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I want to drive traffic for my camming with a personal website but...
I have a problem. A friend of mine who seems to think I am going to want to work with him (at 50% split of everything I make from the site), has registered MY name as a domain. As in, my stage name (dot) com. He will not give me ownership of this and is trying to coerce me into working with him because of it. He wants to own the domain name and my site in general. I'd bsaically be his employee. Now I know how he operates and he is not a very good businessman. Are there any legal steps I can take to get this domain name from him? Isnt my stage name and likeness my intellectual property? I dont know what to do because he is also one of my boyfriends and a very good friend of mine. Hes just being very manipulative beause he wants to stick his hand in everything I do. If I tell him I dont want to work with him and I dont want him to build my site, he freaks out. I'm really not sure what to do. If I can get ownership of this domain somehow, that would be good but the dilemma is ruining our friendship in the process. I have registered ladyxavialune, but everyone really knows me as mistress xavialune. If anyone knows more about this than me I'd really appreciate some insight. Thanks!
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Re: I want to drive traffic for my camming with a personal website but...
you can get around him by registering as mistressxavialune.xxx or mistressxavialune.net
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Re: I want to drive traffic for my camming with a personal website but...
It would be my impression that there is nothing you can do unless you have trademarked or "copyrighted" your name, which would take a lot of money to do so, so I'm assuming you have not.
Anyone can buy any domain they wish. I really don't think there's anything you can do to get it from him. I would reconsider who you call a "very good friend".
Melonie has a good idea, just use a different ending, or add a creative twist to your name.
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Re: I want to drive traffic for my camming with a personal website but...
Trademark your name (it takes a few months), then send him a formal letter with a copy of your trademark, then pursue legal action. Pretty sure he'd have to surrender the name, but maybe not depending on what it is. And if he trademarks it or creates a legal business / DBA in your name first, you're kind of screwed. But I doubt it would go to all that trouble.
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Re: I want to drive traffic for my camming with a personal website but...
I would just make a .net or .info name and advertise that as the real official site. I know girls that have had their .com names taken and they do that or change their name a little...like instead of mistressanna use mistressanne for example. And in the meantime get your name trademarked if you're planning on staying in this biz for a long time. Oh and this guy is no friend...drop him.
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Re: I want to drive traffic for my camming with a personal website but...
First off he's not your friend. Friends dont screw you over and try to manipulate you. I agree buy all the other domains with your name, and make sure to clearly state that the .com is not you.
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Re: I want to drive traffic for my camming with a personal website but...
Agreed with the other girls here. You'll want to register under something like .net or .xxx and clearly state that YOU are the official site. If he goes as far as to steal content from YOUR site, then you have grounds to go after him. :/ Not for the domain name, but at the very least his provider might take issue with him hosting stolen content on their servers.
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Re: I want to drive traffic for my camming with a personal website but...
Quote:
First off he's not your friend. Friends don't screw you over and try to manipulate you.
This.
Fuck this guy. He is trying to force you to give him a percentage of your money every month, and is acting like a jerk because you don't want to? FUCK HIM. Just register another domain with a .net or .xxx like others have suggested and move on. I would also be really weary of keeping someone like that in your life.
You also may want to familiarize yourself with dmca take down notices. I have a feeling you may need to use a few in the future.
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Re: I want to drive traffic for my camming with a personal website but...
Not that it's my business, but he sounds like more of an asshole pimp than a friend. He's trying to force you to give him 50% of everything you earn? Oh, really now. What kind of friend would pull that nonsense?
If you really want a .com domain you could always register as something like "cam model (your stage name)" or "(your stage name) cams", something like that.
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Re: I want to drive traffic for my camming with a personal website but...
What does your bf has to say about this "friend's" behavior?
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Re: I want to drive traffic for my camming with a personal website but...
the domain extension makes no difference at all in search engine ranking...get any free extension of your name that is available ex. .net .info .us .biz .me you have many options...once you develop the site you have common law trade mark right to that name in that branch of business...the .com extension means nothing at all to you...you can hire freelancers to do your site for pennies just tell them to buy a cheap good website template...
offer your "bf" 5% (five percent) or you will hire a free lancer to do it for 100$ and keep the 5%...
