
Tumblr Stole My [Subdomain] At The Behest of A Corporation - terrellm
http://dontplayitcool.tumblr.com/post/393088179/tumblr-stole-my-domain-at-the-behest-of-a-corporation
======
xal
This happens on Shopify all the time now. Since we moved our servers to the
United States we are being hit with DMCA related infringements almost weekly.

If we get normal trademark disputes they are usually easy to deal with: we
simply put the two parties into direct contact and they can figure it out.
However, if the requester uses the DMCA method everything changes: We get an
ultimatum from our hosting company (Rackspace) to resolve the conflict within
7 days or they will unplug our servers, which would disconnect many thousands
of e-commerce stores and millions of sales. Obviously we cannot allow this to
happen. Rackspace does this because they need to stay a "safe harbor" under
the DMCA and this is how they pass the buck to us.

Luckily there have been precedents where false DMCA claims have lead to
hundreds of thousands of dollar in damages to the plaintiffs. Our only recurse
is to point this out to the originator of the claim before forwarding it to
the affected store. In most cases this leads to them dropping the complaint
and/or pursuing the (correct) copyright/trademark avenue instead.

~~~
oneplusone
Why did you guys move your servers to the US and do you think it was worth it
with the additional cost of dealing with DMCA?

~~~
xal
It was worth it because Rackspace is a much better host. We used to run our
own data center in toronto before this. The DMCA is a major annoyance but
doesn't really factor into the bottom line.

------
grinich
From Ryan Schreiber, Founder/President of Pitchfork:

 _It is not our wish to kick people out of active accounts. For example, the
user @pitchfork on Twitter had an active account before we signed up. That’s
fair, and in that case we don’t feel any more entitled to a ‘pitchfork’ URL
than anyone else. We’ll be happy to surrender the URL and find a home
elsewhere if the original register of the account wishes._

[http://pitchfork.tumblr.com/post/393233651/dear-tumblr-
commu...](http://pitchfork.tumblr.com/post/393233651/dear-tumblr-community)

~~~
greyman
Hmm...anyway, they claim that the last post was made on November 18, 2009. I
don't consider that to be an inactive account...

I don't like what tumblr did here. Now it means, that if I subscribe to them
and don't post something for 3 months, they can just take the subdomain from
me and give it to someone else.

They probably do have a legal right to that, but still, it's still impolite,
if not nasty.

~~~
Timothee
I think it was a combination of several things that made them consider it
inactive:

"the last post that had been made was on November 18, 2009, and said, “This
filter is obsolete.” The post before that was from March 21. There had been a
total of five posts ever made to the account."

If this is true, this is in fact a good arguments for considering it inactive.
Not enough to disable it like they did, but it's more in the gray area than
the original post made it sound like.

~~~
mattdennewitz
a tumblr employees response to the OP:
[http://meaghano.com/post/393246405/tumbledore-ive-run-
pitchf...](http://meaghano.com/post/393246405/tumbledore-ive-run-pitchfork-
tumblr-com-for)

~~~
Avenger42
So which is it?

Ryan: "There had been a total of five posts ever made to the account." (with
screenshots of said posts)

Meagan: "There were not 'several posts', on that account, there were zero."

While I agree that in either case, it was hardly a highly-used and highly-
trafficked site, the fact that Tumblr can't get their numbers straight tells
me at the very least that someone didn't do their due diligence to know
exactly what they were handing over.

~~~
thehodge
Ryan : Within 10 minutes, a tumblr representative responded: “Hi, Megan. Those
URLs are now free. Please let me know if there’s anything else I can help you
with. Thanks for using Tumblr!”

Meagan : As per our policy, we emailed this account’s address to inquire about
the dormant account. After you failed to respond for 72 hours, we released the
domain.

Was it 10 minutes or was it 72 hours?

