[thelist] Logo Design (infringement) help requested

Belinda Johnson belinda at prodsol.net
Fri Jun 27 21:52:11 CDT 2003


Hi List -

I as contacted this afternoon by the CEO of a company who believes that a
site that is hosted on one of my servers has stolen their logo design and
Business name, and is letting me know I'll be hearing from his lawyers.

The facts:

I am the host, an independent designer designed the site, for a client (who
was the one who established his business name and then contracted her to
build the website. (The first thing I mentioned in my email response to him
was that  I was surprised he bypassed the owner of the offending company and
the webmaster of the site, both of whom were listed in contact information
on the index page of the website, and went straight to the host)

The designer - I KNOW did not copy their logo - but I have to admit the
similarity is a little scary (ok - a lot) - but honestly - there is not
another human being on the face of this earth that I trust more than this
designer - and throughout the design process, even though I wasn't directly
involved - we usually run things by each other in the process, and I
remember looking at the image files as she was creating them (BY HAND -
that's the ONLY WAY we create logos or web graphics) - and of course she has
all those in process files on her computer, and I have the corresponding
emails where we tossed ideas back and forth. TRULY - I know I have never
looked at the other website until tonight - and she doesn't think she did
but can't be sure (she's beating herself up as well trying to second guess
how it could possibly have ended up so similar)

The business owner - I don't have any idea if he researched his business
name and/or what methods he used - believe me we are trying to get ahold of
him tonight as well to get this all figured out, and I copied both of them
on my response to the CEO who emailed me.

PositiveChanges.com is the site who says they have copied their name and
logo. www.positivechanges.com

PositiveChanges.biz is the site that is hosted on my server. (Although we
have in good faith complied with their request to remove the site from the
web pending further discussion - erring on the side of caution I requested
they do this immediately - but please view the original homepage & logo at
www.positivechanges.biz/indexoriginal.html

His email to me: "Your client has not only appropriated our name, they have
copied our logo.  You and they will be hearing from our lawyers, but, in the
meantime, we would ask that you immediately take the site down before any
further damage is done to our copyrights."

Any advice or suggestions?

Belinda



More information about the thelist mailing list