my domain has been targetted for copyright

Man some of you guys give horrible advice...

OP, I've been in this situation before and you do not even want take a chance with this.

If you are profiting from a company's brand without their permission (receiving this email would constitute as them not giving you permission), in the eyes of the law, you do NOT have an argument for fair use. The precedent has already been set. You will lose any lawsuit they send your way.

Stop listening to the people who are just throwing around their opinions with no experience...

If you're making less than a few thousand/month (on this particular domain), you would be stupid not to cooperate and dump the domain. I wouldn't even consider switching to offshore hosting unless I was making more than that.
 
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I would 301 the domain to another one for a month or so to get link juice, then drop it.

You're going to lose if you fight the lawyers.
 
I had a similar problem with some of my domains. I had my domains hosted on Godaddy. Godaddy cancelled my hosting once they received the notice from lawyers. I then moved my hosting to Panama. I do not live in the US, so I replied to their mail and since then I did not hear anything from the lawyers.
 
dowser said:
Don't get intimidated, take their letter to a lawyer and check if there is any substance behind it. In many cases they will just try to bully you around so you hand them the domains on a silver platter. E-mail means nothing, you need a hard copy in the mail.

You can start with sending them a message that you contacted your lawyer and he can't find anything wrong and see what happens :D
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I'm sorry but you're wrong. This e-mail means nothing saying is an urban legend. We're not living in the dark age anymore, laywers are using the internet too and they do send mails sometimes. You can say it's a bit dubious to write just a mail instead of a letter and yes i would agree.
But it doesn't matter at all. If the OP has violated a law, they don't even need to contact him first. They can sue him immediately if they want to.
Believe me, i've learned all that the hard way :(

OP, if i were you i would give them the domain. It isn't worth the stress if you're not making millions from that domain.
 
You are getting some crap advice right here in this thread. Seems like nobody is reading what you actually write.

1st. "CitizenHawk Domain Recovery" are scammers. http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=%22CitizenHawk+Domain+Recovery%22 and mainly http://domainnamewire.com/2010/04/22/arbitrator-blasts-citizenhawk-for-boilerplate-udrp-filing/

2nd. Major corporations do not send out legal claims via email.

3rd. Check out fair usage according to the DMCA. If you feel nervous, just turn the site into a satire or a complaints forum for a while.

There you go. The only good advice you've been given in this thread. You are welcome.
 
Googled some more on them. What they do is send out masses of threatening emails. http://citizenhawk.hawknest.org/citizenhawk/domain-recovery/citizenhawk-domain-recovery

6650 domains have been voluntarily transferred to Citizenhawk due to threats. All of them more than 12 months ago. They have only won 270 domain name resolution proceedings at Icann.

I suggest you take it easy and see what happens. Blackhat is blackhat after all :cool::

EDIT: Here is some more info http://www.dnforum.com/f26/heard-citizenhawk-com-thread-239148.html
 
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digibing said:
Googled some more on them. What they do is send out masses of threatening emails. http://citizenhawk.hawknest.org/citizenhawk/domain-recovery/citizenhawk-domain-recovery

6650 domains have been voluntarily transferred to Citizenhawk due to threats. All of them more than 12 months ago. They have only won 270 domain name resolution proceedings at Icann.

I suggest you take it easy and see what happens. Blackhat is blackhat after all :cool::

EDIT: Here is some more info http://www.dnforum.com/f26/heard-citizenhawk-com-thread-239148.html
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thanks for digging for me i appreciate it! but after reading the info you found i am none the wiser on how to handle this. what is everyones opinions on the matter now after seeing this info that didibing kindly found.
 
jayvechi said:
thanks for digging for me i appreciate it! but after reading the info you found i am none the wiser on how to handle this.
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U R welcome. IMHO how you handle this depends on what kind of life you live. Do you have property and/or money in the bank, and do you live in the USA? In that case you live in a litigation happy jurisdiction, with money at stake, and should be careful about what kind of business you do. But if you are lucky enough not to live in the land of the free, just roll with it.
 
digibing said:
U R welcome. IMHO how you handle this depends on what kind of life you live. Do you have property and/or money in the bank, and do you live in the USA? In that case you live in a litigation happy jurisdiction, with money at stake, and should be careful about what kind of business you do. But if you are lucky enough not to live in the land of the free, just roll with it.
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I dont own my own home and i live in the UK :)
 
Can these guys contact google and have my adsense banned?
 
jayvechi said:
I dont own my own home and i live in the UK :)
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That's some good news right there mate :biggthump . Friends of mine that have a lot of money in the UK have been sued in the USA for a lot of cash. Nothing ever happened on this side of the pond.


jayvechi said:
Can these guys contact google and have my adsense banned?
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In theory they can. Google does not dance to somebody else's tune though, so will they ban you ? I don't think so. Also, these Citizenhawk guys make money from mass automated infringement notices. I hardly think they have mass reporting to Adsense. However, when you signed up to Adsense you promised not to make profits from trademarks belonging to other organisations. If you feel unsafe, put some other ads there for a while, or turn the site into a parody or a consumer forum, which you are allowed to do according to the DMCA (which is a worldwide copyright treaty)

If you feel like it, PM me the URL we are talking about, and I will give you an opinion based on my humble skills when it comes to WIPO, ICANN, DMCA etc.
 
I had this same problem, sadly i had to give up the domains.

Now I use Wordpress Multi-site and sub-domains for the purpose of taking a companies product or service brand name and making a complete blog out of it :) with the same effectiveness as if with installed on the TLD.

That is how you get around your problem in the future...
 
procam said:
I had this same problem, sadly i had to give up the domains.

Now I use Wordpress Multi-site and sub-domains for the purpose of taking a companies product or service brand name and making a complete blog out of it :) with the same effectiveness as if with installed on the TLD.

That is how you get around your problem in the future...
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I dont totally understand what you mean :). Can i transfer my content from my current domains and do this?
 
jayvechi said:
I dont totally understand what you mean :). Can i transfer my content from my current domains and do this?
Click to expand...

No I wasn't saying that. I don't know what you would do to keep your domain but for the future use WP multi-site and branded sub-domains so your not targeted for copyright infringement.

That is all I was saying, and you will see that it works!

Good Luck
 
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