The Letter

The Letter was Originally Posted on September 10, 2004 by lavarock

“Give me a ticket for an aeroplane, ain’t got time to take a fast train, lonely days are gone, I’m ah goin home, my baby, she wrote me a letter….”

If you have been following this Blog, then you know that I live on this coffee farm here in Hawaii. I found a neat painting and asked the author if I could use it for my coffee label. I’m still waiting for him to give me an address so I can pay him for its use (but that is another story).

The graphic is quite appropriate for me as I live on the Big Island of Hawaii (the actual island CALLED Hawaii, and the island with the active volcano). Hawaiians will tell you that the Goddess Pele created the islands and dwells on this island currently. Since the islands have existed for well over thousands of years, should be noted. The painting and this my coffee is named “Pele’s Passion”.

So, I decide to get a domain name to refer t othe coffee, said domain name is http://PelesPassion.Com. I register it and await my ability to point it to my existing site at http://ItsKona.Com

As mentioned in a previous Blog, I then received a Certified letter at the Post Office. It looks like some lawyers sent it, and they paid over $4.00 to send it, so it must be official. Scammers would only MAKE it look official.

So I open the letter and start reading. I will summerize it with my comments in parentheses:

Attention:

Regarding your domain name PELESPASSION.COM

1. We represent Glory Establishment (which to me sounds like some kind of sex shop, but I digress), owners of the well-known PELE trademark/service mark, the nickname of the internationally famous soccer star, Edson Arantes do Nascimento. (how they get PELE out of that, I have no idea! Comptons Encyclopedia implies that he just made up the PELE part).

2. We recently became aware of your registration of a domain name and wish to determine your intention.

NOTE: They are afraid I might be using Pele [the soccer gods name] in vain I guess. It seems that when I registered the name, my domain registration company automatically created a WELCOME page and placed some links on it with links to sites which do soccer stuff I guess. Anyway, I guess they think I MAY tie a website and/or product to their client.

Would the REAL Pele please stand up?

They asked that I either write or call them to discuss this. LIKE I CARE! Nope, not even gonna pick up the phone on this one. Let the lawayers keep sending letters and wasting their clients money. It appears to me that these lawyers have no idea how the internet works because had they done a search combining the few keywords they listed in my letter, they would have seen that I have no interesat in some aging soccer star who nicknamed himself after a better-known Hawaiian Goddess.

Once my abilty to repoint the domain name was enabled, I pointed it where it was designed to go, that is my own coffee website.

I can understand why someone might want to create a trade name, but don’t go taking a common name and try to use it as your own private property. Don’t assume that everyone that uses that name is infringing on your trademark. Don’t be too sure that the REAL PELE, the Goddess of the volcano, will not cause you problems. She got back at me for “borrowing” one small piece of her work. I took a small lavarock from her island and had to bring it back. I am STILL doing pennance! I can only IMAGINE what she has in store for Edson since he took her NAME!!!