MINI Torque - no more?

[AndyP & Lenore]

Anyone else noticed MINI Torque appears to have fallen foul of the US law?:confused:

MINI Torque (http://www.minitorque.co.uk)

Hmmmm. Fomsport (http://www.fomsport.co.uk)are the same.

A.

[Gismo]

Never go there, hmm, all seems a bit weird, we had a good few folks from there joining very recently, including the top brass, though i doubt our family orientated approach and apparent lack of respect to wheel gap would be their cup of tea.
Heard rumblings and had a look on TM and a couple other sites today, all speculating about what's wrong, all links seem to pull up the FBI page.
Either a clever stunt or serious trouble, if the latter i hope they get it resolved quickly

Perhaps our resident posters over there can comment???

[Forbes]

http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/funny-pictures-cat-is-innocent.jpg

[RyanK]

Yup as with Ben, I don't know anything about whats going on.

As someone on Total Mini pointed out though, if you right click and 'copy image url'...you see that the image is actually hosted by Mini Torque themselves. Don't think this confirms that it's a publicity stunt brought on by themselves, if it is though it's a weak attempt at it.

I've got a feeling it is all genuine though

[Gismo]

Having searched for that image, any other site that has allegedly been seized also stores the image on the root domain and is not a redirect

[RyanK]

Ah, just seems strange as the website for Fomsport also has the image filed under a link from Mini Torque

[AndyP & Lenore]

Is Fomsport still trading though? Does it not just redirect to MT anyway? Could be completely wrong.

A.

[RyanK]

As far as im aware the doors are closed, stopped trading. Don't want to say too much though as I know far from alot. As you say its probably the old site in which redirected to the forum

[Stewart]

Funnily enough I never pop in there but did last night looking at the Wheels and Tyres section and reading what people thought of a few different tyres. Even put up with the two guys getting there brand new Ferrari 548 I think it was, but hey they love the Mini's so there ok by me :thumbs up:

Looked a very busy site with international posters.

http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofile-ak-snc4/hs641.snc3/27341_1363604444_2506_q.jpg (http://www.facebook.com/MiniTorque?ref=mf)
Mini Torque (http://www.facebook.com/MiniTorque)Due to legal reasons, we cannot comment in detail the current goings on with Mini Torque. We are working with one of the best legal teams in the UK to get this sorted. Team MT.


Edit just looked I think I was in Total Mini......I was in.


off facebook

[Scottie]

I don't have a clue what is going on with mini torque, however I can tell you for a 100% that BMW have and currently are going after sites that have the word BMW or X5 or X3 or M3 etc etc etc in their title or URL if you look around you will see that a few of the BMW forums have been caught up with and changed their details. Could it be possible MINI are now starting to do the same.

[AndyP & Lenore]

I don't have a clue what is going on with mini torque, however I can tell you for a 100% that BMW have and currently are going after sites that have the word BMW or X5 or X3 or M3 etc etc etc in their title or URL if you look around you will see that a few of the BMW forums have been caught up with and changed their details. Could it be possible MINI are now starting to do the same.

I think if that was the reason for MINI Torque being taken down, it wouldn't have involved the US FBI and Customs, it would have been handled by UK copyright lawyers acting for MINI.

Let's hope that's NOT what it is, or the NMS name could be in jeopardy. :idunno:

Has X5 Drivers been a casualty of this? Just had a look and the .co.uk address goes to a commercial page and the .com page goes to a "Board unavailable" message.:frown:

A.

[Scottie]

x5drivers is now xdrivers change of owners and it was thought after what happened to take the x5 out of the name. I have enquired else where to see if that message is genuine

[Scottie]

could it all be related to this article?

Seizure stories at Techdirt. (http://www.techdirt.com/blog.php?tag=seizure&edition=techdirt)

maybe not...that art seems to point to file sharing sites.
Maybe the Mini Torque site had some funny stuff going on.

There are pages of articles on the zealous maybe overzealous
seizure of sites by FBI, ICE, et al some couched in "Homeland
Security"

[Gismo]

I'm struggling to understand that the word mini could be set aside as a trade mark name or such.
The word itself is in general use every day, BMW would have to come up with something very crafty to remove it from the dictionary.
However, i guess when it's used in conjunction with a lot of other words to describe their model then i guess with the law as stoopid as it is it just might work for them.

Time will tell

[Stewart]

Strange thing to do, if I was BMW I’d be delighted about fan sites for there brands. Why did I after all buy my Mini well I got sucked into reading about members cars etc and NMS worked better than any salesman could ever do.

[Burple]

I just clicked your link Andy... catching up on some old posts.. Minitorque seems to be alive and kicking now? :idunno::confused:

[Bazthemod]

Yeah it was a hoax to launch their rebrand.

[Forbes]

Worked rather well if I'm being honest. Got coverage on all the other MINI forums including International ones.

[AndyP & Lenore]

Worked rather well if I'm being honest. Got coverage on all the other MINI forums including International ones.

I'd have to agree. As a marketing gimmick it worked very well.

It's just a shame so many of the MT members, having been deprived of their local home, decided to behave the same way on family friendly forums like Total MINI as they do on MT, then be congratulated when they returned to MT on their poor behaviour whilst on other boards. I wouldn't have thought it was something to be proud of, but I'm just not wired that way. Hey-ho.:confused:

A.