Brand Name being falsely advertised in someone's About Land description

Hi folks

I need a bit of advice from a knowledgable SL'er or even a legal minded person. I recently discovered that a Mr Z (for Forum purposes) is advertising my Brand company name in their 30 LL "About Land" description box. The plot of land that this "EdelStore" main shop is located on is carved up into numerous smaller parcels, one of which is using identical keywords that I use on one of my own Parcels. There's not much i can do about the use of all my listed words by a lazy unimaginative shop owner such as Mr Z who is out to make a fast buck!

My main concern is that this shop owner is using my brand company name which appears in ALL Searches and therefore falsely advertising that either my main shop or products are being sold there. My company has been around for over a year and thus acquired a certain reputation within it's particular market sector. This hobo just sells Business-in-box items seen all around the grid, including the ripped off Naughty Designs skins that were sold on SLEX as a BIAB a few months back. I don't want my brand name associated in anyway with such business practices or cheap quality items.

So what can I do?

Well i have written to both Mr Z and his ALT through an IM and via Notecards. No response as most of the time both appear offline,... although he did manage to sneak in quickly and ban my AV across all his shop parcels. I have joined a ban list which included 1 or 2 other prominent SL creators, so maybe this is not the first run in this guy has had!

I have file an Abuse Report this morning with the help of a photo taken by my ALT, which highlighted the parcel within his store and the ABOUT LAND interface showing the use of my Company name.

I've also looked in the LL's DMCA FAQ to see if i have a case for false disclosure or advertising of a brand name. I'm not sure if i have a case or not as it seems to be more for product copyrights than anything else.

I feel p!ssed to the point that i wouldn't mind renting or purchasing land right next to him and setting up an identical Shop with identical products, as these are dead easy to acquire FULL PERMS anyway.......and give them all away for FREE. That's how i feel....but that would make me no better than him.! I guess this is the new breed of Vendor we can expect......and i'm sure that i'm not the 1st vendor nor the last vendor to be afffected in this way.

That is a tough one. I have an awful feeling you are not going to have any luck with an immediate resolution to this....

....but, if it helps, I strongly suspect that Mr Z's practices are quite transparent, will not work or impact on you, and that he will give up pretty quickly (he has not put the effort in that you have to build a business, and will most probably not put in much more effort).

Right, DMCA won't help you at all for brand names, trademarks are treated separately from copyrights. SL does have a stated policy that trademark violations will be removed, but if you haven't registered the name somewhere you will have a tough time demonstrating that your mark is strong enough to warrant protection Still, making at least an attempt to defend the name is appropriate, that is part of what you are required to do to make a mark strong enough to be yours, registered or not.

You could hire a lawyer to nag LL with a cease and desist letter and further steps, but you will have to ask if your business is valuable enough to warrant that kind of expense. It may be more effective and a lot less expensive to put the effort into promoting that your stuff is the genuine article.

i'll just have to wait for AR reply in the mean time. A simple IM or Notecard from a Linden would be enough to remove my company name from his Land description.
He is not selling my products there obviously as that would be outright theft.
I might look into the lawyer scenario though.

I think they stopped sending automated replies when an AR is "resolved" (you'd never know which way they judged it anyway)?

If the AR is acted upon said Linden would just remove the name from the description. In quite a few cases they don't even let the offender know they just had a sanction happen against them, although it will be on file for them.

I've seen that too and it's not just you but a lot of well known stores and products also have their names being used to game the system and take advantage of how the search works. I don't think there is any way to resolve that issue right now. What I can tell you is that if I were looking for your shop and went to his place I would think 1) this looks like a biab place and not the main store 2) the store is here but I can't find it 3) the store is not here or never was here. In any event I would most likely search for your store again.

I would try putting your store locations in several places of your profile like your main profile description and your picks. If you use both places and classifieds I would mention exactly where your stores are and that there are no other stores in any other location. Also put your own name in the places and classified description because people will just go directly to the owner's profile and search for a landmark from there. At least that's what I do.

Absolutely what Bree said. In you're picks for sure. I rarely use search for more then a cursory glance at locatons anyways. I tend to "Inspect builds/avatars I like and ask those people about the products. Then a quick search on the creators name, pop open the picks tab and spend my self silly on thier stuff. So, perhaps all is not lost in regards to this bottom feeding vermin in you're post.

Rene,

I highly suggest you take this story to third-party forums, especially SLexchange and SLUniverse, where you can name names and provide locations. Lots of other content creators hang out there, and may be able to provide you with more specific information and guidance, based on the identity of the person involved.

Thanks for the advice guys & gals.

I do advertise extensively and i seem to have covered most of the bases as regards Search (ALL, Classifieds & Places). I don't however fully utilize my PICKS as i prefer to list my SIMs which i developed in my Estate Owner capacity as opposed ot listing my shops.

Having shops in around 35 locations, i'm not sure whether this has a huge impact on my sales, but it has become more of a point of principle. I'm not accustomed to just rolling over......today my company is being listed falsely........tomorrow it might be one of the well known Skin store or a prominent Fashion house. If only for that reason alone, this guy needs to be stopped in his tracks and taught that he can'd just rip other well established Company names for the sake of a few lindens in sales.

Rene, just put his/her name about - you can PM or IM me for instance - and your own brand name and perhaps we can have some interesting conversations with this person.

Sounds like fun. I love interesting conversations!

EDIT: Okay I checked out this place. No interesting conversations, but lots of interesting sights. Loads of freebies for sale and some very suspicious products. One actually uses the same name and photography as a well known shape creator, Aman. But no mention of any brands on the stuff I saw.

They were even selling flight bands! I gave a few out to the people there.