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I posted this in another topic, but I figured I would post again since we're talking about disclaimers and stuff.
My first words of wisdom is: BE CAREFUL!
If you're hosting the sites on-site (which I'm assuming you are), make sure you're on top of things 24x7. Make sure you have some kind of monitor running at all times and can wake you up in the middle of the night before you get a phone call from one of your customers. Especially if you're going to be keeping a day job.
Somewhere you're probably going to have to give an uptime guarantee, so make sure your backbone provider is reliable. This is definately not the area to go with a cheap bandwidth wholesaler.
Other than that, good luck to you! I've wanted to do it myself, I just don't think it's enough for a permanent job for myself yet...and I can't afford the downtime losses if it goes down while I'm at work. Especially since I can't just walk out and say I have to go home because my router took a dump.
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jezter: those are some of the finest words of wisdom i've heard all month.
jc: i honestly had a fantastic idea about the whole issue about half a year ago and have been looking for someone to get it off the ground with me. i have a feeling this will take up copious amounts of space on a server and would rather host than rent. i dont want to talk about it here, for obvious reasons, but i sent meself an email about it a while ago, essentially trying to copywrite the idea. dont know if that will hold up in court, but ar least i'll have a paper trail. email or pm me if intersted. im going to have to teach myself some graphic programming to complete… dont know how to go about it, but the plan is solid.
greekgoddess: pretty much the same goes for you. since we're both in ohio, it might be easy to get something quick up.
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YES!!! Ohioans unite to help Jason with his l33t webhosting project. *giggles*
And JC, I would definitely keep the name if you really want it. I'm sure that there is someway to go about getting it, you might even be able to buy the domain from the existing owner for the right price. If it's not copyrighted, it's free game, IMO, and if that's definitely what you want, I'd recommend pursuing it. Maybe going about copyrighting the name and taking his domain anyway. (I don't know if that can be done, but I would look into it. Grrr...I'm shady)
I was also wondering about the types of hosting that you had in mind, certain features that are provided to certain packages and whatnot. It's like Angelfire is a free webhosting community, but there are so many limitations to the type of scripting and such you can use with them, whereas you go to a different, pay provider, and based on the amount you pay, you are granted certain new features, bandwidth limits as jezter6 had mentioned. I think that will determine a lot of where you're going with this, what you're going to need
I think Demented.org is a good example of the idea that JC is trying to throw out with his new company. They did run into some bandwidth issues recently with their free service package and had to disable signup of any new free accounts. I wasn't sure if you were going to offer something like this, but I thought I would throw that up there just in case:
http://www.demented.org/?news
Edit: I started a conference room to get the ideas rolling and have invited JC along with qwerty. If anyone else would like to contribute to this project, post your interest here or PM one of us and we'll invite you to join in the conversation.
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Quote:
Originally posted here by GreekGoddess
YES!!! Ohioans unite to help Jason with his l33t webhosting project. *giggles*
And JC, I would definitely keep the name if you really want it. I'm sure that there is someway to go about getting it, you might even be able to buy the domain from the existing owner for the right price. If it's not copyrighted, it's free game, IMO, and if that's definitely what you want, I'd recommend pursuing it. Maybe going about copyrighting the name and taking his domain anyway. (I don't know if that can be done, but I would look into it. Grrr...I'm shady)
Things like websites (<edit>ie. domain names</edit>) are about "fair use" - which doesn't really have a thing to do with copyright, trademark (tm) or servicemark (sm). If you can prove that you have the domain so as to not poorly influence another's business and you have a legitimate use for it, chances are you can win a domain dispute. People that "steal" things like coke.com (one of the landmark cases in domain disputes) are going to have a tough time proving they 1) have a legitimate use for the domain and 2) that having it and not giving it to coke.com significantly impacts their online business.
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I have to disagree about the copywrite issue with all due respect.
As a business owner with a website, I've lost two different copywrite battles and all that needs to be proven is first use. Thanks to the internet you are an international organization once you put up your website. My attorney is no slouch, she's been a trademark/copywrite attorney for quite a few years and has argued trademark/copywrite law before the US Supreme Court and what she says, I do. The first case was a identical name and while the other company hadn't placed a copywrite on their name they had first use and were going to sue me. Personally I don't have the time to be tied up in court nor do I want to waste a bunch of money on it.
The second case was over a similar name (my domain) and they played very dirty. I've since changed everything and my copywrite is almost through the process and that alone has taken over a year to put through.
So I would have to strongly disagree with just do it, you can fight it and win, cuz that's not always the case sadly.
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<edit>(just to point out, this isn't saying "TC is wrong/offbase/whatever" (she's not) - just a bit of clarification, with any luck)</edit>
It also tends to boil down to "who's going to fight for it." First use does not guarantee victory, etc. Unfortunately, lawyers cost money and many people that own domains do so for a hobby or just because they think it's cool... they're not about to waste hundreds or thousands of $US to protect a $US35 investment unless they're somehow tied to it financially, I'd venture.
I've seen domain disputes won by late comers who came in and got a copyright and "stole" the domain and I've seen copyright/trademark owners lose a dispute to someone who had fair use. I think it all comes down to how much you want to put in to the fight, etc. But yes, both copyright and first use can influence the mix... though it's also precedent that "legitimate use" tends to be the deciding factor for ICANN (though they're not going to stand in the middle of a trademark dispute - which, technically, is a completely separate (legal) argument).
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Mr. Wizard, I agree. Explaining more would go into more detail than I would wish to in a public forum, but suffice it to say, they had a lot of money and I don't..didn't...still don't. :D
Point being, with the second one, they had the domain about the time I did and it was similar in nature to mine. Along the time they filed their copywrite paperwork I suddenly began getting emails from them that were supposed to be for someone else within their organization. All this did was prove confusion to gather them a toehold in the event they went to court. The wonderful part about all of this is even though I was the innocent party, I was forced to hire an attorney and I was forced to become involved in a ridiculous legal battle that never should have been.
They played dirty, they had deep pockets, they won. Life's not fair kids.
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Yeah, I wasn't too sure about that, but I figured I might as well suggest it since it came to mind. I guess the only option left to consider is making an offer to the existing owner to see if you can buy the domain from him. If he doesn't want to give it up for a reasonable amount of money, I guess it's back to square one in renaming your business.
Going to the Coke example, and if JC wanted to pursue this, which I don't think he does, out of curiosity...If the current owner of JCHosting.com had nothing to do with it's name, could you fight for ownership of it due to the fact that JC is going to make a real hosting company for it, along the same principle of "Fair Use"? Like I said, I'm not very knowledgeable about the whole copyright/domain owning policies that are out there, nor am I legal savvy along those lines, I was just curious from that example if something similar could be won?
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I'm interested in at least giving my knowledge/advice/help/whatever to the project for you guys. Feel free to PM me the room/key if you'd like me to join.
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The problem is JC isn't coke. The name JCHostingadmin isn't a publicly knowledgable name and would fall under first use. How would this other guy even know JC existed?
No offense JC, he did what you should have, grabbed a domain you wanted. Sucks..been there..done that. :(
GG..do me a HUGE fav..fix your sig..or is the misspelling intentional? :p