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Re: I want to drive traffic for my camming with a personal website but...
Just from an ease of use standpoint here, and because it's something I deal with all the time, are you going to be easily able to tell people your domain name so that they can find it? Do enough of your potential clients know how Xavialune is spelled from how it sounds when you're telling them? I'm getting REAL tired of going,
"It's Isobelwren.com. That's I S *OOO* BEEE E L and then wren like the bird"
"Ren like the bird?"
"No WREN like the bird, with a W."
"Wen? Isabel Wen?"
*sigh* "It's on both the business and the fan card that I just gave you."
"Oh. Ok. So what kind of a bird is a 'wen' anyway?"
But, if they can figure that out, or you want to buy up the most common misspellings as well and mirror/redirect go for mistressxavialune.com If that's the way people know you, that's the way they'll search for you. If you don't think they'll get around the misspellings, pick something that you think will be a long-running, big descriptor of you. A friend had, "mermaidblonde.com" but then she was in an accident and had to cut off all her long blonde hair so that was a fail. If you had giant tits you could do "gcupdomme.com" or something. You know?
I would suggest definitely going with something memorable, the .com or the .xxx It's not a big deal for SEO what TLD you have but it IS a big deal for people. They expect it to be .com so they'll put it in w/o thinking and it'll require a much larger effort for you to snap them out of it. Having the .XXX will snap them out because people pay attention to that kind of thing, but a .net or.biz won't be as noticeable.
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Re: I want to drive traffic for my camming with a personal website but...
If he doesn't post anything on it for a while you can sue him for domain camping. As in its illegal to purchase a web name and then not use it when someone else has a business of that name. That being said its a pain in the ass to fight. From the sounds of things I wouldn't let him near your content with a 12ft poll. There are better services that will take a large cut out of your income and at least know the buzz and do promo, this guy might be your friend but it really brings the 'p' word to mind. I'm a web developer, so my professional advice is to either build the site yourself or pay someone outside your social circle to build the site and then personlly upload any video, photos ect in to the shell. If your planning on staying in the buzz paying a large chunk up front and then earning all profits after the fact is going to be much better for you bottom line than giving someone a cut forever.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybersquatting
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Originally Posted by
comstar
hire freelancers to do your site for pennies just tell them to buy a cheap good website template...
offer your "bf" 5% (five percent) or you will hire a free lancer to do it for 100$ and keep the 5%...
All so dont do this... DONT HIRE SOMEONE SUPER CHEEP.... Sure you can get someone to set up a template for you for pennies but all they are going to do is set up your template. The moment you want the functionality changed your going to be out of luck. You get what your paid for. Always ask for examples & reference, knowing both can be faked.
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Re: I want to drive traffic for my camming with a personal website but...
"the domain extension makes no difference at all in search engine ranking" This isn't true (at least not in my SEO experience). The .com domains are more expensive to purchase than the .net, .biz... and so on which are even sometimes free to register which means spammers and site-parkers LOVE to buy up tons of them and flood the web with their uselessness and advertisements, therefore Google and other search engines tend to take the domain extension into consideration when ranking a site (.edu and .gov always rank the highest, etc...) How heavilly this actually weighs on your page rank, I can't really say since I only implimented basic SEO on most of the websites I did, but I am quite sure that it does affect your searchability, if indeed that is important to you. If most of your visitors will be coming to your site via referrals, links in other profiles, etc... this may be less of an issue for you.
