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Cease and Desist, You Podcast Criminal!

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(9.62 MB) 10:29 minutes

Song: Lullaby for Lawyers by Steve Newman and Friends [PMN]

I have recently been alerted by a law firm in Vancouver, British Columbia that my use of the term “musicast” is an infringement on a registered U.S. trademark held by their client. I have been told to surrender the use of the name “Miami Valley Musicast” and the domain name “miamivalleymusicast.com” to them. I have also been told to halt all marketing and promotion of this show while using the term.

I can certainly understand the rights of an intellectual property owner. I am a songwriter and producer. I create intellectual properties and have for many, many years. I can assure you dear readers and listeners, that I made diligent search for the term “musicast” prior to naming my show and could find no information about the term or any existing ownerships. I would not have named the show as such had there been any apparent conflict. There is no “active” web site or business using the term “musicast.com”, but the domain does exist.

I have talked to legal counsel. There is an “opportunity” to fight this request, but the obvious path of least resistence is to just change the show name and associated feeds, domains, and such. There are three main conditions that I would have to meet to fight this… and I simply cannot meet them all. And, the cost is prohibitive at this point. The firm that has complained alleges that I am damaging their (non-existent at this point) business by confusing people as to the origins of my show, but I don’t at this point have an income from this podcast. They also claim that their domain name and word are “famous.” (Hear my audio rant.)

I am asking each of you, my loyal listeners, to please, please follow my show to any new domain that might be created and the associated RSS feed. You can watch this site for information and I will be sending out an audio announcement prior to the changeover. If you are an iTunes subscriber, please search for “Rich Palmer” when looking for my show(s). I actually have a few.

For the time being, please bookmark the site http://richpalmer.com/podcasts in your browser so you don’t lose the show when we change over. I encourage you to listen to my audio rant here, as well for more information.