Someone on GMF is having problems (re)creating a freecycle group so they can move from Yahoo.  It appears that if the word freecycle is in either the email/name or in the title, it will return a "That address is not valid." error.  I know there are over 50 existing groups with freecycle in the group name, so don't understand what the problem could be.

In addition, another member that has one of those existing groups can't save changes on the settings page that don't involve the title or email address without getting the error.

Thanks,
Duane

On Wed, Oct 21, 2020 at 03:49 PM, Mark Fletcher wrote:

Groups.io has received letters from a law firm apparently representing the Freecycle trademark holder in the UK, stating that a particular group with freecycle in the name is infringing on their trademark.

In the light of the above this 2009 (UK) article may be of passing interest...

Chris

On Wed, Oct 21, 2020 at 09:49 AM, Mark Fletcher wrote:

On Tue, Oct 20, 2020 at 8:12 PM Duane <txpigeon@...> wrote:

In addition, another member that has one of those existing groups can't save changes on the settings page that don't involve the title or email address without getting the error.

That should have been fixed a week or two ago.

This just happened 3 days ago, so there may be a little bug in the logic for an existing group.  They got around it by changing freecycle to phreecycle.

Duane

Some time ago quite a lot of "Freecycle" groups in UK decided they wanted to
break away from the parent organisation. Presumably to avoid such legal issues,
they call themselves "Frregle" instead of "Freecycle". So far as I know (I
cannot guarantee it) the name "Freegle" is not subject to any trademark, so
that may the the way for such groups to go here.

Jim Fisher

Jim,

Where I live, we have both Freecycle and Freegle. Freegle was started in the
uk because some folks didn't agree with some Freecycle policies. e.g. Living
Creatures are not allowed on Freecycle but they are and anything legal is OK
on Freegle.
Whilst Freegle got off to good start it now seems to have withered and
almost died. I believe that both started by using Yahoo groups but now they
have their own dedicated systems. Freecycle is trademarked and groups have
to be properly affiliated and use the Freecycle systems, so I believe it is
correct to refuse to create groups with Freecycle in the name. I suspect
existing groups were migrated from the existing Yahoo groups but I am not
sure why they haven't been migrated to the Freecycle platform.

Given the reasons behind the creating of Freegle I suspect some kind of
internal politics, but I am sure that Freecycle will claim "ownership" of
any group that purports to use part of its name and offer re-cycling
services.....

Dave

On 21 Oct 2020 at 22:11, Dave Wade wrote:

Jim,

Where I live, we have both Freecycle and Freegle. Freegle was started in the uk
because some folks didn't agree with some Freecycle policies. e.g. Living
Creatures are not allowed on Freecycle but they are and anything legal is OK on
Freegle. Whilst Freegle got off to good start it now seems to have withered and
almost died. I believe that both started by using Yahoo groups but now they have
their own dedicated systems. Freecycle is trademarked and groups have to be
properly affiliated and use the Freecycle systems, so I believe it is correct to
refuse to create groups with Freecycle in the name. I suspect existing groups
were migrated from the existing Yahoo groups but I am not sure why they haven't
been migrated to the Freecycle platform.

Not sure of your basis for saying Freegle groups are dwindling. I was moved
semi-automatically to Freegle, using my existing Freecycle login details, when
our local Freegle group started, but found the Freecycle group still remained
active. I find, though, that I still receive about ten times as many messages
from Freegle as I do from Freecycle.

Given the reasons behind the creating of Freegle I suspect some kind of
internal politics, but I am sure that Freecycle will claim "ownership" of
any group that purports to use part of its name and offer re-cycling
services.....

Yes, you're probably right there, but that clearly does not include Freegle. I
would have my doubts about names that sound the same as or similar to
Freecycle, such as Phreecycle that I think someone mentioned.

Jim

am not sure why they haven't been migrated to the Freecycle platform.

Not sure of your basis for saying Freegle groups are dwindling. I was

moved

semi-automatically to Freegle, using my existing Freecycle login details,

when

our local Freegle group started, but found the Freecycle group still

remained

active. I find, though, that I still receive about ten times as many

messages

from Freegle as I do from Freecycle.

I think I was moved automatically as well and initially I got lots on
Freegle, but I can't remember when I last saw a Freegle offer.
I checked and my account is still active, and in Trafford there are three
offers from the last 24 hours. In freecycle its three in the last hour.
However I would expect activity to vary from area to area...

Given the reasons behind the creating of Freegle I suspect some kind
of internal politics, but I am sure that Freecycle will claim
"ownership" of any group that purports to use part of its name and
offer re-cycling services.....

Yes, you're probably right there, but that clearly does not include

Freegle. I

would have my doubts about names that sound the same as or similar to
Freecycle, such as Phreecycle that I think someone mentioned.

I am not a lawyer, but I think in the UK it would be a breach of
trademark...

Jim

On 22 Oct 2020 at 19:56, Dave Wade wrote:

I am not a lawyer, but I think in the UK it would be a breach of
trademark...

Yes, Mark said the complaint he received was about breach of their UK
trademark.