Devinn Lane Files Suit Against Vivid, Digital Playground, Others

[RawAlex]

Originally Posted by pornlaw

Since it appears that XBiz is hungry for a comment I will not fully respond to RawAlex but I can tell you that you are incorrect in your analysis of trademark law.

Copyright is a much different animal. Fair use does not apply to trademark. Licensed content does not equate to rights to use her name in a top level domain name.

If your post is indicative of your business practices when it comes to owning and profiting from the names of performers, I strongly suggest that you seek an opinion from an attorney experienced in trademark law.

Michael

www.AdultBizLaw.com

I have dealt with trademark and copyright lawyers on this sort of subject in the past, and their opinions are split all over the place on the subject. You may want to look under things like "fair use in retail", or "trademark nominative fair use". That last one is very specific to this sort of case, otherwise domain names with pornstar names in them used to promote those pornstars would be a problem.

My feeling is that if some of the defendants in this case have a bit of money and are using the domains for appropriate uses, they can very likely defend themselves well. The guys just redirecting traffic generically or jacking it around likely will run for the hills (like the guy with every-model-name-in-the-world.org that spams google (something to do with dollars and speed).

You will win some and lose some, there is plenty of space to argue here that a domain name isn't any different from a sign in a store window, or a name on a DVD box.