[thelist] Logo Design (infringement) help requested

[Belinda Johnson]

>  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

> This will be hard to prove. Very few companies will instinctively decide
to
> register their domain as mycompany.biz
> Te process is usually to first check for availability of mycompany.com,
> then look for alternatives. And this check sometimes includes visiting the
> domain if it is registered to see what it's about (possibly with intent of
> making an offer to buy it from the registrant)

I completely agree - that is certainly the process I ALWAYS use - I would
ALWAYS want to know who is similar out there to anything that is in
development  - and we (the designer and myself) had that conversation last
night.

This is a client who has been with us for nearly two years with a completely
different website/product line - and 6-8 months ago came to her with a
request for the positivechanges website to be developed & hosted in
addition. He had already secured (purchased) the domain name
(positivechanges.biz) - we did not do that for him - this was a pure
development & hosting only.

His previous domain was already a developed, working site before he
transfered it to us two years ago and Jackie began the full time work on
that one - incidentally - after reading these replies this morning I am
bothered by another "little" thing in the back of my mind - thinking about &
researching exactly who was responsible for the domain name registration and
the process they went through made me relate this - I knew it was bothering
me last night - but when I first met this client two years ago I wondered
why in the world he had registered a .org domain instead of .com for his
first company, which would make more sense, but like I said - he was not our
client at that time. Now I'm concerned that this is a pattern of behavior,
which bothers me a lot because he & his wife are such nice people and have
always represented themselves as good, stable, responsible business people
in their customer relations with their other domain anyway.

None of you know me or Jackie - but the ironic part of all this is that you
could not know two people more fanatical about copyright infringement and
all the crap we frequently take because we don't as web designers, just DO
what the client asks us to do - we seem to have to question everything they
ask for if it feels not quite right - Jackie has another client right now
that is just pushing every envelope and every last straw as they develop her
site - and the client is quite honestly getting tired of it and thinking of
taking the development back on herself - to which I suggested to Jackie last
night - good plan. Let the liability and risk fall back on the owner -
ESPECIALLY after this episode with the positivechanges client.

ARGGGGGH - tell me again why in the world I chose not to work a 9-5 office
job?

Belinda