P2P-Zone - Emule trademark problems

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Emule trademark problems

Here is an email I recieved today I have removed the German text version if anyone wants it just yell

Quote:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Deutsche version unten German version below Dear eMule User, you receive this mail as a registered member of the official eMule board on http://www.emule-project.net. This is the first newsletter and we do not send them on a regular basis but only on rare occasions. The reason for writing this mail is we want to bring current problems to your attention: A german patent lawyer registered the trademark "eMule" for a dialer related company and is now trying to shutdown or takeover major eMule related websites. Since many of our developers as well as many webmasters live in germany we consider this as a serious threat for the community and development. Therefor we deceided to work together with the first attacked website (emule.de) and go to court with the aim to remove this trademark. However beeing a non-profit project we need your support to accomplish this. Please visist http://www.freemule.net to view more background information, news and ways to help us. Your eMule Team http://www.emule-project.net -----------------------------------------------------------------------

Of all things a dialer program :MAD: we don't need anymore of those out there;( Unfortunatly if this goes bad I can see a trend starting I'm sure their going to need all the help they can get for this.

sorry to hear it aweshucks. i'm not up on german copyright law but registering a mark doesn't normally supercede a pre-existing usage - if it can be proven that the one preceded the other. you'd have good case in other words if you used ''emule'' before he did. not that the courts will automatically agree, and you'll no doubt have to spend funds that can be used elsewhere for your defense. it's yet another in a growing list of examples how copyright laws are used to stifle ideas as opposed to their stated purpose of diseminating them.

in the end it may make more sense to create a new name.

- js.

Slyck now has an article on this issue

http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=393

For the rest of the story and updates

http://www.freemule.net/

Freemule has a nice ring to it. All the logos will have to be wider, but if a name change had to happen I don't think it's such a terrible thing. When your regular person thinks P2P they think Kazaa; I don't think eMule users will be much confused.

Speaking of Dialers, has anyone tried or have information on RegBlock.

Is it worth it?

Quote:

Originally posted by VWguy
Speaking of Dialers, has anyone tried or have information on RegBlock.

Is it worth it?

Ad-watch handles most of that. SpySweeper has some realtime protection too.