Website Ownership

Is it fair if a competitor takes your domain names?

My brother recently started a new business called Solidlink Grating.  He has been focused on getting all the products manufactured & ready for sale, whilst his competitors registered the 2 domain names he wanted www.solidlinkgrating.com.au & www.solidlink.com.au leaving him with no chance of getting his business online with his business name. They have directed those 2 websites straight to their original website...so don't click on the websites above!

I suggested changing the trading name but all the casting for the manhole (covers) & gratings have been already fabricated with the solidlink grating name built into the casts. 

After further investigation, I was told to take this to auDA the regulatory body to question the entitlement.

I hope this works, it would be devasting for a young bloke that's trying to get his business off the ground.

This was the inspirational video...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omSKo1OW6CU

Google it

Not too long ago, if I wanted to know something, I would go into our dusty study at our family home in Mentone & flick through the maroon coloured Encyclopaedia Britannica.  
It was all about books, textbooks, newspaper articles & if we were lucky an educational "Beta" or a bit later "VHS" video. Researching for assignments was not a fun experience for me.  I spent hours in our school library at Kilbreda College in Mentone or at the local Cheltenham Public Library, where I would easily get distracted looking at books on other random things.
  
The "silence" rule established in certain places, whether it was in the library, in the classroom or at Church really didn't interest me.  With my passion for dance & performing arts, life for me was one big fun performance.  I even pushed the boundaries once by choreographing a dance for an assignment with my mate, Nicolle Guzik instead of doing a written assignment. 


Back in those dancing days, music was so important to our regular dance classes, competitions & ballet exams.  I remember the dodgy quality tapes that needed to be constantly rewinded every time we stuffed up in rehearsals. I really don't know how we got inspired by the music as the quality was so bad.  Now if I hear an awesome song, it can bring me to tears.  Maybe that's why I often lost my focus on stage & would start improvising until my brain turned back on. 


In the late 80's my brother had an Atari computer at home.  I remember the games used to be really expensive in those days.  We had taken a family holiday to Singapore in 1989 & bought fake copies of lots of different games for only a few dollars.  The Atari was used only to play arcade games that didn't interest me when I was growing up.  Only 1 game that seemed more fun called "Bubble Bubble".  I played this games with ballet buddy, Tanya Wilson for hours until my brother would kick us off.


I had a pink "tape recorder" in my younger years that I used to take away on family drives up to Mildura & sing to John Farnham or Beach Boys over & over again.  Mix tapes were made by copying songs from the radio & compiled for best friends. When I found a Sony CD "walkman" under the Christmas tree in the early 90's I was hooked on listening to Nirvana & Pearl Jam.  In those grunge days of v-neck woollen jumpers, cords, secondhand leather brown jackets & un-straightened boofy brown long hair, I collected old records.  I also loved playing Mum's Beetles & Rolling Stones records on the old chunky brown 70's record player, until one day in the late 90's I thought I could use it to rap with...not a good idea.


TV was simple for so long, with only 1 TV in the house & just the standard channels, 7, 9 & 10.  I remember watching shows like; Young Talent Time, Home & Away, The Wonder Years & cartoons.   


At school, it was compulsory to learn how to type.  We would have to sit on separate little desks each having our own typewriter & practice with a piece of paper covering all the keys.  There were only a handful of computers introduced into the computer room used for students doing IT probably around 1994.  I didn't choose this subject because at the time, I probably thought it was for "computer geeks".  


In 1996 I graduated from High School but didn't use the Internet until a few years later, which was "dial up" & very slow.  Although it was the year before I graduated, in 1995 when the Internet was commercialised. I only remember using Microsoft Word for assignments & Powerpoint for basic presentations in year 11 & 12.    


When I was studying at RMIT in Melbourne from 1997-2001, I had a casual job of teaching aerobics.  These were the days before pre-choreographed classes such as Les Mills Body Pump.  I had a selection of tapes that were all set with different styles, speeds & standard beats.  Repeating 4,3,2, "grapevine" was a favourite! I don't really remember using the Internet too much at Uni. I suppose it was still early days & research for assignments was all still done in those "quiet" libraries.


Straight after I graduated, in 2002 I went overseas to Kobe, in Japan for a 12 month contact to teach English at a company called Nova.  Before I left, I set up a hotmail address to communicate with friends & family from home.  Sometimes I would type long emails & for no reason I would lose them right before I wanted to send.  The technology in Japan was way advanced in comparison to Australia.  There were 8 floor electronic stores in Osaka that I used to go to on the amazingly fast "bullet trains".  I bought a flip phone that could take photos & email, which was just amazing.  The mobile phones also had internet access but not easy to use.  After a year of fascinating experiences with sake bombs, tatami mats, heated toilets, bullet trains, temples, electronics, vending machines, city lights & karaoke bars, I headed back to Melbourne with some friends email addresses from all over the world.  I remained in contact for many years with my overseas friends with the occasional email.  I soon had itchy feet again, so I headed to the UK for a very different overseas experience.  I again collected many more friends from all around the world.  After another year of travel, I had another group of email addresses & still had my old hotmail address.  


For the next few years I worked for my Dad's company helping out with Sales, Admin & Accounts.  We wrote out quotes & faxed them to customers, wrote out job cards & orders too.  Fortunately invoicing was done using Quickbooks accounting program.  It was only in 2006 when we starting using emails a little & developed a very basic website.  My aunty Carol & I used to get on Ebay after work & buy bargain secondhand furniture for our new Mordialloc units.


Then suddenly social networking sites like MySpace, RSVP, Facebook were popular.  For the last 5 years I have been adding all my old travelling friends & keeping in contact a lot better than the irregular email.  I used to like looking at photos & commenting on other peoples status' & found myself on Facebook every night after work.  When I got an Iphone last year, I now had access to it all the time! Yesterday, my 63 year old mum set up a Facebook page.  She asked me to email her some photos I had of her for her profile.  I said casually that I'll tag her in all the photos I have & she can pick 1 for her profile pic, but she didn't understand the 'tag' concept! 


To me, Facebook is getting boring...I wonder what is the next big thing?


I was asked last night to count how many internet devices I had at home & I counted the old laptop, couple of mobiles etc & counted 6 in amazement. But I forgot to count the Wii & Playstation! 


Sometimes you have to stop for a minute to realise how fast things are moving...


So if you have any questions...just Google it!