Facebook Sues Teacher Resource for Using the Word "Book"

reply to post by Three_moons


Thank you for digging a little deeper as well as understanding my perspective.

The title was not mine but that of the website I used as a reference.

My stance is one where I saw Facebook decrying foul against Teachbook.

The similarites stop at social networking and the legality of school's sharing information.

While I understand where you're coming from I can as well understand the School Administration not wanting their teachers sharing information over Facebook.

In this day and age of frivolous lawsuits a teacher might say something a child, teenager, or parent would see as nasty, when teachers have just as much rights to the Freedom of Speech as students.

The difference between Facebook and Teachbook however, stops at the social networking level, with silly, petty, and childish games, Teachbook actually gives lesson plans, advice for teaching more effectively, and over all, that website has more relevance as far as I am concerned.

Quote from : Teachbook : Lesson Plans

Search lesson plans under every subject and grade level.

Add your own, share lesson plans.

Use the lesson plan template to create a lesson plan.

...and continued...

Quote from : Teachbook : Lesson Plans

Rate and review lesson plans.

Create a custom lesson plan.

Download and print lesson plans

Facebook does nothing to raise the intelligence level of society.

Whereas Teachbook is likely to actually have teachers learning from each other.

Sorry, while Facebook might have a legal leg, to stand on, they are only going to make themselves look like an ass, and make teachers fight.

With Facebook not being secure enough to keep information private, and or re-selling this information to third-party organizations, and or data-mining, the School Administration's as well have a right to be leery of Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook.

A business model is one thing, information for sale is quite another, even if they are hand in hand.

[edit on 26-8-2010 by SpartanKingLeonidas]

How can they seriously have a basis for a law suit over a generic word such as book. How about if I start a site called cookbook for chefs and connoisseurs of food. From what I understand to sue over a name and copyright issues there has to be a uniqueness in the name that is deliberately infringed upon.

If Facebook is successful in their lawsuit, maybe Dirk Benedict can sue Facebook over the use of the word "Face". I think he would have a better case. I would love to see that.

reply to post by VictorVonDoom


Or the first social networking site should sue facebook.
Anyone remember wich one that was?

reply to post by highfreq


Like I previously stated it is a frivolous lawsuit.

News Update: Facebook Sues Teachbook.com For Copyright infringement August 26, 2010


While I get what Facebook is trying to claim, legally, they're treading on thin ice.

If they win, Facebook, this will turn around and bite them, any website with the word face or book in their name will then lay claim to Facebook copying.

I would laugh too.

Watch out Google Books Facebook is coming for you next.

reply to post by VictorVonDoom


I seriously think Mark Zuckerberg is stretching here.

While he certaintly has the right to sue whoever he wants, there is the question of whether it is truly worth it, or it is a publicity stunt coordinated for free advertising.

This is as well something to be spewed forth for the Court of Public Opinion.

My dime and a nickle on the subject:

Teachbook used a common association that in any mind would immediately inspire thoughts of the social giant. As with anything "kitchy", it is common to use buzz words to make mental relationships between similar products.

Facebook called them out on this. While I dont agree with the greedy motives and spotlight desires behind it, I do understand them doing it.

Relate it to not long ago when Apple and Steve Jobs went after anyone that put a lowercase "i" in front of their product name, claiming foul. It is all about one product trying to inspire feeling and create association by branding themselves alongside something popular.

If Jobs had his way, the lowercase letter "i" would be his private property and all sentence structure would forever have to be changed.
Mark is no different. He is a pompous greedy a--h-- that wants to own any rendition of "Face" and "book" and forever have those words in his little back pocket.

Originally posted by damwel
Before facebook it was MySpace. Just like before Cancun the college kids went to Fort Lauderdale. Facebook won't last forever, something new will come along and everyone will migrate away and facebook will pass into oblivion.

I remember people saying that about Google...

Facebook will destroy themselves with news like this I hope, though now CIA, Google and NSA work together I wonder about the pace...

I don't doubt Facebook is a data mining operation, one of the reasons I am registered at 5 sites tops, I only release information I want.

If people knew how much hardware on the net is from CIA and NSA front companies they would know that the whole "Net Neutrality" thing is just a facade.

reply to post by wheresthetruth


All bets in it is nothing more than semantics mixed with greed.

When it is all boiled down one person is trying to infringe upon another.

Call it a business model or call it privacy related issues it is silly nonetheless.

When corporate greed strips individual rights it is wrong and that is what this is completely.

reply to post by SpartanKingLeonidas


No I don't think a company is off their rocker if they sue a perceived competitor for some kind of trademark infringement. That is what our legal system is there for, if we don't use it whats the point.

