DISQUS

Jeremy Steele · 1 year ago

Gotta admit though, its a good and (probably) legal scam. Unethical, but pretty creative.

Advertise and hope someone who is ignorant to the real registration prices takes their $300+ service (without telling them it actually costs much less), give them a $30 copyright, and take the rest as profit. I could see many small business owners falling for it.

With that said, I'll be writing up a post about it on Friday. I think I've gotten one of those e-mails before... UCR sounds a bit familiar.

Jonathan Bailey · 1 year ago

Jeremy: It probably is legal. That's the scary part.

There are three areas where it could run into trouble. One is as a violation for CAN-SPAM since the site emails admin accounts for domains seemingly at random. The second would be impersonation of a Federal official for creating confusion about being the USCO. Finally would be general fraud. However, I have a feeling they've carefully worked around each issue.

There is a good chance you did get one of the emails. Check in your domain admin count if you can't find it. That seems to be where it goes.

Let me know when you post about it! I'll be eager to read your thoughts.

Matt Saunders · 1 year ago

We see a lot of these types of communications sent to our trademark clients. Once a federal trademark application is filed, it's public record, and there are loads of unscrupulous entities who take the opportunity to send very official-looking mailings to the applicant. These usually offer monitoring services, or offer to place the mark on some other privately-held register, all for inflated prices and using names and logos designed to look governmental. We tell our trademark clients to ignore anything like this that comes their way, as we are the sole contact for communications from the PTO.

USCR operates in a different manner, of course. And if they can convince a site owner that the (mostly unnecessary) services they're offering are worth the price, more power to them. That line you've quoted from their email certainly has the whiff of an intent to deceive, however.

Jonathan Bailey · 1 year ago

Matt: Personally, from what I've read in the email, it's linked in the first paragraph by the way, and in my conversation with them, there seems to be a significant push to mislead and take advantage of the fact that few people truly understand copyright.

In that regard, I think they operate very much like what you see with your trademark clients, they target people who have registered domains and email them these offers.

It just reiterates the need for Webmasters especially to understand at least the basics of their IP rights...

Matt Saunders · 1 year ago

Now that I've read the full email, I notice USCR repeatedly refers to the USPTO, not the US Copyright Office. For example...

"Protecting a website is the responsibility of the owner of the website and must be registered through the United States Patent and Trademark office."

"Domain name and trademark registration does not register your website for copyright registration and it is the responsibility of the website owner to register with the United States Patent and Trademark Office to complete registration."

"If you fail to reply to this notice this website will NOT be registered through UCR to the United States Patent and Trademark Office."

As you and your readers likely well know, the USPTO has nothing whatsoever to do with copyright registration. So not only is USCR offering services most don't need, they don't appear to know exactly what they're talking about.

Jonathan Bailey · 1 year ago

Matt: Good point, I must have had my eyes glaze over when I was reading that paragraph. Yet another good reason NOT to trust these guys to handle anything with your copyright.

For most people, if you can fill out a job application, you can fill out a Short Form TX, which is all most sites need...

Jar · 1 year ago

I heard about this company much.But I realy do not know what to say.

Jonathan Bailey · 1 year ago

Jar: Hopefully the article was able to help then!