Open Letter to X5world/X3world/X6world Members
 

Dear X5world / X3world / X6world community:

Recently, a legal firm representing BMW contacted us and communicated that it is its position that as long as we are operating as a commercial enterprise (defined as a site that offers products for sale or generates revenue via advertising or sponsorships) then we are violating BMW's trademarks for using X3, X5 and X6 in our domain and trade names. While I cannot claim with total honesty that I am in agreement with all of BMW's positions on this matter, the reality is that we at X5world do not have the financial resources available to us to fight this issue. Our monthly site traffic now exceeds 2 terabytes of bandwidth per month, and without our advertisers and sponsors we would be financially unable to continue to operate. To that end, we have come up with a solution that I think keeps the peace and allows this community to continue to thrive and grow.

Soon we will be moving all forum traffic over to a new domain, Xoutpost. xoutpost.com, X3world.com and X6world.com will still exist, but will simply become repositories for the articles and reference material, as they exist today - without any advertising or banner ads (thus making them non-commercial). From a user perspective, the only significant change will be to remember to use Xoutpost.com rather than the entry domain you are now using. And we will have links on the current site in case you need a friendly reminder. ;)

One benefit of this change is that, as we make the move, we will be launching the latest version of vBulletin (3.8.2), which gives our community all of the latest and greatest forum features available on the net.

All member ids and forum posts will be migrated to the new site, and a copy of the old posts will remain on xoutpost.com for archive purposes. Members that are Premier Member status will retain this status.

While I expect the initial reaction to this change may not be 100% positive, in a very short period of time I think that the community will adapt and find that there has been nothing of significance lost, and a lot of positive for the future to be gained.

So please join me in soon welcoming in the new era of Xoutpost.com!!

Sincerely,
Jeff

Wow, sorry to hear that. So you'll be dependent on Premier membership as the sole funding source?

Welcome Xoutpost.com! :thumbup: :thumbup:

No, in addition to Premier Memberships, we will be able to have site sponsors and advertising on xoutpost.com without any issues

Oh, thanks. I misunderstood !ouch:

upgrade :thumbup:

Sorry to hear that - I would have thought that BMW see this site as doing a great service to them. Very disapointing. Makes me fear for the other BMW boards out there - many of which share similar names and policies.

We aren't going anywhere. It's simply an evolution in our journey. ;)

Onward and upward!

BMW should be paying this site for the valuable info it provides when some of it's sorry azz dealers can't. This site has saved a many of BMW fans from going off. With that being said....let's all welcome the change and keep this party going :beerchug: .........Phil