Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with domain

Technical/legal questions about a site that will parody a trademarked brand

Riki tiki — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 19:59:14 -0800

I'm thinking of creating a political parody website that may step on some toes and/or trademarks. I have a few technical and legal questions about how best to go about this. So I had an idea for lambasting a prominent political party in the United States. I was shocked to find that a really obvious domain name for that party was available, but it may infringe upon a trademark for that party.

I know YANAL and YANML, but a little guidance as to the prudent first steps here would be appreciated. I would assume (but correct me if I'm wrong) that free-speech protections of satire and parody may protect me from some of the trademark issues. But I also sense that those lines may become fuzzier if I ever appear to draw a profit from the site. Is there anything I can do to reasonably ensure that my site is on firm legal ground without the cost of consulting an actual attorney?

On more of a technical level, does anyone know of a good hosting company that could be relied upon to keep the site running even if they got big scary letters on legal stationery from that political party?

This idea is still in the brainstorming stages, so I'm probably imagining a bigger future for it than will realistically happen... but I'd rather be overprepared than underprepared.

Patent Application Squatting

CollectiveMind — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 15:50:42 -0800

I have an idea that may be patentable. I want to search patent listing websites to see if something like it already exists. But I have heard that some people somehow monitor queries and figure out what a patent is. Then they submit provisional applications to preempt the searcher. I've also heard this happens with website domain names. Does anybody know if its true for patent websites, including the insecure USPTO search page?

How to Install Newest Version of Wordpress?

chara — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 07:39:05 -0800

I'm having a horrible time trying to update to WordPress 2.8.6 on my dotster domain. Perhaps you could help a PHP-illiterate sista out? Background details:

I currently have Wordpress 2.8.4-3, installed via dotster's easy-as-pie Wordpress installer. This is the latest update that said installer offers.

When I try to install the new version automatically via my Wordpress Control Panel, I get a screen that asks me for:
Hostname
Username
Password
FTP or FTP (SSL)

After a lengthy google-fu session, I found out that my hostname is (ftp.d1091973.dotsterhost.com) and my username is (f197443.admin)
but whenever I enter my info, I get the following error message:

Warning: ftp_rawlist(): open_basedir restriction in effect. File(/tmp) is not within the allowed path(s): (/usr/local/pem/vhosts/197443/webspace/siteapps:/usr/local/pem/vhosts/197443/tmp) in /usr/local/pem/vhosts/197443/webspace/siteapps/15742/htdocs/wp-admin/includes/class-wp-filesystem-ftpext.php on line 203 Warning: ftp_rawlist(): Unable to create temporary file. Check permissions in temporary files directory. in /usr/local/pem/vhosts/197443/webspace/siteapps/15742/htdocs/wp-admin/includes/class-wp-filesystem-ftpext.php on line 203

Unable to locate WordPress directory.

Installation Failed

I have no idea what this means. I don't even know how to access my temporary files directory.

Help?

short film suggestions

a womble is an active kind of sloth — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:26:23 -0800

I'm interested in watching more short films. What are your favorites? I recently read about 'The Red Balloon' in the NY Times, and I though I would like to watch more movies of this length.

I would like some suggestions about what to watch, and possibly where to find them.

My preference is for films 15 - 30 minutes in length and all genres and periods, aside from horror. Ideally, they would be public domain too but that is less important.

List Bookmarks to Geocities Domain

rahnefan — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 08:42:49 -0800

Quick! Geocities closes shop tomorrow! Is there an efficient way to search my favorites/bookmarks for geocities pages that might be in there? So I can steal the content before it goes bye bye? Content is king -- I'd rather save a page to my hard drive than lose the content altogether.

How can I change to company Y for domain registration and hosting when I can't contact unreliable original company X?

Not Supplied — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 09:00:15 -0800

How can I change to company Y for domain registration and hosting when I can't contact unreliable original company X to do the change? In the UK. My friend has had domain hosting for a long time from this sketchy guy. He's never available to contact. I've been emailing him and phoning him for 2 weeks.

