PunkRampant, on 10/12/2007, -7/+21No, I think it was taking away from traffic to Digg. People were using DiggGames instead of the games section on Digg.
Example:
ReBeLaCe
"I went to that site all the time because I didnt wanna digg through the games on here."
Boom, Digg loses traffic. - born, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15Hooray Beer!
- PunkRampant, on 10/12/2007, -9/+22He DIDN'T link to games on Digg. He hosted the games on his own website, and didn't put up links to the Digg story for the game.
- deathray, on 10/12/2007, -3/+16Read the description again, "Furthermore, 'digggames.com' has been banned from being entered as a story URL".
- waynejkruse10, on 10/12/2007, -11/+23Digg has defenantly gone down a notch in my books.
- PunkRampant, on 10/12/2007, -5/+17I think that your domain clearly implies it's a fansite.
- Ninjamonk, on 10/12/2007, -3/+15well if they want diggcard.com all they need to do is ask me. However I can understand the right to protect a trademark but in doing so they might damage thier image. I think going after fan sites is not a good thing.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -21/+33Digg did the right thing.
Do you know why?
Because the first thing I saw when I saw "Digg games" in the headline title was "Cool, Digg started a separate game site?".
That is precisely the thing they want to avoid. As someone who ahs had to deal with people owning similar domains to mine (intentionally created to milk off mine), I know what a pain it is to have people confuse the two and not have anything you can do about it. I've had people actually write me emails all pissed off over something that occurred at the other site(s) with similar domain names that had NOTHING to do with mine, becuase they couldn't make the distinction.
In a business where your entire content and company is ONLINE, making that distinction in that particular space is of uttmost importance to preserve your company identity and distringuish your services.
The guy likely wasn't making any money or trying to be an ass. But that doesn't change the fact that people could easily miss-identify the two sites or construe some vague relation. - shae, on 10/12/2007, -22/+33how stupid is that? for a site that relies on user support, you would think they would return the favor by supporting its users.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -11/+22Netscape didn't call it DiggScape now, did they?
- Saintlink, on 10/12/2007, -16/+27Is this another site we should just take offline and destroy a legit service? Sites like duggmirror and the games website only increase traffic to the original. It is just plain bad news to do stuff like this. Kevin and crew, shame on you. Prove us wrong and drop this nonsense post-haste. That is all.
- mpancha, on 10/12/2007, -5/+15This is why everyone shouldn't be allowed to have an opinion. A lot of people who have done nothing more than go to school so far in their lives seem to know what's good in business. Wait until you've put everywaking moment of your life, your heart and soul into a product, and wait until someone tries to capitalize on that....
then it will begin to make sense why so many places are shut down by the original creators. -
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