There's going to a big clampdown in a few weeks' time on Internet copyright breaches so watch your cutting and pasting. I'm off to a meeting but will have more details later.

Also, football clubs are looking at ways of copyrighting their names on the Internet. Man U inted are obviously the main movers at the moment but it'll be a mere matter of time before the others catch on.

-- Anonymous, May 02, 2000

Answers

They'll never take me alive!!!

-- Anonymous, May 02, 2000

So we might not be able to use Manchester United on th einternet, but I presume Newton Heath will be OK. Mind, I bet Rik has already copywrighted that.

-- Anonymous, May 02, 2000

Nah....Rik's never copied anything right in his life.

-- Anonymous, May 02, 2000

Being a truthful sort of gadgee I have to confess I help set up the copyright protection of a certain club, which plays in red and whose name we cannot mention, (TM). NO NOT Tynedale Man!!! That means Trade Mark.

This is only for Western Australia. They outsource the protection in far flung places like OZ.

-- Anonymous, May 02, 2000

What about domain names? Didn't the US courts rule in favour (or favor) of Fox against the smart @rse who registered 21st Century Fox as a domain, claiming the trademarked 20th century could stretch through to other century's. If trademarks are upheld, do the club own NUFC as a trademark, and would the nufc boys who stole the march on them be "asked" to return the name to the owner?
I bet any mufc.com sites or manutd.co.uk site owners are sh1tting themselves.

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2000

There is no offence in nabbing a domain name. The offence comes if you did so with the intent of selling it for profit. There was a case with FCUK.com where French Connection UK sued a site owner... and failed as the FCUK site was a genuine site that had nowt to do with French Connection.

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2000

So a site for Mothers United For Crumpets called MUFC.co.uk would be alright as long as you had pictures of Mothers eating crumpets (or crumpets eating mothers?
Still can't understand where toonarmy.co.uk is a dogsite though - can us fans sue for misrepresentation?

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2000