Have you ever had the feeling that something is not quite right but you’re not sure exactly what it is?
Well, I found out what it was this week.
I received an email from the Wiley Publishing Group of NY politely informing me that I was in contravention of their trademark rights for the names “FOR DUMMIES” and “DUMMIES.COM”. And here I was thinking that the term “for dummies” was as generic as calling a sticking plaster a Band-aid or paracetamol, Panadol.
The ‘cease and desist’ letter allowed me to the start of September to get my affairs in order but the Wiley group have agreed to my request of extending this period out 2 months. This means that gardeningtipsnideas.com will no longer exist but it’s not all bad news.
Why did I use this name in the first place? When I first began blogging, some of you would have remembered my earlier efforts at Amateur Gardening. After a couple of months putting up with blogger.com’s limitations I wanted to stretch my wings and have more control with my publishing platform. I tried looking for a domain name that was similar to what I was trying to achieve but found amateurgardening.com and novicegardening.com and anything remotely related already taken.
To my surprise gardeningtipsnideas.com was available and even though I doubted whether I was allowed to use it, the registration went through smoothly and here I was holding a great site name. Alas, the Wiley Group also thought it was a great site name and was probably best not being used on my blog.
It’s not all bad news though. I remember when I read a comment on This Garden Is Illegal (sorry for borrowing your blog name for this post Hanna, but it seemed entirely appropriate) from Annie in Austin saying that she would never go to a blog called gardeningtipsnideas.com, I started wondering how many other readers thought the same way. I knew I would never find out through a gardening poll so I’ve been mulling over some ideas for a few months now. (To Annie’s credit she has visited and has been a great contributor of comments since then).
So, I see this as a bit of a God-send really and even though it will send me to the bottom of the pile once again, I will come back stronger for it. Needless to say, I have another blog address on its way and will keep you all posted as more info becomes available.
