Odeon.com - AMC

[Mattt]

How do AMC get away with diverting Odeon.com to their site? Surely that is illegal - some kind of 'ePassing off'?

[rpguk]

'Cybersquatting' would cover it but the Odeon would have to take AMC to court. I think (but not sure) that they'd have to do it through the defendants legal system (in this case the US) which would make it very expensive.

Even then they probably wouldn't have a case, Webster's defines 'odeon' as;

"A kind of theater in ancient Greece, smaller than the dramatic theater and roofed over, in which poets and musicians submitted their works to the approval of the public, and contended for prizes; -- hence, in modern usage, the name of a hall for musical or dramatic performances."

While the cinema chain trades under the name odeon, it's also a generic term and as such not offered the same protection as a madeup term.