Whether I think teachbook is an actual competitor and if their claim is legitimate is not that important.

reply to post by Grey Magic


Never release something that can bite your posterior regions without knowing it.

I've used my real name before and regretted it because of my "net ignorance".

When you have someone stalk you through the online world you figure out real quickly how ignorant that is, and you change your mannerisms.

Facebook is the same, people ignorantly use their real names, not knowing, not caring, or not even acknowledging that people are cruel, stupid, and ignorant.

reply to post by sputniksteve


Agreed.

But when is suing someone enough?

And if Facebook loses this lawsuit what will they do next?

More than likely Mark Zuckerberg will ofer to buy it.

If he has not already done so and was rejected, hence the lawsuit.

Business is akin to fascism.

A business cares for no one except that which it can gain.

In this case, information, money, and power, all synonymous and interchangeable.

In the online world.

If the law supports this garbage we need to get rid of these laws. This is the highest level of absurd possible.

It's like McDonalds thinking they can COPYRIGHT the phrase "I'm Lovin' It" What the hell?

I am just getting so sick of people copyrighting words that I personally own and have full rights to use any way I please.

YOU CANNOT OWN WORDS! It's retarded to the extreme.

Maybe you can own the Capitalized name of your company, but even that is highly debatable as I could copyright a company named "The", so anyone using the word "The" from now on is sue-worthy??

Anyone who backs this type of lawsuit should get sued for being too idiotic to exist. Since the law allows you to sue anyone for anything, this is perfectly fitting.

Argh! The world sure has chapped my hide today, thats for sure.

I don't blame the loser guy running Facebook as much as I blame the loser legal system that allows this kind of crap to exist in the first place. I also blame all the sue-happy lawyers who make this crap possible.

I could rant all day on this. And I should because it's just the most asinine thing possible and PROVES how degenerate our society has become.

People work all day and end up broke. Yet some sue-happy privileged smart alec can sit around and have his army of lawyers rake in the dough for him. Sick.

This legal system needs to come to an end. Like Yesterday!!!

reply to post by SpartanKingLeonidas

I cannot disagree that Teachbook has more relevance than Facebook but trademark infringement has nothing to do relevancy. That's exactly why I shared the story in my previous post about the guy and his trademarked name. Just because "Facebook does nothing to raise the intelligence level of society" doesn't allow someone else with a valid purpose to infringe upon their trademark. From the information in the suit, It's implied that they chose their name knowing that people would recognize it and associate it with Facebook. Since some teachers are discouraged from using Facebook for school related functions they probably thought they could draw some teachers to Teachbook, which also has chat, blogs and a forum, along with other useful, teacher specific items.




Wired and cnet are labeling Teachbook as a "social-networking upstart" which isn't helping Teachbook in my opinion. It has some social networking features but is more than a social site. The article also mentions the following, which I think Facebook is wrong on since there's no social networking involved and it's an entirely different business. It was settled out of court from what I can ascertain. It would have been interesting how the courts would have ruled.

Facebook doesn’t seem to be focused solely on social-networking sites, either. It leveraged its financial weight earlier this month to demand an upstart travel site to rename itself from Placebook.

They changed their name to triptrace but I thought this was funny.

"We still think of ourselves as PlaceBook or, if you chose to pronounce it differently so it doesn't rhyme: PlacéBoök."

Here's his take on the subject if you're interested.

This was dated August 26, 2010: 5:54 PM ET

Facebook recently hit the 500 million member mark. By contrast, Teachbook's site said 47 members were online Thursday morning.

Currently, Teachbook shows 2379 guests and 71 members online (the number of guests jumped by 100 in about an hour). They mention the number of Facebook members but then the number of members online for Teachbook. It's a poor comparison and I can't help but wonder if Teachbook only had 47 guests this morning and the breaking story led the masses there. The website hasn't officially been launched but is doing so in the fall of this year. They are getting a bunch of publicity from this story and I wonder how or if that changes anything.

A rep for Facebook said the company doesn't claim to own rights to the word "book," as it has no complaint with titles like Kelley Blue Book.

"However, there is already a well-known online service with 'book' in the brand name that helps people connect and share," the Facebook rep said in an email.

source

I agree with what's said there although I don't see how placebook falls into that alleged philosophy. In my mind, and somewhat according to theirs, the following list which is continued from a few already posted should not have issues with their name having "book" in it because it's not infringing on a trademark, similar market or otherwise; with the exception of the last two. Otherwise they will have an awful lot of court dates which I hope would rule against them.

