‘We do things differently here in Portland’: Rocca Holly-Nambi, director of b-side, and Cat Wightman, manager of the bnb-side guesthouse. Photograph: Pete Millson View image in fullscreen ‘We do things differently here in Portland’: Rocca Holly-Nambi, director of b-side, and Cat Wightman, manager of the bnb-side guesthouse. Photograph: Pete Millson Airbnb ‘We’re not going to back down’: tiny Portland B&B stands up to Airbnb’s legal bid to ‘monopolise’ letters ‘bnb’ Three little letters - bnb-side’s name is a play on the local b-side arts festival, but Silicon Valley colossus sees threat to global brand
Amelia Hill Mon 14 Sep 2026 07.00 CEST Last modified on Mon 14 Sep 2026 10.13 CEST Share Prefer the Guardian on Google I n one corner is bnb-side, a six-room bed and breakfast on the Isle of Portland – a tiny wedge of limestone tied by a narrow ribbon of shingle to the Dorset coast – that was created to help secure the future of the rock’s much-loved arts festival, b-side.
On the other is Airbnb , the San Francisco-based booking colossus. The battle between them is over the three little letters they share.
View image in fullscreen bnb-side, a six-room B&B on the Isle of Portland, has received legal letters from booking titan Airbnb. Photograph: Pete Millson b-side says the “bnb” in bnb-side means what it has always meant: bed and breakfast. But lawyers for the Silicon Valley titan say the name of the guesthouse, perched on an outcrop just 4 miles long by 1.5 miles wide, threatens the global brand of the $100bn heavyweight.
“We thought the name was both really obvious and really cool,” said Rocca Holly-Nambi, director of b-side. “b-side was founded almost 20 years ago, so when we set up our BnB in 2024 to raise money for the festival, we just popped the ‘bn’ in front because it’s a universally recognised description of what we’re offering.”
Airbnb doesn’t agree. In May, it sent the first of three legal letters to the tiny social enterprise to demand it cease its attempt to register the B&B using the name it had used since it opened its doors.
“They won’t let us compromise by using a different case, an ampersand or an ‘and’,” said Holly-Nambi. “According to Airbnb, we can’t describe our BnB as a BnB at all.”
View image in fullscreen A creative retreat held at bnb-side – the social enterprise was set up in 2024 to raise money for the b-side festival. Photograph: Handout For bnb-side, losing the argument could mean more than abandoning a clever name. It would mean replacing signage and rewriting websites, social media and all other material referencing and advertising the B&B.
“That’s not just a huge waste of money – of which we don’t have much – and of the equally valuable time of our volunteers, but it would throw b-side’s core income stream into chaos,” said Holly-Nambi. “We’d have to painstakingly build our reputation and brand back up from scratch all over again.”
Raina Summerson, chair of b-side, is fuming and incredulous. “We opened bnb-side because we were completely dependent on public funding and wanted to be more financially secure,” she said. “bnb-side now generates almost half the festival’s annual £250,000 turnover. If it loses its name, we risk having to establish it all over again.”
Read more Airbnb has opposed the name on three separate legal grounds: that consumers will confuse the two brands, that bnb-side could benefit from or damage Airbnb’s reputation, and that bnb-side will financially profit by misrepresentin…