The title is a bit misleading. Tumblr took away a subdomain on their own domain.
Blog post complaining = come to expect
Calling up lawyers = have right to
Not really. See this:
Keep in mind that the word “pitchfork” is not a
proprietary name, it is a noun dating back to the
year 1364, so they had no legal right to the word
or the subdomain.*
He also goes on about other 'rights' that he doesn't have. See:
Sadly, I apparently no longer control this image or
this information, nor can I exercise my right to remove
it from the Internet.
i think his point is that they aren't legally entitled to hijack the subdomain name. there was no infringement or impersonation or anything happening. tumblr wasn't put under the legal thumbscrews on this, they coughed it up willingly when asked. that is not a customer-friendly move, and so he is angry about it.
FWIW this is poor reasoning. Whether a word is a noun, in common usage or of great age is not relevant to it's use as a trademark. A trademark has to be distinctive when used to indicate the origin of a specific category goods/services - pitchfork is distinctive in the field of music (I'm not sure which NICE class that would be) and indeed in most fields except farming AFAIK without specific research.
The only way to determine if Pitchfork has a legal right to prevent others using this subdomain commercially one must inspect the TM records in the appropriate [geographical] domain. Pitchfork certainly can't demand to use the subdomain but they could prevent its commercial use.
I expect this was well within the T&C of Tumblr.
And because he got there first probably less.
http://tumbledore.tumblr.com/post/393030100/tumblr-stole-my-...