~~~
ohashi
Probably 10 minutes. That guy has no reason to lie. Meagan, does. Her response
is also awful and she should be fired, she clearly has no respect for the
users and without users... well we all know what happens.

~~~
bstrand
I think you totally misread the motivational factors here. That guy (aka
Tumbledore) could easily want to lie to bolster the justification for the
indignation he obviously feels. Meaghan, OTOH, has many more reasons not to
want to lie, foremost of which is that she is representing an entire actual
company. Tumbledore has nothing to lose and everything to gain, since all
that's at stake here is his internet "personal brand", for which notoriety is
the stock-in-trade.

UPDATE: sh4na is correct that I misinterpreted "that guy" to mean Tumbledore,
not Ryan of Pitchfork. The 10 minutes vs. 72 hours discrepancy is significant,
but to presume that Ms. O'Connell is lying over-reaches. That is, unless one
presumes that she's personally conducted an investigation of the support
staff's emails and the account management history in order to satisfy the ego
of an entitled netbrat, and is now knowingly misrepresenting the true facts of
this very important matter.

~~~
sh4na
You are confused, that guy is not the blog owner, he is the Founder of
Pitchfork, and obviously he has no reason to lie. The fact that the Tumblr
version blatantly contradicts him only makes it that much obvious that that
Meaghan person is the one lying about the whole thing.

------
wingo
At some point the message that "web 2.0 is sharecropping" will sink in, one
way or the other.

------
akkartik
Reblog of a reblog. The original is here:
[http://tumbledore.tumblr.com/post/393030100/tumblr-stole-
my-...](http://tumbledore.tumblr.com/post/393030100/tumblr-stole-my-domain-at-
the-behest-of-a-corporation)

Yet another exhibit showing that nobody can parse tumblr's stupid retweet
implementation.

~~~
mattlanger
It's not a "retweet implementation"--it's hypertext. If nobody can parse
_that_ then we've got bigger problems.

~~~
akkartik
That argument could defend any poor-usability site or mechanism.

------
mattdennewitz
hey guys, here's pitchfork's side of the story, from ryan schreiber
[prez/founder]: [http://pitchfork.tumblr.com/post/393233651/dear-tumblr-
commu...](http://pitchfork.tumblr.com/post/393233651/dear-tumblr-community)

im not going to personally comment on this one, so here's the gist of ryan's
letter: the site had very few, very infrequent posts, and tumblr readily
handed it over when we asked about it. nothing dubious, no back-alley
handshakes, nothing funky. the original poster is welcome to take it back, we
never had any intentions of evicting active residents from their property.

give it a read.

 _full disclosure: i work @ pitchfork._

~~~
bricestacey
If Pitchfork is willing to relinquish the domain, they should do so
immediately. What are you waiting for?

"We’ll be happy to surrender the URL and find a home elsewhere if the original
register of the account wishes."

The OP has already made a huge fuss about it. What else must he do to express
his wishes?

~~~
DougBTX
He might enjoy making a fuss about it more than the tumblr account itself.

------
tshtf
This is how Tumblr followed up in email after being asked why the domain was
taken:

[http://tumbledore.tumblr.com/post/393276231/this-is-in-
respo...](http://tumbledore.tumblr.com/post/393276231/this-is-in-response-to-
me-being-libeled-by-a)

------
nixme
The title is a bit misleading. Tumblr took away a subdomain on their own
domain.

~~~
zaidf
Only semantically misleading. We've come to expect that if we get a subdomain
on a service like tumblr, it becomes ours...if not legally, at least by norm.

~~~
pyre
There _is_ a difference between "come to expect" and "have a right to."

~~~
sophacles
Just because something is within the rules, does not mean that something is a
good practice. In this case I have learned that tumblr is willing to not honor
a social norm on my behalf, which means I'll take my business elsewhere.

~~~
pyre
No doubt. I'm just stating that I feel he may very well be _over-stating_ his
case. I agree that information like this _is_ vital in making a decision on
whether or not I want to do 'business' with Tumblr.

------
imajes
Just to add a note here: I have worked for Pitchfork Media previously. As a
client, they were always the most awesome people to work for: Ryan and his
team completely get the web and how it works, and don't step on people's toes,
rather just carving out their own niche and letting people come to them.

There's zero chance of malice here, just a bit of ruffled feathers.

------
petercooper
And Pitchfork responded explaining how it happened:
[http://pitchfork.tumblr.com/post/393233651/dear-tumblr-
commu...](http://pitchfork.tumblr.com/post/393233651/dear-tumblr-community) \-
the account looked inactive, hadn't been posted to for ages, and Pitchfork
asked Tumblr if there was a way to get the account.

