[8pla.net]

No worries anyone!  It's all good.  That was a FREE to use Japanese Anim for the avatar well over a decade old. There is so much more public domain Japanese Anim artwork to choose from on the web.

Solely for interesting discussion about chatbot names and the use of short phrases... I just Googled, "Can you copyright a name?"  Google says, "Copyright does not protect names, titles, slogans, or short phrases."

Steve requested a redirect on this thread. So, both sites are partnered now, through that interface, at Steve's request

[Freddy]

I'd venture that Mitsuku is more of a brand than a name at this time.

Using free stuff should be fine - the problem was it looked so much like Steve's bot. Why did you do this ? Why copy someone else ? You have a smart head on your shoulders, you don't need to do things like that.

Anyway, as far as what you say Steve has requested, I will leave that for him to decide.

[8pla.net]

@Freddy:

It is an honor to be asked to redirect to the official  mitsuku site from "my mitsuku site" as Steve calls it. In simple terms, "my mitsuku site" is an open source chatbot clone project that anyone can build for free as a hobby or for educational purposes.  It is a PHP, MySQL chatbot clone based on Mitsuku open source AIML, A.L.I.C.E. open source AIML, Program-O open source AIML interpreter, Program E open source AIML interpreter and free Japanese anim artwork.  The Internet seems literally flooded with free Japanese anim that has been around for a long time.

Reference: Steve said, "I will gladly edit or remove your name from the posts once you change your mitsuku site to either a holding page or an auto  redirect to mitsuku.com"

Mitsuku.net gets a mention on the official Mitsuku.com site

http://www.square-bear.co.uk/temp/mitsukunet.png

[squarebear]

I just Googled, "Can you copyright a name?"  Google says, "Copyright does not protect names, titles, slogans, or short phrases."

Fortunately, my legal advisor does more than type a phrase into Google and hit "I'm Feeling Lucky".

I had a word with someone I know who is an expert on copyright and IP theft.  I've summed up his advice below:

It's not just the name, it's the way that your project could be confused with mine. You have used the exact same name for an anime based chatbot. The public could easily think that Mitsuku is somehow involved with your site. Had you not been aware of my Mitsuku project, I would have had no issue with that but you have copied your project name from mine knowing full well that I have a chatbot project with the same name. I even asked you not to do this before you set it up.

Let's take an example. Say you made a cartoon film called Frozen in which two brothers (instead of sisters) featured where one had magical powers and the other tried to help. Try this and see how quickly Disney's lawyers drop on you from a great height. The reason being that people could easily confuse it being related to the original film and think it was some kind of spinoff.

Naturally, I don't have the resources of Disney but I do have the law on my side and unless either an immediate auto redirect to www.mitsuku.com is provided or the site is used for something unrelated to AI, chatbots or anything else that can be confused with my project, I do have the law on my side and will exercise my right to protect my brand.

I don't class placing a link to my site or having to ask your bot to redirect your visitors to be an adequate solution.

[DemonRaven]

As someone who has been messing around with websites on and off for 15 years, I know a  thing or two about copyrights. You do mention  your copy right is at your website, but you do not mention what is copyrighted. Just it a similar name is not a copy right violation, it has to be the exact same name as was in the utube lawsuit. Using open source code for aiml is not a copyright. Aiml is copyrighted by Alice.org and anyone can use it (it is open source) but you have to leave the copy right info in the aiml's sets to use it.There many version of aiml that can be used in a website. In fact is it hard to find any recent updated versions you can host on your computer without downloading a entire website.

My original website www.chatbotfriends.com was bought out by someone who decided that since i had not made many changes that i was dead or something so they kept it. I then got a new one called www.newchatbotfriends.com. Well apparently someone decided that it was a nice doman name too and bought it out and did not change the code. Correction on the newchatbotfriends GoDaddy finally decided to remove the website from the domain name. So there is one other website out their with my old old charter email address that are not updated and that have my stuff on it. I found out that what they did was totally legal.

