As many of you may already know, on 12/29/2008, 6:00 PM (pacific time), our resident user PoeJoe was messaged by Philip Ferreira (the owner of debate.com) and was ordered to cease and desist his “debatedotcom.com” website based on the grounds that it “infringes on WebCorp, LLC’s trademarked name ‘DEBATE.COM’ ” and that PoeJoe was “using WebCorp, LLC’s intellectual property to make money via the ads on your website.” Both of these actions were claimed to be “in clear violation of US laws.”

After some brief discussion and debate, PoeJoe eventually agreed with Mr. Ferreira’s cease and desist letter, though this still remains controversial amongst debate.com users. Although most have agreed that Mr. Ferreira was correct on the matter of PoeJoe being in the wrong for collecting revenue on his website, most have agreed that the “domain name” complain simply didn’t fly.

To quote PoeJoe’s own words on this matter, “Duco even said in our private chat, ‘Debate.com’ is not a registered trademark. But even if it were registered, I’d urge my opponent to look at the following sites:

- debatef.com
- justfuckinggoogleit.com/
- www.googleguide.com/
- www.googlefight.com/
- www.google-watch.org/
- googlesightseeing.com/
- www.thechurchofgoogle.org/
- etc.”

In addition, the user known as askbob had even presented a copy of the US laws concerning copyright to demonstrate that PoeJoe’s actions were completely legal, as shown in the following thread: THREAD

The users known as JBlake and askbob both seemed to believe that the actions of Phil were nothing more than intimidation/bullying as can be seen in the above linked thread.

“Why didn’t he just mention it to you first, instead of starting out with intimidation and bullying?” - JBlake

“Phil can’t do anything PoeJoe. Don’t let webcorp intimidate. I mean seriously, does he really have the sparetime or the money to sue a minor? lawlz no.” - askbob

In response, PoeJoe claimed that he believed this action to be the doing of Phil’s lawyer, as pointed out in the comment below:

“I think it was the doing of his lawyer. He wrote, ‘I understand there were no bad intentions on either side so I’m not trying to be a jerk. Please don’t take it as such. I am however, forced to follow protocol established by our attorney.’ ” - PoeJoe

In related news, the relatively new debate.com regular known as “crackofdawn” has apparently had his account revoked. In response to his banning, he decided to use his sister’s account, create a thread and request to know why he was banned. No comment has yet been made by the moderator of debate.com (Mr. Ferreira), however users suspect that it was the following comment made in PoeJoe’s “website name suggestion thread” which resulted in his banning.

“www.anyonewhosuesthisisanidiotsaddamlover.com
or
www.whilesueingthiswebsiteipromisetowearapinkbunnysuit.com
or (my favorite)
or
www.crackofdawnrulesandshouldbegivenanythinghewants.com

To really stick it to him you should try…
philsuedmeintodoingthis.com
and make it a really bad website
or
debateperiodcom.com. . .”

Crackofdawn has recently apologized for making this comment after learning of the possibility that it could have triggered his banning, but whether or not his apology shall help him reclaim his account has yet to be seen.

To quote a statement which the moderator (Mr. Ferreira) made in the Website Announcements thread:

If anyone else wants to create topics, for the express purpose of irritating and/or testing the moderators, especially after we’ve already removed your topic once, then you will most likely be kicked off the site and blocked from future activity. Members do not have the right to abuse Debate.com. Per our Terms of Use:

WebCorp reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to modify, delete, or otherwise change a Member’s user name, URL address, content, or account with or without notice, at any time, and without liability.

This would apparently apply to debate.com comments as well . . .

Tags: askbob, cease and desist, Crackofdawn, DebateDotCom.com, Phil, PoeJoe — written by Logical-Master @ 1:13 pm