“Sites like this should be shut down by lawyers when they pop up, not years after they become popular” and open letter to Skype by myself.

Skype Lawyers Bring Negative PR (Submitted by Robert Scoble on Mon, 04/30/2007 - 10:37.) states : "Ahh, the lawyers at Skype screwed the pooch. I am actually on their side in this fight, too. I know that they need to protect the trademarks otherwise they'll lose them. At Microsoft the lawyers would do stuff like this from time-to-time (my friend Robert Mclaws told me recently that the Microsoft lawyers are again going after some community members who've taken on trademarks too closely). What should have happened? A licensing deal that doesn't cost much. Say a buck a year. That way Skype would have been able to shut down bad uses of the Skype trademark, while letting community members who are helping its ecosystem out stay up. Worst case? Sites like this should be shut down by lawyers when they pop up, not years after they become popular. Personally? I'll never start a community site with a trademark in a URL or a name. I know that the danger of getting a lawyer to jump on you is way too high. This isn't the last time this will happen." Source. Related : Lot of buzz around Skype-watch.com Interesting article about Skype and trademarks. My take is very simple (maybe too simple). Skype Ltd. has told me earlier this year in many chats and conversations that it was okay to run this weblog with it's previous names (www.skype-gadgets.com and www.skype-watch.com). Apparently that does not mean anything. I was told by others like www.skypejournal.com and www.skypeteer.com that they have also been told by Skype Ltd. that it was okay to go ahead with their domain-name and their blogging. They even received emails on that matter. Now after 2 years something I get the message of Skype that this would not be allowed. What makes me different than for example www.skypeteer.com and www.skypejournal.com ? I also would like to know what the standard policy consists of. Or are we talking about selective procecution here ?   Basically I don't care much about the whole "project" anymore. I don't need Skype-watch.com / Skype-gadgets.com. I don't want it anymore. Skype can have it, after all, why would I want to continue writing something about Skype if I get rolled over like that. I also don't want to have lawsuits on this matter. I am not a corporate strategist either and I hope that they read all this at Skype. I was just a guy that believed in Skype's potential to do this and that. Maybe now I'll think differently. It depends on the outcome of this is story.   So Mr. Skype, come and get www.skype-gadgets.com, take www.skype-watch.com and bring it down. You can have it. It's worth nothing. All this is worth nothing, if you really think about it. It only shows how good things can turn out bad. I'll leave the moral and ethical and whatever judgements to the outside world. These days everybody is "right" but only those with power will make a difference... I am not important, I never wanted to be important. I just wanted to test some skype hardware and software concepts, not your capacity to solve legal issues.   The baseline is that you let me go ahead for about 2 years, without any complaints. But now it is time to wrap up, it seems.... If websites like skype-watch.com/skype-gadgets.com make no sense, well so be it and link them to your internal department that tests hardware. I am sure they'll do a good job. I see that this has been done with many other domain-names that contains skype. May I suggest to link www.skypejournal.com to your press/pr department ? (grin).   Eitherways, I am not winning anything out of all this, so you can take the domains, with or without ICANN procedures. In the end all this will have left such a bad taste in my mouth that it does not make sense anymore to write and analyze something… Not in this way. Not today, not tomorrow, never again.   And yes, do take down all these personal notes into your legal proceedings. I have nothing to hide, I think I did nothing wrong, except that I believed in the "fact" that I would get somewhere with all this Skype talk. Obviously I was wrong. My personal conclusion is that after I wrote one day my first article on skypejournal.com about "How to make money with something that is free", that I have not found a proper way to make money out of this. The reason for that is that Skype goes direct in most cases.   In the end, many of us, will be eaten while still in the egg, and nobody won't even hear us scream. There is always a legal cloth to cover up the sound. Let's move on in this darwinistic eco-system. The community will blog and stand by to watch the river flow. Nothing ever changes.

 

Over and out. Skype out.