In your case there is not a whole lot that is super similar except that they both use some kind of aiml, flash and the first name is the same. IT is not a true clone and i am guessing you might have problems actually proving it was a violation. People steal similar names to popular websites all the time. IT's not illegal. IT is not fun and is in bad taste but it is not illegal.

[squarebear]

Just it a similar name is not a copy right violation, it has to be the exact same name as was in the utube lawsuit.

Indeed. Tom's mitsuku.net uses Mitsuku as its base name. This is the same as my mitsuku.com. This is the main reason I contacted my legal advisor who seemed to think I had a pretty good case, if it has to go any further.

[DemonRaven]

Then I hope you both live in the same country and it not the usa because i can't do anything with my old site. Hosting providers will not back because they sell similar base names with different endings like com, net etc all the time. You can try it but your going to open up a hornets nest of domain name providers who are not going to back this.

[squarebear]

Well I really hope it doesn't have to go any further but mitsuku is not similar to mitsuku. It is exactly the same. My legal advisor is based in the USA.

[DemonRaven]

umm the ending parts are different yours is .net his is .com Go ahead and try it although i think it  would be easier if you asked him to change the name.

[DemonRaven]

It is totally impossible to get exact domain names they have to at least have the ending part different. When you sign up for one they check online for the domain. example i could have chatbotfriends.com but someone else can have chatbotfriends.net or chatbotfriends.org or chatbotsfriend.com etc . That is why domain name providers try to get you to buy all possible versions of the name for your website.
I did some digging which i am good at and found a couple of places that talk about your situation. The first source is from htmlgoodies which has been around for years they have a article called ""Copyright Questions and Answers
By Joe Burns"". The other article is :""10 Big Myths about copyright explained
An attempt to answer common myths about copyright seen on the net and cover issues related to copyright and USENET/Internet publication. - by Brad Templeton""

I am a paranoid person i always put my sources in quotes it's legal that way.

[8pla.net]

To respect the moderator's warning, I will use Steve's quote, "[my] mitsuku site" in place of the URL or link. For the sake of conversation only, if anyone should be worried, it may be someone doing 'screen scraping' without permission.

http://www.internationallawoffice.com/newsletters/Detail.aspx?g=c14aabca-8b60-4e6a-9397-6a5679641a4a

"Under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 the author of a literary work automatically owns the copyright in that work. Web pages qualify as a literary work for the purposes of the act. Taking a screenshot from a web page(so-called 'screen scraping') without permission would be a breach of the site owner's or web design agency's copyright."

I don't want to see the moderators ban anyone for screen scraping violations of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.  Maybe your legal advisor should use Google more, Steve?  Thanks to you, I can't even link to "[my] mitsuku site", even though copyright does not protect website names.  I did nothing wrong... mitsuku.com is not protected by copyright, and it was definitely not hijacked by registering "[my] mitsuku site" last June.

Besides Mitsuku is your hobby, Steve.  You said so on a video broadcast.  By the way, I did ask you and waited to get a response from you, before registering.  So it was before, not after.  You did not say "I mind.", you said if you had not been asked first then you would mind.  But you were asked a day or so in advance, which you even quoted here.  I had to register "[my] mitsuku site" while it was available before someone else grabbed it. 

What makes "[my] mitsuku site"  attractive is that it is not passing itself off as anything other than an open source AIML chatbot clone with FREE and public domain Japanese Anim artwork, even though it looks georgous. I wish I could share with everyone, but Steve got me in trouble, so I can't link to "[my] mitsuku site".

[squarebear]

Thanks to you, I can't even link to "my mitsuku site"

Cool. Maybe now you can think of your own ideas instead of copying mine?
However, your site is still on the net unchanged and so I will be pursuing this further offline rather than on here.

[claude2]

Your chatbot work very well for me, I do a test.

[claude2]

Here You Go!

[8pla.net]

Thanks for going easy on me.  Good luck with your unlawful screen scrape proof.