Dear Stitchers 'n Bitchers:

It has come to my attention that the moderators of a number of Stitch 'n Bitch groups who host their mailing lists using Yahoo Groups' free mailing list services have received notices from Yahoo advising them that they must delete the wording STITCH N BITCH from their Yahoo!Group URL and any references to STITCH N BITCH in the GROUP itself. This notice is a result of a objection filed by Sew Fast Sew Easy Inc., a New York company, who is claiming rights to this wording.

A number of you have been emailing me asking what to do. I have spoken about this matter with my attorneys. First of all, please realize that you are not being asked in this notice to change the name of your actual knitting group, just the group designation you use on the Yahoo group and Yahoo URL, if you want to keep using their free email services. Unfortunately, there is no immediate recourse with Yahoo other than to make the change at this time. They require this as soon as anybody makes any kind of claim--they do  not evaluate the merits of the claim. This being the case, one idea is to simply change any references to STITCH n BITCH in your Yahoo Group name to some alternative such as SNB (i.e, StitchnBitch-NYC would become SNB-NYC. Easier to type, too!) Your group moderator can easily make this change via the Yahoogroups control panel.

I know how much we value these lists as a way to communicate with our groups, and I think we should all try to avoid the possible loss of our group lists if Yahoo proceeds with a shut down. Also, I'd like you to remind you that the group moderator can export the members list at any time (just go to "members" then "export"), and save it somewhere special.

Finally, if you decide to change your Yahoo Groups name or move your list, please be sure to have some one from your group let Brenda know so she can change it on www.stitchnbitch.org.

Thanks!

Debbie Stoller
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http://www.knithappens.com