I am listed as the registrant and administrative contact for the domain names, but all the contact details are the dodgy hosting company.

Seems like he keeps his customers by just making it so bloody hard to switch to another company.

I've spoken to someone from godaddy.com about the process of switching both the domain name registration and the hosting to them. I'm not attached to using them but they seem cheap and ok for my friend.

Anyway they said I need to ask dodgy domain host guy to 1) unlock the domain 2) Change the administrative email to my address.

It seems fairly likely that this guy will stall and be uncooperative when I do finally get in touch so I'm not sure how to handle it. I'm thinking of writing a letter recorded delivery asking for the changes to be made. If I do this what articles of consumer law can I quote to back up our right to have him make the changes?

Is there another way of switching the domain registration and hosting without having to get the previous comanies approval?

What web-app should I build on the domain "vimbro.com"?

farmersckn — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:54:46 -0800

What web-app should I build on the domain "vimbro.com"? What does vimbro sound like to you?

* Project management?
* Social networking?
* The first 3rd party implementation of the Google Wave Standard?
* Dating site for robots?
* A custom linux build?

Help me out! If someone suggests a cool idea, especially one that is unique, and it is within my abilities, I will earnestly work on making it a reality!

URL forwards in a frame

andrewzipp — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 10:17:49 -0800

Is there a domain shortener like TinyURL that forwards, but keeps the http://tinyurl.com/whatever part stay in the address bar? I need to send links to sites that are stored at MyCompany.com/whatever and not have it say MyCompany.com. I used to use Good.to or Goin.to for this, but they are going under soon.

Researching website options

titanium_geek — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 07:03:04 -0800

Researching options for all things website: hosting, domain name registration and DNS. Can you help me narrow it down? Hello Mefites, this is my first ask.mefi question. I'm writing a report for a 'professional writing' course. We will be assessed on the quality of the writing, not the content.

Scenario: you say "I would like a website for my small company."
I say: "Well, you need content (I have this covered), a domain name, and hosting."

What do I say next? I know I can google web hosting providers, but there are lots! What are the good and/or popular companies out there?

I have on the list already: GoDaddy (my own domain bought through them, looking to change.)
nearlyfreespeech.net
mediatemple

These are companies I've seen mentioned on my journeys around the web, but I'd like more recommendations please.

my dsl works fine but I can't reach one website that I know is not down. what can I do?

krautland — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:57:41 -0800

my dsl works fine but I can't reach one website that I know is not down. what can I do? I'm with crappy provider x and they have given me their no-name crappy wireless router y. I set it all up and it pretty much works aside from them filtering gnutella (thankyouverymuch, grrr) with one exception:

a certain website I am trying to access times out all the time. no response. now I have my iphone right next to me and I know this site is up. I can see it from my office no problem. I even spoke to its owner, who was very interested but couldn't figure out why I had this problem. enable a proxy like hotspot shield and again no problem whatsoever. alas, the proxies I know are too slow to be of any use for me.

I have tried to ping the site without success and a recent traceroute kind of dropped off around step seventeen at oakland1.level3.net, which I presume to be some kind of backbone.

so I'm lost. what can I do here?

also: what kind of halloween costume should I wear?

prox.ie registration

bbuda — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 21:17:11 -0800

Registering a .ie domain for personal use; any 'workarounds' to the registration restrictions? I'm looking to register an available .ie domain for personal, non-commercial use. Unfortunately, I don't think that I meet the restrictions spelled out; I don't have any connection with Ireland, nor is it a trademark that I'm trying to protect. I'm wondering if there are any reliable workarounds to these restrictions; agents or other organizations in Ireland that will do a proxy registration that are able to meet the requirements. Thanks!

(previously, but doesn't quite answer this question)

Pimpin' the Public Domain?

AzraelBrown — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 05:41:38 -0800

Someone wants to license a public domain photo from me - does that even work? I am one of those guys who likes to scan old photos and magazines and put them online. The stuff from Popular Mechanics, nobody emails me about. The 19th century cabinet photos, a little moreso: about once a month or so, I get an email from an advertising agency or other company, requesting information and rates on licensing these photos. In the past, my attitude has been to say, just credit me, or ignore them if they feel spammy.

