I always thought immaturity was the cornerstone for having fun.

snyds113 wrote: I always thought immaturity was the cornerstone for having fun.

You must be having a BLAST!
HAHA J/K

I'm just saying the FreeHuddle name was ripped from JJ with the obvious intent to make a connection between the communities to attract people wishing to remain part of said community.

The website Goldmansachs666.com is a clear play off of Goldman Sachs, yet it remains open. They even use the full company name in there.


The fact they pretty much own the world and haven't been able to shut the site down when it is set up soley to mock and denigrate them should tell you how good a chance Natali and Frantz would have of shutting down free huddle.

Their mission statement is: This website has NOT been approved by Goldman Sachs. This website provides information about Goldman Sachs to demonstrate how destructive they are to our lives and the hopes and dreams of our children.


Now someone try and make a convincing argument as to how The Puddle could possibly make any legal headway when the giant vampire squid can't shut down a site with their name in it that is far more derogatory and damaging to their reputation than free huddle is?

sleeper wrote: I agree there are grounds for a lawsuit against this site, but I highly doubt that would be something that JJ Huddle would want to pursue. It'd be expensive, and they wouldn't get a lot in return other than possibly getting this site to shut down or change its name. They'd be more inclined to spend their money fixing their flawed business model rather than gamble with a lawyer for no compensation.

Exactly.

JJ Huddle is apparently looking for new revenue streams hence the stupid, stupid business decision to charge forum posters....the very resource that gave JJ Huddle the leverage to charge for site advertising.

I highly doubt that they will pursue legal action if they are hurting for income.

And even if they do, are they hopeful that by shutting down this site we'll all come clamoring back with tail between our knees begging forgiveness and with $12 checks in-hand? Right.

I have a hunch that if that were to occur, SOMEONE would start another free site calling it NoPayPay Puddle.com or something like that and we'll be back to square one!

JJ Huddle needs to do some damage control. Here's what I suggest:

1. JJ Huddle management needs to man-up and come to this site and post this message: "You were right and we were wrong. We apologize for the inconvenience. Effective immediately JJ Huddle is free again."
2. Appoint Justincredible a Super Mod on the free JJ Huddle site.
3. Politely ask for DONATIONS and then get aggressive and creative with site (particularly forum thread) advertising.
4. Eliminate the overhead and the fluff. The ESPN wannabe's gotta go. Nobody read the usually poorly written stuff anyways.

^^^^ Exactly how I feel, good post........

gut wrote: People connected with this forum have actively encouraged, even engaged in, direct attacks to cause harm to JJHuddle.

Actually no one "connected" with this site has done anything of the kind. To my knowledge, Justin is the sole "owner" of the site and has not "attacked" Anshole's site nor encouraged anyone to do so.

That said, the problem with litigation is that the winner is often not the party in the right, but the party willing and able to fight the longest. Fortunately I would guess the posters here could find more money in their sofas than those guys have cash to take on a legal battle.

sleeper wrote: They'd be more inclined to spend their money fixing their flawed business model rather than gamble with a lawyer for no compensation.

Had you said "better served" rather than "more inclined" I'd agree. But there is seemingly no limit to their stupidity.

interesting developments!!!!

Thank god they're ruined over there

Just to illustrate how out of touch anyone on this board is with reality that the Puddle has any legitimate grounds for any kind of lawsuit, let me introduce:

http://www.thehuddle.com/


This site has been around since 1997, has a trademark on the name, and was in existance well before the Puddle was a blip on Ansel's radar.


Was Ansel sued over JJHuddle, when "thehuddle" (also a football site) was already and trademarked online?

It is comical to me that some people on this site, as evidence by their posts, actually believe the Puddle has an ounce of legal recourse when there are hundreds of like websites out there with almost identical domain names servicing almost identical subject matters.

I will repeat, if Goldman Sachs (the great vampire squid) has not been able to shut down goldmansachs666.com, how do some of the legal eagles around here arguing they have a case think that the Puddle could ever litigate this and hope to get damages when this sort of thing is done daily across the country as far as websites go?

I wish I could read that "Can I get my money back" thread.

How can the Huddle not be making money?? Are you telling me that Natali isn't getting paid to be on TV and excruciatingly studder through a preview of a high school football game??

Heretic wrote: 2. To DWC: From my perspective now that I've stopped caring about the old site and have mod duties here, I'd say that the simple act of someone going crazy there does nothing to hurt Justin and never could. But when people are using this site to talk about bombing that one, encouraging people to do so, bragging about doing so, etc......it could be a different story (considering details like how we aren't auto-deleting any post mentioning other sites, such as theirs). The way I look at it is to do what you have to do to deal with how you feel about them, but don't make it a public forum event. That's jumped the shark more than the phrase "jump the shark" has and really does nothing to help this site.

Which is exactly why I said only things on this site effect Justin. How you guys handle that stuff is your business.

IggyPride00 wrote: Just to illustrate how out of touch anyone on this board is with reality that the Puddle has any legitimate grounds for any kind of lawsuit, let me introduce:

http://www.thehuddle.com/


This site has been around since 1997, has a trademark on the name, and was in existance well before the Puddle was a blip on Ansel's radar.


