Tumblr Stole My [Subdomain] At The Behest of A Corporation

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.<p>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.<p>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.

From Ryan Schreiber, Founder/President of Pitchfork:<p><i>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.</i><p><a href="http://pitchfork.tumblr.com/post/393233651/dear-tumblr-community" rel="nofollow">http://pitchfork.tumblr.com/post/393233651/dear-tumblr-commu...</a>

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

Reblog of a reblog. The original is here: <a href="http://tumbledore.tumblr.com/post/393030100/tumblr-stole-my-domain-at-the-behest-of-a-corporation" rel="nofollow">http://tumbledore.tumblr.com/post/393030100/tumblr-stole-my-...</a><p>Yet another exhibit showing that nobody can parse tumblr's stupid retweet implementation.

hey guys, here's pitchfork's side of the story, from ryan schreiber [prez/founder]: <a href="http://pitchfork.tumblr.com/post/393233651/dear-tumblr-community" rel="nofollow">http://pitchfork.tumblr.com/post/393233651/dear-tumblr-commu...</a><p>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.<p>give it a read.<p><i>full disclosure: i work @ pitchfork.</i>

This is how Tumblr followed up in email after being asked why the domain was taken:<p><a href="http://tumbledore.tumblr.com/post/393276231/this-is-in-response-to-me-being-libeled-by-a" rel="nofollow">http://tumbledore.tumblr.com/post/393276231/this-is-in-respo...</a>

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

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

And Pitchfork responded explaining how it happened: <a href="http://pitchfork.tumblr.com/post/393233651/dear-tumblr-community" rel="nofollow">http://pitchfork.tumblr.com/post/393233651/dear-tumblr-commu...</a> - the account looked inactive, hadn't been posted to for ages, and Pitchfork asked Tumblr if there was a way to get the account.<p>It's key to note, though, that Pitchfork played this right - they say that <i>"We'll be happy to surrender the URL and find a home elsewhere if the original register of the account wishes."</i>

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

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

"Sadly, I apparently no longer control this image or this information, nor can I exercise my right to remove it from the Internet."<p>Do you have a right to remove pictures of you, or pictures you took, from the internet?

I don't see why this would be the case with tumblr...I mean it's a blog, not a communication tool.<p>Why couldn't the company just get pitchforkblog.tumblr.com and then just forward the A record for blog.site.com to it?

I'm curious - even if you have a domain that points to tumblr via A records (as detailed <a href="http://www.tumblr.com/docs/custom_domains" rel="nofollow">http://www.tumblr.com/docs/custom_domains</a>) 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.

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

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.

Email techcrunch: tips@techcrunch.com<p>They might be able to help you out.<p>See:<p><a href="http://techcrunch.com/2010/01/23/facebook-vanity-url-harman/" rel="nofollow">http://techcrunch.com/2010/01/23/facebook-vanity-url-harman/</a>

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.<p>Also, claiming that your subdomain was renamed <i>and</i> claiming that your original posts are still on the unrenamed domain is inconsistent at best.

<i>shrug</i>

No, Tumblr did not "steal" anything from you, kid. You used a service of theirs (for free) and they decided to discontinue that.<p>Morale of the story: don't feel entitled to or become dependant on free services.