We are writing this with very sadness that this will be the last post published on our blog. Sony Mobile Communications AB have raised a formal complaint about using their trademarked name “XPERIA” in our domain name “XperiaGuide.com” and wants us to discontinue the use of XperiaGuide.com immediately.
Sony Mobile is the copyright owner of all the images of the phones and the themes ( leaked by the users around the net and republished on our site ) published on out site as mentioned by them in the notice sent to us. We felt very disappointed after seeing the complaint from Sony Mobile Communications AB. We have spent so much of our free time in writing the content and promoting the brand “Xperia” on web. We have been helping Xperia users since we started this blog. We never had any bad intentions to defame their brand name, what we posted was unbiased content.
We always mentioned the source of the content from wherever the content has come from. We respect copyrights of every organization very sincerely and have never done anything wrong to infringe any IP rights of any organization in any manner.
Xperia Guide has been Quoted directly on reputed tech websites around the world like “GsmArena ( 1 , 2, 3, 4 ), IBTimes ( 1, 2, 3, 4 ), GottaBeMobile, PhoneArena ( 1, 2, 3, 4 ), SoftPedia ( 1, 2, 3, 4 ), NDTV ( 1, 2, 3, 4 ) , AndroidPolice, XperiaBlog ( 1, 2, 3 ), PhonesReview ( 1, 2, 3, 4 ), Engadget ( 1, 2 ), AndroidCommunity ( 1, 2 ), YugaTech, PhonAndroid( 1, 2 ), Yahoo News, UnWiredView, TheVerge, UberGizmo, ThinkDigit, PocketNow, TechTimes, Tech2, AndroidAuthority. ~ List is big we can’t name everyone here…
OFFICIAL Sony Xperia Middle East Twitter account (@SonyXperiaME ) and “Ionut Arghire”, News Editor for Softpedia ( @IonutArghire ) is following Xperia Guide on Twitter .
Recently a press invite by Sony India PR team was sent to us for the launch event of Xperia Z2 in India, New Delhi on 8 May which we felt as an appreciation for our work. We never expected Sony Mobile Communications AB to come up with such decision for a blog which is started only with one vision of helping and growing Xperia community into a bigger one.
We will not be able to fight against the claims made by Sony Mobile Communications AB because of lack of resources therefore our team has decided not to post anymore content on this blog from now until the case is resolved in full terms and we will transfer the domain name to Sony Mobile Communications AB, remove the content if asked to do so and discontinue the use of gizmobolt.com in any manner.
We thank to every reader of this blog to help us grow into a large community of 16K likers on Facebook and 2K followers on Twitter. At last we would like to say we will continue posting and helping Xperia users and community on our new startup GizmoBolt.com with the same dedication and passion. We are expecting every reader on our new blog soon. We need support from Xperia users community regarding the actions taken against us. Please support us every Sony Xperia users in good faith if we have ever helped you.
We wish Sony Mobile Communications a very good financial BY 2014 ahead and we hope they will continue bringing some more good smartphones in Xperia lineup. Though we never did any thing bad to Sony’s trademark “XPERIA” still we would like to apologies to Sony Mobile Communications AB on behalf of our whole team.
Thank You.
Regards,
Anurag Kumar & Ashish Kumar
View Comments (68)
Very disappointing!! OMG. This is not justice.
Anurag you will post xperias info and frimware on https://www.gizmobolt.com?
Yes we have started the transfer process now, we will try to make it live very soon within a week hopefully.
That's very sad news :(
:'(
Why??? We still need this website... So sad Sony do this
Sony you don't want us to stop buying your products. Do you?.
Gutted to see this go as it was a source of great info when it came to the decision between sticking to my iPhone or swapping for an Xperia device! Sad that some companies don't see the value in the 'little' guys who support them! Perhaps you guys should ask Sony for a job in their marketing and services dept!
Thanks for your kind words Richard but I guess Sony fails to see that other way around :(
I've been a regular reader in this blog, this is a sad news for every single reader.
I think you're doing to transfer these contents to new domain w/o using the brand name in it, if Sony mobiles AB has no issues writing contents about their phones.
Hope you continue your service soon.
Hi,
Yes exactly that we are doing, transferring the content on our new startup http://GizmoBolt.com w/o any brand name in it. Sony had issues only with Trademark not with content published.
Regards.
not true. if they don't want blogs to use "xperia" in their domain, then why do we have xperiablog.net which is very much alive and kicking? if i got it right, the admin of that xperia blog also had issues with sony mobile way back when it was just starting out. but i think he and sony mobile reached an agreement on the use of the "xperia" copyright in its domain, which resulted in the blog explicitly stating that it was not related to sony mobile whatsoever and that it is an independent and unofficial sony xperia blog site. you might want to reach out to the admin of that blog.
They were shut down for 3 months before they reached an agreement with Sony.
We have written to Sony regarding this, if they agrees on giving us rights to do so, we will continue...otherwise we will shift whole content on other domain...
I have to say, no doubt that you have helped all the Xperia phone owners around the globe.Such a pity that Sony itself asked to discontinue this.I find that very unpleasant from Sony. Anyway I wish you good luck in your new website,may it be even better than XperiGuide.
XDA RT,
Omessy7
Dear Omar,
It's nice to hear those words :)
We will soon be done with the transfer and hope to set up the new blog soon with all OLD posts back soon in place, it would be a hard work but if all the posted content went away many Xperia users will fall in trouble.
Regards,
Anurag
oh bad. I think many users of Xperia have been helped a lot by this blog which SonyCommunication didn't provide to us.