Festool Owners Forum

Don Taylor

Former Member (by the member's request)
Messages
1,287
Well, it looks like a great forum is gone. Another forum says that Festool Owners Group received a legal letter from Festool asking them to shut the forum down.

DT
 
That's really interesting. I had visitied their a couple of time and found a lot of great info....

Wonder what Festool legal is thinking? Just the use of Festool ?

Seems like they would want people talking about their tools?

Maybe they will be at AWF and we can talk to them.

Hmmmmmmm.....

Sometime companies just don't make sense to me......
 
Hopefully this thread won't turn into the "hang'm high" garbage that the tread on that "other forum" turned into. I really can't believe how quick folks are to call in a lynch mob based on one side of the story. There's always two sides to every story, the truth generally lays in the middle some were. I'm sure there is more to this story, hopefully it will come out and more reasonable heads will prevail.

Mike
 
Hopefully this thread won't turn into the "hang'm high" garbage that the tread on that "other forum" turned into. I really can't believe how quick folks are to call in a lynch mob based on one side of the story. There's always two sides to every story, the truth generally lays in the middle some were. I'm sure there is more to this story, hopefully it will come out and more reasonable heads will prevail.

Mike
Dang...I'll have to go put the pitchforks and torches away. :rolleyes: :D

I agree though -- it sure looks like the story is being told in more than one version. I suspect some things have gotten blown out of proportion, but in time things will settle back down.
 
Mike, I agree with you about the two sides to the story, and for the FOG group, I know they feel that they have been slighted, and it does really seem strange, but with all the "Lawyering Up" that goes along with daily life in the US, (or at least that is the perception out here in the world), I could think of a lot of reasons that Festool, as a company would need to have FOG go away. :(

I'm fairly positive that Festool as a company is not happy about having to do this, I think this is a lose, lose situation, but I'm just as sure that Festool has to look at it as a small loss, compared to a potentially huge loss :dunno:

I just hope that something can be worked out, but I have to say, I'm not holding my breath.

If someone is looking to lay blame somewhere, I'd lay it at the feet of the guy who sued the coffee shop and won for spilling hot coffee on himself, and then complaining that the coffee shop did not explain to him, in writing, that the hot coffee he ordered, was "hot" :doh: I'd also blame his lawyer, and the judge who let the case proceed.

I think the guy running FOG feels he is getting screwed, which is really too bad, but I very much doubt, for all the reasons stated, that Festool took this action lightly, but in the end, the people running Festool have a responsibility to their shareholders and the thousands of employees who work for them, balanced against an online forum, I think I know which way I'd go, if I thought the online forum was a potential legal minefield. I'm not saying FOG is to blame here, it is just the nature of the beast, which sucks.

Stu
 
I suspect - as is typical in these situations - there is a misquote or misstatement that has run the whole thing aground. Having been in the corporate world long enough, I can see the issues are rather minor, but if not corrected, could have long term detrimental effect on the company.

It will get sorted out, and hopefully everyone will again be happy.

Wes
 
I would suggest reading this... Explains the "rest of the story"...

There....THERE!!!

Did you read THAT???

Could you read between the lines and just FEEL the vile and spite that oozed out of each and every syllable from the Vice-President himself? How DARE Festool be so selfish?...So hateful?...So...so...hedonistic??? Once again the great, almighty, multi-glom-national corporation has to step in and stomp out the little guy just trying to scratch out a small patch on this global market planet. They should be ASHAMED for trying to make their claims about "PROMOTING" the FOG, their claims of "DONATING" tools for contests and give-a-ways, and how Festool's employees surreptitiously infiltrated the FOG to "ANSWER QUESTIONS" and "CLARIFY ISSUES" while we all know that they were secretly monitoring each and every post for some sign of illicit activity that was designed to try to bring down the great multi-glom-national corporation.

HOW DARE YOU FESTOOL?...HOW DARE YOU??? How dare you offer to pay hosting fees and name transfer fees and offer to continue to allow the free use of YOUR name for a website that you have no ownership rights to. HOW...CAN...YOU...SLEEP...AT...NIGHT???

And speaking of the vice-president, who does he think HE is...with his uppity four part name, hmmm? Two or three names, like the rest of us, aren't good enough for a VP of a multi-glom-national corporation, hmmm; You need four???

Sheesh, you just can't trust anyone anymore these days, huh?













:rolleyes:;)
 
Well what I read out of it was, Festool wants some control of the forum. I'm sure I read it wrong, but sounded to me like an end run to have that forum under their control. When companies have these forums, it's theirs. They get to do what they want. I don't see them as big and bad, but as "Let's have control over this as soon as we can". If they offered to do all that "stuff", why would it not be considered, rather than shut the forum down? Makes no sense to me from either side. Trust me we will never know the "whole " truth. That's just business.