Was Ansel sued over JJHuddle, when "thehuddle" (also a football site) was already and trademarked online?

It is comical to me that some people on this site, as evidence by their posts, actually believe the Puddle has an ounce of legal recourse when there are hundreds of like websites out there with almost identical domain names servicing almost identical subject matters.

I will repeat, if Goldman Sachs (the great vampire squid) has not been able to shut down goldmansachs666.com, how do some of the legal eagles around here arguing they have a case think that the Puddle could ever litigate this and hope to get damages when this sort of thing is done daily across the country as far as websites go?

Exactly! This is what I have been saying. JJ has no case and would be laughed out of court. As long as a domain name is available, I don't think they have a case. There is no grounds for copyright infringement.

From everything I have read and heard it would be awful difficult for the owners of JJ to pursue legal action against freehuddle. As qcb said, I am the sole owner of the site and have never engaged in or encouraged any "spamming" or meltdowns over on jjhuddle. Domain names are not protected by copyright law so they've got nothing on me there. I am pretty sure I could have called this place www.jjhuddlesucks.com and would be fine. I also got an email from Natali in which he stated:

I don't mind the new site spawning off jjhuddle.com...

Now, I am not sure if he really doesn't mind or if he just realizes there is nothing he can legally do about it, but it appears that legal action isn't going to be taken (at least for now).

fortfan wrote: I wish I could read that "Can I get my money back" thread.

No you don't. The grammar in that thread made me want to blow my brains out

IggyPride00 wrote: I will repeat, if Goldman Sachs (the great vampire squid) has not been able to shut down goldmansachs666.com, how do some of the legal eagles around here arguing they have a case think that the Puddle could ever litigate this and hope to get damages when this sort of thing is done daily across the country as far as websites go?

Goldman sued that site, so it obviously can and does happen. Winning is a different story, but neither winning in court nor recovering financial damages are often not the point of a lawsuit, nor is the decision to drop a lawsuit based solely on the merits of the case. I think the point was made several times financial damages would be unlikely, but either people don't read or simply don't understand what is being said, which no longer surprises me on the internet

I would think they won because they used Goldmansachs name in the Goldmansachs666.com, this site does not use JJ, huddle is not licensed to them, there are plenty of other sites with huddle in the name.

justincredible wrote: From everything I have read and heard it would be awful difficult for the owners of JJ to pursue legal action against freehuddle. As qcb said, I am the sole owner of the site and have never engaged in or encouraged any "spamming" or meltdowns over on jjhuddle. Domain names are not protected by copyright law so they've got nothing on me there. I am pretty sure I could have called this place www.jjhuddlesucks.com and would be fine. I also got an email from Natali in which he stated:

I don't mind the new site spawning off jjhuddle.com...

Now, I am not sure if he really doesn't mind or if he just realizes there is nothing he can legally do about it, but it appears that legal action isn't going to be taken (at least for now).

Yeah, I don't think you have any worries. I asked the question because I was curious and imagine they are pissed beyond belief. Doesn't seem to be anything for them to gain because most people won't be going back there even if it's free again. They might even be perfectly fine with it if their goal is to go back to a HS football-focused family forum and this place takes most of the people looking for a broader discussion forum.

My mistake for claiming you or anyone associated with the site has been involved with shennanigans over there. I thought I've seen some mods here spamming the board, but maybe my mistake again.

Funny thing is, I think you're on to something linking and networking with other sites. While hardly an innovation, given the explosion of social networking I don't think a siloed let's-hoard-our-content approach and limit users from finding something better is a good strategy.

Fab1b wrote: I would think they won because they used Goldmansachs name in the Goldmansachs666.com, this site does not use JJ, huddle is not licensed to them, there are plenty of other sites with huddle in the name.

They dropped the case, probably because the realized going to court would only serve to spike the traffic of that site and it's not exactly publicity they were looking for at the time.

It's an interesting issue and I'm sure intellectual property on the web is going to continue to evolve substantially.

Walmartsucks.com apparently beat Walmart on the grounds it wasn't a commercially profitable site, and I'd guess because there's no chance of someone going there by mistake after a search or something.

Crazy stuff. Many companies now buy-up domains of every conceivable combination of their name/brand to protect against just this sort of thing.

alright, good thing you can't get sued. Er, if you got sued they couldn't win/shut you down. Win for us

If it does happen, FFT is a great lawyer, from what i can tell, so he should donate his services to you for free.

^^^For once you and I agree!

believer wrote: ^^^For once you and I agree!

...he is volunteering someone else to donate services so at least he's consistent with his liberalism.

gut wrote:
I think the point was made several times financial damages would be unlikely, but either people don't read or simply don't understand what is being said, which no longer surprises me on the internet

This is what I have been saying. You can sue people for just about anything, but winning is a different story.

dwccrew wrote:
I don't think they'd have a strong case, as you stated, and I don't think they'd get any kind of judgment in their favor. But you're right, they could pursue, I just think it would be a waste of their time and money.