policies/trademark-policy.md

Sideway Policies and Guidelines

# Sideway Trademark Policy

Effective: September 17, 2016

People discuss many kinds of topics on Sideway. Sometimes they reference companies or products.
Sometimes they promote brands and products. All fine by us. What Sideway doesn't allow is using
someone else's trademark in a way likely to confuse people.

# What is a trademark?

A trademark can be lots of things, but usually it's a word, phrase or design (like a company name,
a product name, a slogan, or a logo). It shows you that this good or service comes from one company
as opposed to some other company.

Trademarks exist to prevent consumer confusion over the source of a particular good or service.
They also stop one company from free-riding on another company's investment in branding. By
contrast, they do not exist to help a company stop someone from discussing it (or its products)
or to end secondary markets.

People may use your trademarks under certain conditions where they are not likely to confuse anyone
about the source of a good or service, such as nominative fair use. This is when someone uses a
trademark to refer to a company or brand, not to indicate it is the source of a good or service.
For example, if someone writes a story about Company X and in that story uses the phrase "Company X"
to refer to "Company X," that is probably fair use, even if "Company X" is your trademark. People
are allowed to use your company or product name to write things (even negative things) about your
company, product, or brand, as long as they are not confusing anyone about whether you authorized
or endorse the post.

# Someone is using my trademark on Sideway. What do I do?

If you think someone's using your trademark in a way that's likely to confuse readers, let us know.
We'll look into it and take the appropriate action. This might include temporarily or permanently
removing a post or account.

If you think someone is infringing your trademark, send the following information to
[support@sideway.com](mailto:support@sideway.com):

1. Your contact information:
	- Name
	- Mailing address
	- Email address
	- Phone number
2. The trademarked word or symbol.
3. The trademark registration number and country where you claim trademark rights.
4. The category of goods and/or services in which you assert rights.
5. A link to the content on Sideway that you think infringes.
6. A description of how particular content may create confusion. The more concrete, the better.
7. The action you request (e.g., removal of a particular post).
8. If you're not the rights holder, describe your relationship to the rights holder.
9. A statement that:
	- You have a good faith belief that use of the trademark is not authorized by the trademark owner.
	- You have determined in good faith after a reasoned analysis that the use of the trademark is not fair use.
	- The information in your notice is accurate.

Please note - we forward a trademark notice to the user who posted the disputed content. This might
include your contact information, the name of your organization, and the contents of your notice.
To protect your privacy, you may want to provide business rather than personal contact information.

## Changes to this Policy

We can change these Terms at any time. We keep a historical record of all changes to our Terms on
[GitHub](https://github.com/sideway/policies). If a change is material, we'll notify you on the Sideway
site before it take effect. By using Sideway on or after that effective date, you agree to the new Terms.
If you don't agree to them, you should delete your account before they take effect, otherwise your use of
the site and content will be subject to the new Terms.

## Questions

We welcome questions, concerns, and feedback about this policy at [support@sideway.com](mailto:support@sideway.com).