I understand that, in a rough gray area, converting these photos by digitizing them might kinda possibly make them a derivative work, but not really. Beyond that, they're old enough to be public domain, and really, since I'm not the original artist, I wouldn't have any copyright ownership of the originals anyway. I "own" these images in that I've got the physical copy, but I have no claim to the copyright...which doesn't exist for these in the U.S. anyway.

Still, since I'm the only person with this image, I'm still a gatekeeper of sorts, and I put a high enough resolution version of the images online that they wouldn't have to go through me, but they're covering their butts and they are required to ask, and if there's a revenue stream here I'd hate to ignore it. On the other hand, the AP got a crapstorm for expecting licenses to be paid for public domain things, so I don't want to be "that jerk with the old photos," either. The reason I didn't find anything related in previous AskMetafilter searches is usually people are asking copyright questions to stop somebody from duplicating their stuff, or use something without securing rights. YANAL, yes, but my question is: is it possible, legal, ethical for me to set up a form and a rate sheet on my website, and expect people to follow it when licensing these public domain photos?

I Want a Particular Domain

cjorgensen — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 09:28:13 -0800

What is the best way to go about getting an expired domain? I set a calendar event to notify me of the date a domain whois said would expire, and when I checked back the owner had (not yet) decided to renew. I tried to grab it, but was told it wasn't available, so I did the research and found out he has "about a month" to change his mind, and then for "about a month" he can still redeem the domain for a higher fee. I did find out that in 75 days it is free to grab. There was some info about "drop" registrations, whereby newly available domains are purchasable for a few hours a day, etc. This is just a long intro to explain I have looked into the process. What I want to know is what way to go about this where I will pay the least amount of money and stand the highest chance of getting it? Any pitfalls I should be aware of?

If he's not going to use it, I would like to take control.

Should I contact him and ask him to renew and transfer it to me? I'd be willing to pay a nominal fee here. Or should I wait and risk someone beating me to the punch during one of the drop periods or when it is totally up for grabs?

My fear is that if I express interest he'll ask more than I am willing to pay, but if I don't I'll be beat out by someone faster. Also, if I could get it transfered I wouldn't have to wait the 2.5 months.

So what's the best way of doing this? It's registered through godaddy (if this matters), and he wasn't using it for any significant web facing services (one short hosted video and lots of google ads). The content never changed for the 6 months I checked in on the site. It's been expired for four days now.

What's your best advice?

20,003 Leagues under the sea, by Jules Verne and Jane Doe?

Izzmeister — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 13:47:54 -0800

YANML. is it legal to rewrite a public domain book with a new co-author? Is it legal to take a public domain book (say the art of war, for example), and rewrite it and update it, adding lots of material...

and republishing as "the new art of war, by Sun Tzu and John Doe"?

Or "think and grow rich in the 22nd century", by napoleon hill and jane doe...

(the version that is in the public domain, obviously.)

you are not my lawyer.

thank you!

Hosted Blog or DIY?

heavenstobetsy — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 07:05:14 -0800

My boss would like to start a blog. He already has a domain. We're unsure as to whether to use something like Wordpress to host, or to install it (or Moveable Type?) ourselves. Opinions? He is also a bit concerned with search engine optimization. The concern is that google (and others) will not recognize that a hosted blog (pointing to his domain) is a PART of the domain, but appear as another domain altogether (Wordpress'?). Basically he would like the blog to come up when people google our business name. It would be tagged appropriately, he is just concerned that using a partially hosted service would dilute the connection to the domain. Hopefully that makes sense!

He will be using the blog for weekly/monthly/etc newsletters, posting pictures, links, etc. He is also concerned about being able to use his own fonts. It seems to be that this should be possible, but I'm not so up on the server side of blog hosting (or any hosting). What is our best bet here?

