Mycoke.co.za all fizzed out

MyCoke.co.za a website that was launched in 2008, apparently in support of Coke Fest 2008, have been forced to close down. Coca Cola are pulling in their lawyers.

Jason say’s

“I started this blog along with a mate of mine in the beginning of 2007. All we wanted to do was blog about the event, the bands, put up all the info pertaining to the Coke Fest and anything we thought would be of interest. After all, we weren’t here to steal,domain squat or rant – just provide a place for you guys to comment on and read up on the latest goings on with regards to the Coke Fest.”

So the question is, is this a case of Big-Corp not understanding social media and punishing their fans or a case of a domain squatter who spotted the opportunity to earn some extra adsense $?

An anonymous comment on the post

Imagine for one minute that you were the brand guardian for a multi billion rand company like Coke, and some little blogger came along, stole your brand’s visual assets, set up a website and blogged about things relating to it.

Now, that person didn’t even make it clear to the casual visitor that it wasn’t an official Coke website, and to rub salt in the wounds he put ads on the website to make money… off someone else’s brand! Thats commonly known as brand hijacking!

What do you think?

The commenter, does make a valid point, on my initial impressions of the site was that it was an official ‘coke’ site, no mention of this is made that this is an ‘unofficial fansite’ or a disclaimer on the site. As is typical of fan sites, they often add in a disclaimer that the site is actually unofficial.

A perfect example of this is the Lostpedia wiki, a fan site for the TV series Lost. Which has the following disclaimer

“This fansite is NOT in any way, shape, or form affiliated with ABC, Bad Robot Productions or Disney.
All trademarks and copyrights belong to their respective owners, and are used here under the terms of Fair Use.
LOST is a trademark of Disney“

MyCoke.co.za features AD’s thereby profiting on someone elses brand, say what you will but by not making it clear that the site is unofficial and is no way related to the company is called Brand Jacking/Domain squatting. I think the issue could have been avoided if a simple disclaimer was included or title tags stating that the site was unofficial.

I also believe that Coca Cola could have handled this issue a bit better, rather then a slap on the wrist a better option would have been to engage with Jason and the community that has built up around the site.

* Update: There’s a post by ross over at Techleader that also covers this issue.

** Update: Mark has the full response from Coca Cola on the issue.

From the statement:

Large portions of The Coca-Cola Company’s official MY COKE FEST 2008 website had also been copied and reproduced on Mr Bagley’s website in contravention of copyright legislation.

The images, wording, statements and domain name used for mycoke.co.za created the impression that the website was official and/or authorized by The Coca-Cola Company. However, this is not the case as there is no relationship between Mr Bagley and The Coca-Cola Company. The Coca-Cola Company had not supplied or authorized the content of the website although visitors to the website were being led to believe that this was the official MY COKE FEST website.

At that time, the unauthorized website contained a number of sponsored advertisements which were generating revenue for Mr Bagley.

..

On 18 December 2008, Mr Bagley sent a further e-mail to Adams & Adams advising that the website had built up a large following and enquiring about the possibility of entering into an arrangement with The Coca-Cola Company to leverage the marketing value of the blog. He also advised that he had taken down the advertising from the website.

In view of the fact that Mr Bagley’s conduct in using The Coca-Cola Company’s intellectual property without its authority was unlawful, the Company felt that it was neither obliged to, nor willing to, enter into any discussions with Mr Bagley which would involve paying him any amount of money or taking over the website.

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