Hi guys, Looking for a little bit of insight here please. I recently purchased a domain name which is a 'portmanteau'. For those that don't know (like I didn't) a portmanteau is a combination of two words, e.g shopaholic = shopping + alcoholic For ease let's say it is shopaholic.com as it's very similar. I bought the .com, twitter and instagram handles last month, and they were all registered since 2016. They have never been used but have just been sat registered. In 2018 a podcast appeared using the same name and they have posted episodes ever since. I wanted to get a picture of where I stand with regards to copyright, if the term would be treated the same as a generic and if I am OK to develop it in the future knowing someone is already using the name and I purchased it after they started the podcast, yet the domain was registered before? Appreciate any input, thanks
This isn't professional advice by any means, but it does seem like it could be deemed a generic - unless the podcast has become some kind of household name, and has any trademarks? Either way, thanks for introducing me to w term I hadn't heard before! Every day's a school day!
Martin's take was the opposite. Because it wasn't a household name, and most Google results led back to the podcast, it was more of a brandable - not cut and dried though. I've done some digging today and found articles/domains/social media handles that include use of the phrase as far back as 2014, 5 years before the podcast started, which has put my mind at ease a bit.
