Question about business with similar names.

[b82]

Ok so I have a club that is named The Platinum Penthouse. Recently a resident contacted me saying she would have me banned from SL and sue me in RL because I "stole" the name of her club. Me and my friends came up with the name of my club ourselves without doing any research. The resident who contacted me has a club named The Platinum Club. These are obviously not the same names. The only part of the names that are the same is the word "Platinum". I need to know if I have violated any rules in SL or if this Resident is just threatening & harrassing me because she is worried about her own business going under.

[Rolig Loon]

She's blowing smoke.  There's no rule about using the same name for your business as another SL resident, so nobody is going to ban you for it.  However, it's good business practice to avoid selecting a name that will cause confusion.  It can create bad feelings with competitors, as you discovered, and more importantly, can lead to confusion for your customers.  What you do in this case is up to you.

[Peggy Paperdoll]

Unless your friend with the other club has copyrighted her club name in RL they don't even stand a chance in a real life court of law.........even if your club was named identically to the other club.  The threat is nothing but an intimidation attempt.  No rule has been broken in the ToS or US copyright law.  You're club name is not the same.  And even if it were the same, if the other club owner does not hold real life copyright to the name you haven't violated either the ToS or US copyright law.

 

Ignore the threats........they are meritless.

[Lyra Blackthorne]

If in fact the name is copy righted in RL the owner could file a claim with her copy right documentation.  Many who rely on SL as a primary business not just a "game" have copy righted their SL business name and sometimes even names of their key products.  This however is unlikely to get you banned, you would probably get a notice (an SL version of a cease and desist) that you had to change the name of your business...if her copy right was deemed to be infringed on.