Manawolf

Tons of fairly well-established, and often quite odd names chosen specificallyto be uniquely spelled, have had idiots claiming the usernames on DA. Let em' know, they'll ban the person. Unfortunately, no, you won't be able to claim the username yourself now though.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!

*seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeethe*


*BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITE*

There are only so many Names that sound cool. ^_^

Oh there was someone on there claiming to be Zori, with traced ancient art, but abandoned the account. *rolls eyes*

Ack: You might run into some trouble especially since this guy has been around since 2005: We all definitely know that You are the original, but the danged copyright depts will then challenge you: "Why weren't you actively defending your name then? (yadda)" (HOPEFULLY they would give you "Prior Art" leverage) My boss is Constantly shelling out lawyer monies to send out cease-and-desist letters to people whom end up using his companies name as if its their own creation... And in many cases, there really are people whom are out there who have no Idea of the existance of the other person who had been using the name beforehand, and are naieve enough to not do a search before they start using the name... On the other paw, if you researched this persons blog and find them mentioning something even close to acknowledging that there is someone else out there with a similar name to them, then you can get them for "Knowingly" using a name that someone else already laid claim to... Its truely amazing how many people can unknowingly use an existing name and not know of the other: I for instance started using Stego after the Dinosaucers... but then after doing some searching I found that theres Another "published" Stego on the Net out in India (not to mention the other billion Stegos I found on Aim) ... and thus for my sake I took on the name "Stego S. Aurus" after Cataroo had suggested that Aurus sounds like a dignified last name (The S. is an initial for a real middle name that I like that makes sense to me, and is thus unique). With so many new net enabled people hopping on, Chances are that some little kid out there may have found that splitting a name like that can become a useful way into searching for a "Unique" name and truely come out with the same name, but coming in a different approach at getting to it (People coming up with a precise middle name match to my middle initial would be dang near impossible).

The more people get onto the net, the more we find other people whose end results of their otherwise unique thinking processes produces something that is remarkably similar, if not Identical, to your result. Could the guy have known about your existance before coming up with the name? perhaps, IF he used google... (If he used Yahoo or Lycos, they dont even SUGGEST searching for "manawolf" the combined term)

These days, ANY name that can be found in the dictionary is combinable to form a name, and chances are that someome already has this name... being that new users to the net are still thinking "small local world" mentality, chances are pretty good that they won't think about seeing if the name already exists before using it, as I think is the case with this guy. The only Truely unique names are those names that dont even exist as a thought: such as my brothers name, Vircoo. His name is actually a misspelling of the Virco furniture manufacturing company (http://www.virco.com/)... As he said, "He saw the name on the back of a chair, added an extra o to it, and he liked the resulting sounding name". You do a search for it, and so far he is the only one with the name. Now of course he isnt at all popular, so his name has never really entered the "Mainstream"... however if he became a rockstar or famous artist, you bet that people would want to take on his name from there...

Now of course the next real thing is: Now what? You can definitely trademark a name, but that wont stop people from using it unless you actively persue and protect it, which usually costs money. And sadly, when it comes down to it, those with the $ will ALWAYS win, even if it isnt fair: Look at Robert King (One of the Original fursuiters), and his "Samantha Skunk" suit: Despite the fact that his suit has been around for many years and that it was inspired by a Ken Sample drawing, some schmutz with a Mascotting company actually sent HIM a "cease and Desisit" letter, claiming that they were defending their right to their character, "Samantha the Magenta Skunk"... Being that Robert is just an average person like the rest of us and not wanting to pay no lawyers, he actually had to change the name of his character to Samantha Kemple (Kens full name for the character) and stop referring to her as Samantha Skunk...

I fully understand your frustration with dealing with this, as something like this can feel like someone is robbing you of your uniqueness... And it is difficult to really do anything unless you have a nice wad of $ to back it up. Whatever you do, you'll always be the original "Manawolf" to me!!

Hate to say it, but you've been out of active furry fandom so long, this person may never have heard of you.