Having said all that gobbly-goo, I owe no Festool products. I would not be able to afford to have a shop if I used their products. No one will ever convince me they are that good, to be 2 to 4 times more $$$$ than any other brand.

Course all this and $2.50 will get you a Grande at Starbucks..... :p :rolleyes: :D

Jimmy
 
If they offered to do all that "stuff", why would it not be considered, rather than shut the forum down?

Jimmy,

I know nothing about this controversy. All I've read is this thread and the lawyer-vetted letter from Festool. But if I were running that forum, I would shut it down. If someone else owns the domain name registration, there would be no point in continuing the forum, since it could vanish without even a puff of smoke at any moment.

My guess is that Festool has *one* overzealous, over-reaching Intellectual Property lawyer on its staff, who has manufactured a public relations nightmare for the company. He's supposed to be protecting the company from risk, and instead he's created a huge potential downside. I have a decade of dealing with "defending the mark on the net" issues under my belt, and I've been in dozens of meetings with lawyers on exactly this issue. Festool went in exactly the wrong direction with this one.

But it's wrong to blame the lawyers. Someone, likely the CEO, took their advice. He's the one to blame! ;)

Personally, I'm on the 'get out the torches and pitchforks' side. In this history of boneheaded moves, this will go down in infamy... right along with the RIAA deciding to sue as many of their own customers as possible... ;)

Thanks,

Bill
 
If the forum was not owned by Festool, it puzzles me how they could force it to shut down. Ye, know, First Amendment and all that.
The guy who runs FOG shut it down himself, I do not know, but the more I read on this, it looks like a bit of a temper tantrum :dunno: I could be dead wrong on that.

"Festool" is a registered name, as I understand it, if they do not defend the use of this name, it will pass into the public domain, and they will lose all rights too it, so they have to protect the name.

Someone said that they should have registered the domain name themselves, like we own familywoodworking.org familywoodworking.com familywoodworking.net, but to be fair, how could they foresee every single usage of "Festool" in domain names? :dunno:

Just about impossible, I think. While the FOG owner may have registered the domain name, that does not give him the right to use a registered name like Festool, does it? I cannot start a site called www.metallica-goods.com and not expect the lawyers for Metallica to not come knocking. :doh:

Like someone else said, I'm sure we will never know exactly what happened, I'll bet that the parties involved do not know exactly what happened, but from what I read, I too think that Festool is being reasonable, is it fair that they have the resources to make the FOG owner go to court if they wanted to press the issue, if he did not wish to take their "reasonable" offer, no, it may not be fair, but life is not fair, so get over thinking that it is.

I really do not understand why he took the site down, I would have just figured out another domain name that does NOT use "Festool" in it, and moved the site.

Like I said in the beginning, I think that Festool has to defend the use of their name, or lose their monopoly on the use of their name.......... :dunno:

A very unfortunate situation all around.

Cheers!
 
I cannot start a site called www.metallica-goods.com and not expect the lawyers for Metallica to not come knocking. :doh:
...
I really do not understand why he took the site down, I would have just figured out another domain name that does NOT use "Festool" in it, and moved the site.

Stu, IANAL either, but I don't think it is quite that simple. If it were, how come a website like www.uhaul-sucks.com is still up? It uses the name uhaul after all. As well, you can go visit http://www.metallicasucks.com/
and it seems an independent entity?

And on the positive side I'm sure there are countless fan/user/endorser websites out there that use all or part of an entities name. Here, 10 seconds of googling and I found www.rushmessageboard.com which uses the name rush, but I sincerely doubt is owned by Rush the band.

So there are concrete examples of websites, both positive and negative, that use someone's name in their domain name.

Again, IANAL. I read that link that Greg gave and all of it sounded reasonable right up until the bit where they claimed that they should be given ownership of the "www.festoolownersgroup.com" domain and claimed that this was just defending their trademark. I just don't buy it. This is NOT the same as if someone had registered www.festool.com or www.festool-usa.com or www.festool-company.com and was parked there holding it hostage.

I think I'll mostly agree with Bill on this. Based on what little I know so far this seems like a bad move by Festool.

Winning in the court of law does not mean that they'll win in the court of public opinion.
 
Interesting dilemna really. I suspect that Stu's summary is about right in terms of the need for Festool to protect their trade mark wherever it appears or risk it becoming some kind of generic.

I never visited FOG but I suspect that the owners concern may be about maintaining objectivity. Many of us are aware that the owners of forums sometimes make decisions which appear externally to be less than totally rational;). I suspect that the whole group would be better served by picking a domain name that does not contain Festools trademark and carrying on. Hey ho!
 
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