What's the story behind those filler pages you see when you look at unused domain names?

jeisme — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 16:29:33 -0800

What's the story behind those filler pages you see when you look at unused domain names? I always enjoy looking at the faux-websites that pop up when you type in a domain name that is apparently owned but not actively used ( see, for example, www.ipotty.com or http://www.poppoppop.com) .
Their combinations of computer-generated text and stock photography are often laughably bad, and I can't imagine ever actually confusing one for a real site. What's the story behind these? I'd guess they're put up by domain name squatters to generate profit from unused sites, but I can't seem to find out anything else about them. Who makes them? Are people actually making money off of them? Why are there so many different designs and formats for them?

Sure.ly someone can help me...

andrewcilento — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 00:05:27 -0800

Does anyone have any experience purchasing .ly domains? Anything I should be aware of before I do? I'm thinking of purchasing a .ly domain name for a project I'd like to work on, and a couple of good ones are available. As far as I can tell, though, none of the bigger domain registrars offer .ly names; they only seem to be offered by Libyan registrars (which I suppose makes sense), so before I give them my money, I'd like to make sure I know about any possible pitfalls. Do any of you MeFites have any experience with this, and is there anything I should know?

Settings to back-up before wiping machine on Windows Server 2003 domain/network?

chudmonkey — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 11:28:49 -0800

Can you recommend a guide for and/or some details about backing up all the necessary network settings to get a Windows XP machine back onto a Windows Server 2003 server/domain after a wipe? At work, I have four Windows XP Professional machines and a Windows Server 2003 for Small Business server. The workstations are logged on to a local domain and access shared files and some applications from the server via a few mapped drive letters.

The workstations are all exactly what you would expect a Windows box to be after being used indiscriminately by a rotating assortment of people with no regard for security or maintenance.

I want to wipe one of these machines and use it to build a nice, tidy image that includes all the standard programs and settings we need. But when Windows boots up for the first time after a re-install, I'll need to be sure I can get the machine back on the network and behaving the same way with it without any fumbling.

So, basically: What settings should I be aware of/making note of in order to make sure I can configure a fresh Windows XP install to duplicate the network/server/domain connectivity of an existing install?

I haven't worked with XP in any in-depth way for awhile, but I used to be pretty into it, and I have a lot of (rusty) experience with the control panel, the registry, command line, etc. If you have any tips or advice to share, you can jump right in, I won't need a primer on how to find anything.

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer!

Is there a public domain resource for pictures of people along with their ages at the time that the picture was taken?

HappyEngineer — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 19:05:38 -0800

Is there a public domain resource for pictures of people along with their ages at the time that the picture was taken? The best I've come up with is places with government info which have pictures of politicians. Anything better with a wider range of types of people and ages? Obviously dating sites would be a great place to get this info, but none of them are going to be public domain.

XP Pro x64 SP2 non-responsive on the domain

the_binary_blues — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 12:51:35 -0800

Windows XP Pro x64 SP2 on hp dv4-1430us loads and run's slow on the domain but not when I log on locally. I have an HP Pavilion dv4-1430us running windows XP pro x64 SP2 and my problem is that it takes 7 minutes to login onto the computer when I log onto the domain. Then it is extremely no responsive when it is on the domain and it takes 5 min for word and excel to load. The computer is so slow on the domain I can walk away and come back and it will still be loading.

When I log onto the computer locally it takes 30 seconds to load windows (after I login) and programs open without any latency at all.

I have tried fixing asyncronous loading of networking during the boot up process as described in this article to no avail.

any advice on how to fix this latency issue?

I asked the network admins and they were perplexed and told me something to the affect of we are busy and we will get to it later unless you can find a good solution online that we can try.

the domain controllers and dns servers are w2k3sbs

please help

Multiple domains, one hosting package, same content. Why?

entropic — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 06:23:13 -0800

Why does the domain I just registered and added to my existing hosting account (with 1and1) contain the same files and folders as a domain that was already on that hosting package? When I registered the new domain, I connected via FTP and noticed that it contained exactly the same directory and file structure as a domain that was already setup on that hosting package. If I make any changes to the new domain via ftp, it affects the existing domain as well. Obviously I'd like to be able to have different content on this new domain, but I can't figure out how to make that happen!