Sucks, but I have no idea what you could do about this now except ask the person to stop using your name voluntarily.

-Badger-

I dont know about that IB....

I mean Manawolf sounds like a very original name to me. However it is only original until you find someone else using it. How many other Kat's do you know? Im by far not original myself.

I dont know. "I want you to stop using this logon because people will get us mixed up and I had this name first" doesnt sound like something that the owner of this account would take to heart. In her/his eyes, it isnt thier fault so why should they change it.

That is strange indeed. Perhaps with Warcraft being so popular more people (who already loved wolves) and using the term "mana" for magic? It was bound to happen. Look at all the variations of "ravenwolf" there are now! I thought Tim Johnson was unique.

FYI, WHOIS turns up the following on that domain:

Domain Name.......... manawolf.com
Creation Date........ 2005-11-17
Registration Date.... 2005-11-17
Expiry Date.......... 2006-11-17
Organisation Name.... Krystal Magaraci
Organisation Address. North Hill Parkway
Organisation Address. Suite 907
Organisation Address. Atlanta
Organisation Address. 30341
Organisation Address. GA
Organisation Address. UNITED STATES
Admin Name........... General Councel manawolf com
Admin Address........ North Hill Parkway
Admin Address........ Suite 907
Admin Address........ Atlanta
Admin Address........ 30341
Admin Address........ GA
Admin Address........ UNITED STATES
Admin Email.......... admin@manawolf.com

Have they been trying to impersonate you, or is it just a coincidence? If the latter, I wouldn't worry too much about it. Case in point, I've been informed that there is a person using the name "Giza" on a few other MUCKs. But I've never run into any issues of being confused for them, nor have they tried to impersonate me, so it's really been a non-issue.

i have also run into this person, who by chance was being a bit problematic with complying completely with the contact information clause of FurBid-SF. during our discussions i advised them of you, explaining how long you have been in the fandom and that i have personally known you by both your fan name and your given name for quite a spell.

i gave them a bit of advice, which i should pass on to you. they wanted to make their user contact information using the name mana wolf, instead of their given legal name. they claimed it was their business name.
they were advised by myself to obtain a dba (ficticious business name), which would give them the legal right to use that name and claim it for themselves legally. not as complicated as going full ®, and since most will not take something that far... well you get the point i hope.

i also have to agree with mr corbett there. you have for the most part dropped off the face of the planet for a period of many years now, as far as the fandom is concerned. they have a short memory and are quick to recycle anything they can.

finally, wolf, mana and wings are three of the top ten name fragments in the whole fandom. lucky chris there managed to pull the lot early on and is fairly established in his having the name wolfwings.

Yaknow, since my websites are all still up, I still have accounts and images on archives, and a Google search still returns oodles of references to me, I wouldn't have thought that "dropping off the face of the planet for a period of many years" would make that much of a dent in the legitimacy of my name usage.

With any luck they haven't followed your advice and I will have a chance to file a DBA myself. If otherwise... well, again, I'm not terribly concerned about the burden of proof as my usage of this name is both well-known, prevalent, and verifiable through many channels (date of registration on image archives and LJ, for one thing). It'll just be more of a pain in the tail, that's all.

i doubt they followed the advice. they instead submitted their full legal name.

name dilution almost always defers to the one who has the legal claim over the one with the time claim. the way the courts would look at it in this case is that, though you have been using teh name since 1996, theyu have been using it for a period of many years and you have made no attempt during that time to do anything about it. that is what is often refered to as tacit consent.

i would not worry to much about it. i only felt it was a good idea to inform you of the advice i gave them to make their entry into the FurBid-SF user account registry compliant with policy.

I've had more than a few instances where people no only coppy my name, but use my pictures in thier profiles MY PICTURES!!! X_x (Never thought that would be so infuriating).

*Hires the old lady from Princess Bride to stalk the fake Manawolf with her gnarly finger pointed towards him/her screaming "Liarrr! Liarrr!"

Heeheehee!