Majestic Star Casino Files Suit Against Online Gambling Site
The owner of Fitzgeralds casinos in Nevada, Mississippi and Colorado has filed a lawsuit against the operator of a website with a similar name to the online home of its Las Vegas casino.
The Las Vegas Sun newspaper reports Majestic Star Casino LLC filed suit against three entities doing business in Panama in federal court in Las Vegas on Wednesday.
The lawsuit says the companies operate a site with the same name but a .net address instead of the casino's .com address. Lawyers for Majestic Star say the name is too similar and drives users to an online gambling site. Majestic Star is privately held, based in Las Vegas.
Gambling911's special contributor, Greg Tingle, quite the media and gaming entrepreneur himself, has this to say on the matter:
"The majestic star land based casino VS the majestic star online casino case is just another in a long list on land based VS online casino battles that have been going on for a few years now. The land based casinos almost always win against the website knock off copycats. Another interesting case which can be compared to the majestic casino copy scam is the Michael Jackson casino (using Jackson's name without permission)."
Gambling911 readers may also recall the case of an online casino owned by a Paki company being sued by Las Vegas Pinnacle Entertainment Inc last May for infringements on trademarks - a website promoting an Indiana casino, well, as it first seemed anywhere. That law suit was filed in U.S District Court, Las Vegas, against the Paki, "Eskay SEO", and a fellow associated with the website - Mr Sultan "Shify" Shafique. It's understood that the Las Vegas Sun was first to break that story, with strong global coverage following thereafter. That offending website, no longer, stated "One can feel never feel boring because their are multiple things to do here at Belterra Casio Indiana". That knock off suggested it was somehow affiliated with Pinnacle. They were not... never! The case also noted the "cyber squatting" element as well as noted the defendants have and/or had bad faith intent to profit from the plaintiffs Belterra marks.
Tingle a number of years ago had some first hand experience in what sort of domain names were acceptable when leveraging off existing brands and trademarks. Tingle, a member of the Virgin Games affiliate program, smartly registered and created a "Virgin Casino News" website, unfortunately for Tingle he was too smart for his own good, and decided to hand over the offending domain name to Richard Branson's head office. He also previously was instrumental in the jailing of Australian con woman Gabrielle Mass of "Virgin Star", who has attempted do to deceptive and misleading conduct against Virgin Enterprises Limited. Ms Maas got locked up, while Tingle learned his lesson and continues to be a successful affiliate of Virgin Games and other Virgin Enterprises business arms to this day.
Gambling911 can also now report the appearance of a non official - knock off 'Oprah In Australia' website which is not authorised by Oprah, Harpo Productions. Tourism Austraia or anyone else. Media and legal insiders predict that knock off website will soon be off the air and shut down by Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Productions. Oprah is slatted to set foot in Australia this December and some business people are looking to ride off her coattails, stealing her thunder. An insider said of that 'Oprah In Oz' website.... "It rather looks like a scam. It's not even a good copy, but its confusing. They have links and logos to Oprah's official website, Tourism Australia but none to Network Ten. The email address and domain name look to be linked to an Australian university student! Australia's Department Of Fair Trading warns website visitors about the dangers of using non official websites and note that they are often links to scams and other criminal enterprise.
(The Real) Oprah Winfrey will be touring and doing TV tapings in Australia network month.
Would be entrepreneurs and cyber squatters out there. If you think you may be danger of doing the wrong thing, don't do it, or at least seek legal advise first. Internet law and marketing law is full of traps that even the most seasoned business person can fall into.
Media Man and Gambling911 encourage entrepreneurship, but do not encourage crooks, cyber squatters or other scam. On a side note, recently the Gambling911 has also been spammed by someone try to sell sports shoes, Viagra and other sporting rubbish.
*The writer is a special contributor for Gambling911
*Media Man http://www.mediamanint.com is primarily a media, publicity and internet portal development company The owner of Fitzgeralds casinos in Nevada, Mississippi and Colorado has filed a lawsuit against the operator of a website with a similar name to the online home of its Las Vegas casino.
The Las Vegas Sun newspaper reports Majestic Star Casino LLC filed suit against three entities doing business in Panama in federal court in Las Vegas on Wednesday.
The lawsuit says the companies operate a site with the same name but a .net address instead of the casino's .com address. Lawyers for Majestic Star say the name is too similar and drives users to an online gambling site. Majestic Star is privately held, based in Las Vegas.
Gambling911's special contributor, Greg Tingle, quite the media and gaming entrepreneur himself, has this to say on the matter:
"The majestic star land based casino VS the majestic star online casino case is just another in a long list on land based VS online casino battles that have been going on for a few years now. The land based casinos almost always win against the website knock off copycats. Another interesting case which can be compared to the majestic casino copy scam is the Michael Jackson casino (using Jackson's name without permission)."
Gambling911 readers may also recall the case of an online casino owned by a Paki company being sued by Las Vegas Pinnacle Entertainment Inc last May for infringements on trademarks - a website promoting an Indiana casino, well, as it first seemed anywhere. That law suit was filed in U.S District Court, Las Vegas, against the Paki, "Eskay SEO", and a fellow associated with the website - Mr Sultan "Shify" Shafique. It's understood that the Las Vegas Sun was first to break that story, with strong global coverage following thereafter. That offending website, no longer, stated "One can feel never feel boring because their are multiple things to do here at Belterra Casio Indiana". That knock off suggested it was somehow affiliated with Pinnacle. They were not... never! The case also noted the "cyber squatting" element as well as noted the defendants have and/or had bad faith intent to profit from the plaintiffs Belterra marks.
Tingle a number of years ago had some first hand experience in what sort of domain names were acceptable when leveraging off existing brands and trademarks. Tingle, a member of the Virgin Games affiliate program, smartly registered and created a "Virgin Casino News" website, unfortunately for Tingle he was too smart for his own good, and decided to hand over the offending domain name to Richard Branson's head office. He also previously was instrumental in the jailing of Australian con woman Gabrielle Mass of "Virgin Star", who has attempted do to deceptive and misleading conduct against Virgin Enterprises Limited. Ms Maas got locked up, while Tingle learned his lesson and continues to be a successful affiliate of Virgin Games and other Virgin Enterprises business arms to this day.
Gambling911 can also now report the appearance of a non official - knock off 'Oprah In Australia' website which is not authorised by Oprah, Harpo Productions. Tourism Austraia or anyone else. Media and legal insiders predict that knock off website will soon be off the air and shut down by Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Productions. Oprah is slatted to set foot in Australia this December and some business people are looking to ride off her coattails, stealing her thunder. An insider said of that 'Oprah In Oz' website.... "It rather looks like a scam. It's not even a good copy, but its confusing. They have links and logos to Oprah's official website, Tourism Australia but none to Network Ten. The email address and domain name look to be linked to an Australian university student! Australia's Department Of Fair Trading warns website visitors about the dangers of using non official websites and note that they are often links to scams and other criminal enterprise.
(The Real) Oprah Winfrey will be touring and doing TV tapings in Australia network month.
Would be entrepreneurs and cyber squatters out there. If you think you may be danger of doing the wrong thing, don't do it, or at least seek legal advise first. Internet law and marketing law is full of traps that even the most seasoned business person can fall into.
Media Man and Gambling911 encourage entrepreneurship, but do not encourage crooks, cyber squatters or other scam. On a side note, recently the Gambling911 has also been spammed by someone try to sell sports shoes, Viagra and other sporting rubbish.
*The writer is a special contributor for Gambling911
*Media Man http://www.mediamanint.com is primarily a media, publicity and internet portal development company