It's key to note, though, that Pitchfork played this right - they say that
_"We'll be happy to surrender the URL and find a home elsewhere if the
original register of the account wishes."_

------
alexandros
he may have subscribed using google reader, which has an independent cache of
the items in a feed.

------
aresant
I wonder how long he was inactive for - "several posts" in a year could mean
he did the typical "blog" session - post in a flurry for a week, realize
nobody is following you, give up.

If that's the case tumblr may well have terms about rights to a subdomain
based on inactivity.

------
jodrellblank
"Sadly, I apparently no longer control this image or this information, nor can
I exercise my right to remove it from the Internet."

Do you have a right to remove pictures of you, or pictures you took, from the
internet?

~~~
sp332
If you have the copyright, it would be illegal for them to distribute the
image or text without your permission.

~~~
houseabsolute
I'm sure by sending a DMCA takedown request he could get this done.

------
vaksel
I don't see why this would be the case with tumblr...I mean it's a blog, not a
communication tool.

Why couldn't the company just get pitchforkblog.tumblr.com and then just
forward the A record for blog.site.com to it?

------
ube
I'm curious - even if you have a domain that points to tumblr via A records
(as detailed <http://www.tumblr.com/docs/custom_domains>) then you are still
at the mercy of tumblr...aren't you? I suppose that the upside of using your
domain is that you can point it elsewhere if something like this happens
(assuming that you backed up your content) and any users you have still use
the same domain.

------
pyre
I went to the RSS feed, but I didn't see his old posts.

------
kellishaver
This was well within Tumblr's legal rights to do, though still poor form for
them to have done it, because there seemed to be no legal motivation to "take"
the subdomain. The word "pitchfork" is not something that can be trademarked
and pitchfork media has no more right to the subdomain than you or I, no
matter how badly they want it. So this doesn't seem like a decision Tumblr was
forced into for copyright/legal reasons. They just thought it would be a good
idea either for profit by selling it or to get on the company's good side
(mind you, however, we are only hearing one side of the story, so that
assumption may be entirely inaccurate). I don't blame the guy for being a bit
upset. Even realizing you have no actual legal claim to something, if you've
been using a url, username, twitter account, etc. for over a year and suddenly
it's taken from you without so much as a warning, it would be annoying. So no,
in reality, nothing was "stolen" from him, but the manner in which Tumblr
revoked the URL they had assigned to him feels a bit unethical.

~~~
nandemo
_The word "pitchfork" is not something that can be trademarked_

Actually, it is a trademark. Just like the words "Apple" and "Java".

I'm not sure if that's relevant to subdomains, though.

------
sebastian
Email techcrunch: tips@techcrunch.com

They might be able to help you out.

See:

<http://techcrunch.com/2010/01/23/facebook-vanity-url-harman/>

------
Confusion
There's not much to go on in this post. Has he even asked Tumblr for an
explanation? Perhaps someone from Pitchfork Media asked for the password,
claiming they had lost the original email account, hoping that the domain was
abandoned? That would still call for an apology, but isn't half as bad as what
it's made out to be.

Also, claiming that your subdomain was renamed _and_ claiming that your
original posts are still on the unrenamed domain is inconsistent at best.

~~~
cag_ii
| Has he even asked Tumblr for an explanation?

Yes, apparently he has: [http://tumbledore.tumblr.com/post/393276231/this-is-
in-respo...](http://tumbledore.tumblr.com/post/393276231/this-is-in-response-
to-me-being-libeled-by-a)

------
llimllib
_shrug_

------
brazzy
No, Tumblr did not "steal" anything from you, kid. You used a service of
theirs (for free) and they decided to discontinue that.

Morale of the story: don't feel entitled to or become dependant on free
services.

~~~
sophacles
You are 100% correct, yet upon reading this story my thought is not about that
damn entitled kid. Instead I think "wow that is certainly an act of
capriciousness that I would never wish to happen to me -- don't use tumblr".

~~~
bstrand
I think, yeah, if I overtly state the account is no longer in use in the
single post made over the previous year, and I've _never_ used it for its
proper purpose, I probably shouldn't expect that Tumblr are going expend
company resources just to be extra, extra nice instead of following the letter
of the ToS, especially since if I know full well that it's a desirable domain.

