[thelist] Looking for Input

Suzanne Harmon suzanne at hharmon.com
Mon Apr 29 17:22:01 CDT 2002


>-----Original Message-----
>[mailto:thelist-admin at lists.evolt.org] On Behalf Of David Kutcher

Sorry, David - it does get confusing. I'll try to clarify:

>So let me get this straight: they try to sue you and waste
>lots of time and money doing this, realize they dont have a
>case, and now want you to pay for their lawyers?

This is what appears to have happened as of Friday of last week.

>You mentioned something along the lines of the client was
>using not a domain, but a subdomain or just a subdirectory...
>she doesn't have any rights to that.  The owner of the domain
>is the only one with ownership of the name or anything related to it.

This is correct. We own the domain. Our original client paid for a
subdomain under it for several years. We leased it to her and when she
changed franchises, we changed everything from Realty Executives to
Better Homes and Gardens. We always maintained ownership. We simply
leased it to her.

>If Realty Executives had a problem with traffic going to this
>directory, why didn't they just redirect all traffic from the
>directory to their site, taking advantage of the traffic as
>opposed to fighting it?

The original agent used to own the franchise for realty executives. She
then sold it to this moron who moved into her offices with his own
domain which of course he asked us to develop. His problem was she used
the words Realty Executives on her website which is her right to do. It
was just a question of sour grapes on his part. We offered this
subdomain for his use after she left the area. He refused.

>This is where I get confused:
>
>"A year ago, the agent relocated to another state and gave up
>the rights to the url she was using. Since it was so
>successful, we offered it to other real estate agents. The
>local Realty Executives agent discovered we had leased it to
>someone else and approached them with threats of a lawsuit."
>
>You offered the old subdirectory/subdomain to someone?  Who
>owns the domain in question?  That's the only sticking point I see.

We offered the old subdirectory/subdomain to the guy who is suing us
first which would be the logical thing to do. We explained this would
solve his problems and also bring him more business. Our original client
received over 90% of her business from this website and we were offering
the same deal to him. When he refused we offered it to anyone who wanted
it.

I hope that clears it up. I'm sorry it was confusing but it's hard to
put everything down and not post a long message.

Regards,
Suzanne Harmon
suzanne at hharmon.com







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