Facebook - social networking site
Quickbooks - accounting software
Kelly Blue book - value of vehicles
Yellow Book - phone directory
Google books - online bookstore
BookFLIX - online literacy resource
eBook - digital bookstore
MacBook - laptop made by Apple
Black Book - Public records
biggestbook - business product website
iBooks - electronic bookstore for Apple iproducts
Blue Book - building & construction network
World Book - intergrated reference tool
RedBook - womans magazine and website
JokeBook - joke website
Vetbook - veterinary resource
fkbook - online dating
Teachbook - online teacher resource and teacher social networking site


reply to post by muzzleflash

Of course the law supports trademarking a word and has for a long time but it doesn't stop you from using it in everyday life. Don't quote me on the language as I'm not a trademark lawyer but you can't use it in a commercial setting for marketing or otherwise generating income. Why shouldn't McDonald's be allowed to trademark "I'm lovin' it" to protect other businesses from using the phrase and campaign that they paid an advertising agency to come up with? You and I can still say it and type it but we can't prosper from it and I think that's fair. It's intellectual property within a specific setting.

I'd be surprised if you hadn't heard of these popular infringement cases.
Super Bowl infringement
Let's get ready to rumble infringement

Meh, I'm, still going to be the first to sign up to FriendFace when the IT Crowd make it happen...

They have to make it happen...





OHHH embedding not allowed... makes it rather POINTLESS.. click the boring link if you want

www.youtube.com...

[edit on 26/8/2010 by badw0lf]

I know there is a lot of fb hate here. And I don't like what they've been doing lately either...

However. From what I can tell, it is a somewhat valid copyright lawsuit. I've seen these types of cases go both ways. It would depend on whether "book" was being used in the traditional sense or being used as facebook has used it - then it becomes trademark / copyright infringement.

e.g. International Paper could not sue another paper mill for calling themselves say... Smith Paper. Paper is used in the sense of the common physical good. However when a company has trademarked something and is using the name in a new fashion, as facebook has - since it's not really a book - then another company can't come along and be datebook (used as social media) or xxxxbook for anything that is using it in the new sense defined by the trademark holder.

Thats just law, doesn't matter if it's supergoodsamaritansbook.com you still can't do it. teachbook just has to come up with a new name is all.

No because "Facebook" is ONE WORD.

And "book" is part of that word. So ONLY the word "Facebook" is copyright.

You cannot copyright suffixes or prefixes. This is retarded and absurd. The judge will probably throw this out in a second.

That's like saying if my company is named "Reginalds", that McDonalds can sue me because I used "alds" in the end of the word. Totally asinine.

Also, this would only even begin to have merit IF Facebook was called "FaceBook" with the "book" part being Capitalized.

Then you could start making some sort of basic case out of it, and even then it remains extremely debatable.

So whatever Judge that gets this case, he/she is going to drop it quicker than a hot potato.





[edit on 27-8-2010 by muzzleflash]

[edit on 27-8-2010 by muzzleflash]

Originally posted by SpartanKingLeonidas


Well, just when you thought Facebook had sunk to its all time low, here we go.

...

So, what is your opinion, ATS members?

Is Facebook just off their rocker suing a teachers resource website?

Are they a Government data-mining operation?

Yes, facebook is off their rocker. First off, schools have been using the term Book, far longer then facebook. Perhaps a counter suit is in order? Besides, don't you have to register or trademark the word first before you can sue someone for using it? Unless the school is using facebook's icon or something, there is no justification.

Heck, I believe it is legal to name your restaurant McDonalds as long as you don't copy their special M and whoppers/etc...

As for a government data mining operation... I don't think it is government operation, afterall, anyone who can write a script can data-mine facebook...

Edited: Oops, forgot about facebook "NEW" privacy settings. Well, the 'company' will sell their data to whomever can afford it.

[edit on 27-8-2010 by ByteChanger]

Admittedly, I skimmed this thread, so forgive me if someone has already brought this up, but there is precedent to suggest that Facebook could win such a court case.

Toys R Us have successfully sued and forced name changes to a list of companies around the world that have also used the term 'R Us' in their business name... and this even applied to smaller businesses that had registered business names with 'R Us' in them before Toys R Us had.

It was really a question of money and who could afford the better representation. Also, many small businesses capitulated just through intimidation from Toys R Us's lawyers without even going to court.

IRM

[edit on 27/8/10 by InfaRedMan]

I remember before I had ever heard of facebook there was faceparty, maybe they should sue facebook for using the word 'face'
utter bollocks