If he is using the domain name and goes on to publish your content or likeness, I believe there would be grounds for suit regardless of whether or not you're name is trademarked. You may even be able to report him directly to his web host which would be a lot cheaper and easier than trying to take him to court over it. I've never been in this situation though, so this is only an uneducated guess :-p
If he's just going to be a dickweed and hold the domain name hostage without doing anything with it, then I say, if after appropriate effort, move on and just try to tweak the name a bit -instead of StageName.com, register just Name.com and create a sub page as Stage so that it would appear as Stage.Name.com. You can also just wait and watch for it to expire (usually after a year or two) and then buy it out from under him. There's a website, can't think of it now, that auctions domain names and you can set email alerts to let you know when a specified domain is expiring ;)
Honestly, what I would do -and I'm not saying it's the most honest or best thing to do- is try to manipulate HIM into handing over the domain for what ever he paid for it to be fair. I don't want to get in trouble with my very first sw post :-p so I'll leave it to your imagination but I have no qualms with with cheating a cheater. If you do manage to get your hands on the domain, MAKE SURE you register it with YOUR name and payment information, that way he can't later say you hacked it even if he handed it over willingly. Complete a domain transfer and you'll be all set :)
I am actually an unemployed web designer/developer (hence the cam modeling!), so I've been around the block a bit and can help you further if you want. Just pm me and we'll chat ;)
I won't reiterate what everyone else has said about this "gentleman," just be careful and take care of yourself.
And a point of caution, what ever you do decide to use as a domain, opt for the privacy protection option (usually $10-15 I think), otherwise it is VERY easy for people to see your full name, address and sometimes telephone number and in this line of work, you def don't want stalkers!!!
Good luck and just try to revel in knowing that some day, this jackweed'll get his -Karma rules :-D Sorry for the long post, hope it was helpful!
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Re: I want to drive traffic for my camming with a personal website but...
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Originally Posted by
Jay12
What does your bf has to say about this "friend's" behavior?
Hahaha, seriously, if this were me and my hubby knew about it, that dude wouldn't have an ass anymore! :-p
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Re: I want to drive traffic for my camming with a personal website but...
Is domain camping really illegal? Some asshat has been parked on my domain for 2 years. Hasnt done a thing with it! Will be 3 years this year. I'm afraid if I send him a warning he will put something on the site, but something not very nice lol.
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Re: I want to drive traffic for my camming with a personal website but...
Yeah, I'd get my name under a different .net or whatever and tell him that he can suck it. Then take legal action if he takes any of your content... then take back the .com site. If that's possible.
*** EDIT ***
Sorry to bump it guys, I didn't see that this was an old thread. I need to pay closer attention to these things! :s
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Re: I want to drive traffic for my camming with a personal website but...
He's not a very good friend at all and you need to lose the loser if he doesn't drop your name. I would figure out the ALEXA on where he registered your name through and stalk it. He may have only purchased it for 1 to 2 years, if he doesn't renew, you can buy it back. Like mentioned, you can use any domain you want if it's not copyrighted so there's not much you can do. Like others mentioned just send traffic to another similar domain.
About him... How is he going to even launch the site if you don't give him any material? And, if he steals pics/content from you, simply contact DMCA and force him to take your things down. Do not let him manipulate you. Let him know that if he doesn't keep his hands/nose out of your business, you'll not only break things off with him romantically, but you'll end your "friendship" as well. A friend would never take advantage of you! Tell that asshole that he is not your pimp and he has no rights to your profits. 50% for what? You can hire people for a ONE TIME payment and make 100% of your own profits without his help.
Next, hire an affordable webmaster, someone to get up on your SEO and ads and take off. Good luck!
OPPS, silly me, I didn't look at the date bwhhahha I wonder what happened...
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Re: I want to drive traffic for my camming with a personal website but...
i checked her .com that her boyfreind stole and its not working she still has no officail domain from what ive found but shes still active in camming and has a clips for sale store and a twitter i did a goggle search of her name.
hopefully shell come back on soon and tell us herself what happened 11-21-2012 11:23 PM last activity from her sw account .
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Re: I want to drive traffic for my camming with a personal website but...
According to godaddy.com, mistressxavialune.com is available. So I'm guessing this guy lied to her about purchasing it (or the 1 year just ended subscription) just ended. She did end up creating a domain name though, madamexavialune.com/.
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Re: I want to drive traffic for my camming with a personal website but...
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Originally Posted by
DarlaSummers
According to godaddy.com, mistressxavialune.com is available. So I'm guessing this guy lied to her about purchasing it (or the 1 year just ended subscription) just ended. She did end up creating a domain name though, madamexavialune.com/.
thats awesome that she got a domain i just did i search for mistress xavialune you must have just did a search for xavialune to find her domain.
xavialune if u read this I hope ur doing well and things are working out for you.