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AOL’s attorneys want to shut down BigBlueBall Smiler (Read the whole story and see a copy of the letter).
Show your support. Post a message to let them know you love and use Smiler by adding your reply here!
Legal advice and moral support also welcome. 😉
Jeff they are shutting my site down not only due to the pictures of the AIM smileys but, also due to the word AIM in my domain name http://www.aimsmileys.com.
I will try and come up with a new web site but, as far as I’m concerned AOL can keep their smileys for their AOL users. It’s no wonder that MSN and Yahoo messengers are gaining a market share.
Small wonder, indeed! I wonder who else they’re going after?
A shame, too. All that Smiler does is show people how to use AIM and insert smileys!
heres an idea make the smiler available for downlaod that way we can still have it even if it does get shut down
I feel the Head Honchos at AOL don’t even know what the Smiler is! They are so SUE happy they have not even taken the time to. If they had they could only realize the Smiler is a Bonus to them! A program that simply incerts their smiley in their messenger so it incourages the use of their messenger, and they didn’t have to spend a cent on making it! I BIGTIME support the SMILER! AOL wake up and smell the Benifits!
Hi Jeff.
I’m not familiar with the rules much with software and internet services, I can only voice those for professional photography, they may be totally invalid.
In Photography a written release needs to signed to be granted permission to usage rights, non-exclusive, or a licensing of an image(s) for a period of time, and the image(s) can be used for non-commercial purposes for no profit gain.
I wish I knew how to help in this field. As I said this might be a totally different ballgame. I hope your attorney can find something for you of benefit. I haven’t used AIM for some years and haven’t been on AOL since last year or so. I wish you luck on this.
RJ
Ok AOL offers their AIM service FREE of charge, but the AOL ISP client is a pay service and I can sorta see that since the smilies are from AOL 8.0, they could be loosing money, but its horrible how GREEDY this world is nowadays. The fact that you can’t even use their logo on anything is bull, heck Jeff, say the smiler is for Trillian and alter the drawings a bit. But will it stop with the smiler? I glanced over the letter, but were they implying that you had to take ALL or the AIM related icons and such down, even the whole forum, God forbid?
“the unauthorized third party display, copy, distribution, or other uses of AOL’s Intellectual Propery is prohibited.”
That is a fairly broad statement. So some high paid AOL lawyer could say just providing the SML font code could be a violation.
If your lawyer says that it isn’t you could still provide the sml font code just don’t display any of the AOL/AIM images. But, still there isn’t anything to say AOL still won’t take someone to court just to drive them bankrupt.
could it be that AOL doesnt want smilier because it wants to charge for something like it? ($1.95/mo or $9.95/year) http://expressions.aol.com/
pretty laim if you ask me.
Jeff can you keep us posted on what your lawyer’s advice has been?
I’ll keep you all posted. I won’t be able to talk to my attorney until tomorrow (Tuesday). Frankly, the whole thing seems silly to me. The codes work, by the design of AIM. I can type them in and there’s nothing about that that breaks their terms of service. I can share them on my website and again, there’s nothing (as far as I can tell) that breaks their terms of service.
Where the problem lies appears to be with the fact that I’ve shown (for illustrative purposes only), images of what the smileys will look like when they’re inserted. They are not downloadable. They do not work in the same way as their Expressions subscription service. They simply make it easy for users to insert the smiley codes.
I came looking for smilies because I couldn’t use them with my aim. I pay for an aol account to use their stuff, and the smilies that they off with 8.0. I even emailed them asking on why me being a paying customer can’t use smilies on aim with my paid account name. They can take email away from non paying users who use aim…so why can’t they make it so paying users can use the smilies. Well they never answered me…so I found this site…and I love it. I shouldn’t have to be on aol or paying for a service I can’t use all the time. I use the smilies from here all the time…and half the time people ask me where I got all those neat smilies…and I tell them. I think Aol just got bored…and they needed someone to pick on…I don’t for one see a big issue out of this. Your letting me use a service that I pay for that aol won’t even let me use…so why not…You Go Jeff!!
more power to your elbow jeff. I find that bigblue is the coolest site on the web especially for finding something I know already know about chat progs. Infact the first time I knew you were here was when I was looking for smilies
I’ve even told all my friends about his wonderful site
keep up the good work!
I just looked at my profile to see when I actually joined…..my what a difference a year (and 8 days) makes 😎
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