When my 17 year old kid told me that Wordpress was shutting down his blog, I couldn't imagine why. The content is terrific. Thoughtful. Well written. There's nothing snarky or pornographic. Sheesh! Quit messing with my kid!.
Yesterday we learned why. Some lawyer, representing the global interactive firm Digitas, actually got billable hours issuing a cease and desist based on the name of his blog, Digitas Gravitas. Have we nothing better to do than take Latin-root words and claim them as brands?
I guess when you've only been blogging for three months and you come up #1 on Google search, you're bound to make the brand police, or some lawyer, all gooey and bothered.
My kid handled it great. Changed the name of his blog immediately, didn't freak out, and let his fan base know what's up. Here's what he said:
Notice of Name Change
Hey folks. I know we all love the very creative name of my blog, Digitas Gravitas, with its deep meaning and wonderful rhyming scheme. However, unbeknown to me, the name Digitas is apparently trademarked by a company out of Boston, and due to my soaring popularity, I come up first in Google searches now which does not gel with their legal team. So the hammer has been dropped and they took action against my name and until this is resolved I will have to stall on the posts. Be looking for the new blog, Digital Gravitas (which is almost as good) hopefully in a few days. Everything should be the same as it was before, just at a new URL and with a new name to reflect the changes. Thanks to everyone who has followed me before, and make sure to indicate the URL change once active. I’ll post that once the change is final.
UPDATE:
So…. WordPress is being a little glitchy with moving the blog over to the new URL, so we’re gonna just try and stick with this and see if it placates the Lawyers. For the time being (and unless I can figure out the problem with transferring the blog) the URL will remain Digitasgravitas.wordpress.com, but the blog itself will be called Digital Gravitas. Oh, and if any of you can help a brother out and know how to transfer this to a new URL, give me a holler in the comments.