When registering a domain name, should I pay - annually - to hide these details from the Whois database?

Kirn — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 05:16:22 -0800

When registering a domain name, should I pay - annually - to hide these details from the Whois database? I'm in the process of registering 2 domain names (with fasthosts.co.uk/ukreg) and have been presented with the following option:

Hide your contact details for this domain
£4.99 pa per domain
Activate domain privacy to stop these contact details being displayed in the publically-accessible WhoIs database.

£10/year isn't a massive amount of money, but it isn't nothing. Should I tick this option? Do people, generally? Do you? What am I getting by doing it, and what am I risking if I don't? Is there a serious risk of identity fraud? (FWIW, the domain names I'm registering would both have my full name in them.)

Thanks!

Please critique my spam

goshling — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 03:42:22 -0800

Received the following email yesterday in regards to my domain name. My first reaction was to hit delete, but I thought I'd just make sure I wasn't ignoring something I shouldn't be ignoring. Is this spam? Are they waiting for me to respond defending my "property" at which time they'll hit me with a pile of SEO crap for a "small fee"? Is it a scam? Legit? My domain name is {suburb}massage.com. I also have {suburb}massage.com.au and {suburb}remedialmassage.com My registered business name is {suburb} Remedial Massage. I'm in Australia. Obviously there are many places called {suburb} and many businesses offering massage in those places.

Dear Sir/Madam,

We are a domain name registration center in Hongkong,mainly dealing with domain name registration and internet intellectual property rights protection. On June.29,2009 we received a formal application from a local company of your country who is applying to register some domain names with the keyword “{suburb}massage ” and register it as their internet keyword. After investigation,we find that you are the original user of the keyword. As this refers to your company name or trade mark, and in order to avoid the confusion and dispute on the internet, we inform you and would like to know your ideas, if you agree about this issue, we will finish the third company's registration, If you don't agree the third company to register, please inform me.looking forward to your reply.thanks for your understanding and cooperation.

Should I respond to this or just hit delete?

Is the Robot vs Aztec Mummy public domain?

clockworkjoe — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 21:41:02 -0800

What is the copyright status of the movie The Robot vs. The Aztec Mummy? I watched through it and it doesn't have a copyright notice, which is similar to Night of the Living Dead. So, logically, it should be public domain. However, archive.org hasn't added it to its collection of public domain movies. So, does anyone know if it is public domain or not?

Please help me choose the best domain name to use for my new bartering classified site.

schindyguy — Wed, 20 May 2009 10:51:15 -0800

Please help me choose the best domain name to use for my new bartering classified site. I wanted barterlist.com, but in every case below, the people want way to much money for the domain name related to it. The max I would spend is $500:

barterlist.com is going for 20k

barter-list.com is going for $2500

barterlist.net is going for 10k

thebarterlist.com - I couldnt seem to find the registrants info from a whois lookup, but it said it was registered back in fall 2008 through godaddy. So I used Godaddy's domain buying agent for $60 2 weeks ago and put an offer for up to $400 for it. The status for 2 weeks in my control panel is 'contacting registrant'. Godaddy stops contacting and doesnt pay a refund after 30 days...

I have purchased the following through godaddy:

thebarterlist.net*
barterlists.com*
bartorlist.com
barterlist.ws
barterlist.us
barter-list.net
barter-list.org
barteringlist.org
barteringlist.net
barteringlist.us
barterlistings.org*
barterpostings.com*

-what are your thoughts with trying to contact the owner of thebarterlist.com...do you think its a lost cause? did I waste $60 with godaddy?

-is adding an s to the end of barterlist completely suck? has there ever been a successful company that uses a plural? it actually makes sense with my site as there are multiple lists

-is .net .org etc a huge no-no when trying to startup?

-is a - in the middle a no-no as well?

-what out of my list above appeals to you most..i marked what i thought was the best with an *?