How long have you been a fan of GeekDad? If you’ve been reading us for a while, you may remember that prior to April 2013 we lived as a sub-site to Wired.com. We left them at that point because we had some issues with the new contract being offered, and because the friends we had there had moved on for one reason or another. At the time, we did everything we could to get out clean. But it wasn’t enough.

For the last two years, we’ve been in legal wrangling with Wired’s parent company, Condé Nast, over ownership of the GeekDad brand. The details would make for a much longer post, but the short story is that someone high up at CN decided that they owned the GeekDad brand–a decision with which those of us who created GeekDad, and made it what it is, disagreed. It’s been a hard, emotionally-draining two years. There’s been a lot of second-guessing: if we’d done this or that differently or sooner, could we have avoided the mess? But, I’m happy to say, the resolution is nigh.

As of last week, GeekDad LLC and Condé Nast have settled our legal issues. The bottom line is that we are paying Condé Nast to relinquish all claims over the GeekDad brand. It is tough to have to pay for what we believe was ours from the beginning, but it seems to be the cost of business sometimes these days, and while Condé Nast has been firm in their position, they have been reasonable in working together to find a path for the settlement that helps us get back to where we want to be. The price certainly isn’t cheap, but it’s something we feel we have to pay, because GeekDad is incredibly valuable to all of us (and hopefully to you).

To help offset the buyout, you may have noticed more ads and more sponsored posts lately, as well as the crowdfunding. Those are all meant to help pay off this settlement. So, anytime you can use our Amazon store, buy our t-shirts at SlashLoot and ThinkGeek, buy the products in our reviews, click the ads on our website, make a regular pledge to help us out on Patreon, or make a one-time donation via GoFundMe, you are really making a difference. One that we appreciate and allows us to keep GeekDad alive.

The upside is that, eight years into our run, the sun is rising again. We are looking at this time as a new beginning – free from threats of legal action, doing things on our own terms, we’re ready to tackle the future. We continue to be a collective of geeky parents, writing about the things we love in our free time. This is not a full-time gig for any of us and, truth be told, our writers deliver content daily without pay right now. In fact, until we pay off our settlement, all the income we bring in will only be going to legal and administrative costs.

So, whether you’re a new reader or you’ve been with us since the beginning (2007!), thank you for supporting us. Thanks for reading the articles and clicking the links. You’re the reason we write about the books we read with our kids, the toys we test, and the gadgets we try out. You’re the reason we peck away at our keyboards and write GeekDad. Thank you so much!

~Ken Denmead

Publisher, Editor-at-Large, and ‘Grand Nagus’ of GeekDad.com

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