Slashdot Mirror

Malfourmed writes "Reuters reports that the estate of J.R.R. Tolkien won a cybersquatting case against Alberta Hot Rods, a Canadian-based operator which registered jrrtolkien.com and linked it to its commercial celebrity Web site. The group - which has already lost domain name cases brought by actors Pierce Brosnan and Pamela Anderson, and author Michael Crichton - was found to have no legitimate rights, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) said in a ruling."

Over_and_Done writes "First Monday has an article up discussing the differences in information process patents between the US and Europe. The author mentions that the United States reform is too focused on process reform, arguing that they should be instead focusing on what is and is not patentable (i.e. Business Method patents). He also states that Europe is choosing to instead follow a different track, and make the process a little more restrictive, resulting in a rift between the US and Europe. The article raises a lot of interesting facts that I was not aware of, including the incident where the US threatened to walk out of the WIPO meeting because the proposed treaty did not 'mandate patents for all fields of activity.' The author, although critical of the policies on both sides of the pond states that the rift is in some ways healthy, as it encourages an open debate and requires people to look at the patent issue from many different angles."

Over_and_Done writes "First Monday has an article up discussing the differences in information process patents between the US and Europe. The author mentions that the United States reform is too focused on process reform, arguing that they should be instead focusing on what is and is not patentable (i.e. Business Method patents). He also states that Europe is choosing to instead follow a different track, and make the process a little more restrictive, resulting in a rift between the US and Europe. The article raises a lot of interesting facts that I was not aware of, including the incident where the US threatened to walk out of the WIPO meeting because the proposed treaty did not 'mandate patents for all fields of activity.' The author, although critical of the policies on both sides of the pond states that the rift is in some ways healthy, as it encourages an open debate and requires people to look at the patent issue from many different angles."

chrestomanci writes "The Register is reporting on the results of a counter-essay contest run by wipout.net (an international organisation that seeks to limit the reach of the WIPO and intellectual property rights in general) against the WIPO's own essay contest, both with the title "What does intellectual property mean to you in your daily life?". A telling slogan reads: Today, the WTO pulled the trigger on another 2.500 poor AIDS victims."

chrestomanci writes "The Register is reporting on the results of a counter-essay contest run by wipout.net (an international organisation that seeks to limit the reach of the WIPO and intellectual property rights in general) against the WIPO's own essay contest, both with the title "What does intellectual property mean to you in your daily life?". A telling slogan reads: Today, the WTO pulled the trigger on another 2.500 poor AIDS victims."

Guinnessy writes: "The Financial Times has a short story on a global copyright treaty that comes into force today, despite controversy over whether it will help or hinder creativity on the internet. You can find an actual copy of the treaty at the World Intellectual Property Organisation."

Guinnessy writes: "The Financial Times has a short story on a global copyright treaty that comes into force today, despite controversy over whether it will help or hinder creativity on the internet. You can find an actual copy of the treaty at the World Intellectual Property Organisation."

ebresie writes: "According to an article in Info World, the World Intellectual Property Organization indicates that the WIPO Copyright Treaty is scheduled to go into effect in March of 2002. The treaty "is designed to protect the rights of composers, artists, writers, and others whose work is distributed over the Internet or other digital media." It also makes reference of the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty which "specifically protects the digital-media rights of producers and performers of sound recordings"." This is not a "new" treaty; rather it's the old one, which says much the same thing as the DMCA and was used to justify the passage of the DMCA. Now the same provisions will be in effect across many countries.

ebresie writes: "According to an article in Info World, the World Intellectual Property Organization indicates that the WIPO Copyright Treaty is scheduled to go into effect in March of 2002. The treaty "is designed to protect the rights of composers, artists, writers, and others whose work is distributed over the Internet or other digital media." It also makes reference of the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty which "specifically protects the digital-media rights of producers and performers of sound recordings"." This is not a "new" treaty; rather it's the old one, which says much the same thing as the DMCA and was used to justify the passage of the DMCA. Now the same provisions will be in effect across many countries.

ebresie writes: "According to an article in Info World, the World Intellectual Property Organization indicates that the WIPO Copyright Treaty is scheduled to go into effect in March of 2002. The treaty "is designed to protect the rights of composers, artists, writers, and others whose work is distributed over the Internet or other digital media." It also makes reference of the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty which "specifically protects the digital-media rights of producers and performers of sound recordings"." This is not a "new" treaty; rather it's the old one, which says much the same thing as the DMCA and was used to justify the passage of the DMCA. Now the same provisions will be in effect across many countries.

Scott Robinson writes: "WIPO has released their Interim Report of the Second WIPO Internet Domain Name Process. More importantly, they have requested for comments on this report. Read, respond, be a good netizen." Michael mentioned the report's release in this story as well. Unfortunately, WIPO doesn't make it available as either html or plain text; your options are Word and pdf -- but it's worth downloading, to see how WIPO justifies its role in determining (among other things) which common words, pharmaceutical identifiers and geographically-linked terms the ordinary domain registrant is allowed to use. The comment period ends June 8th.

If you remember our Guiness Beer Really Sucks story, you'll recall that WIPO's rule has been "no sucks domains." There's a three-part test and if you pass any of the parts you're in the clear, but one of the silly gotchas about test number three is that Xsucks.com has repeatedly been ruled "identical or confusingly similar" to trademarkX. This makes no sense, of course. But the strange thing is that WIPO on Monday reversed itself. In one of the rare decisions awarded to the domain holder, the arbitration panel said that the owner of LockheedMartinSucks.com could keep his domain, because it was not confusingly similar to LockheedMartin.com. Um. What?

I have a problem with the whole notion of taking domains away to begin with. The only tune that corporate, capitalist American can sing is "the free market" -- except when it comes to the free market in domain names.

Real estate speculation? Great, it optimizes efficiency. Currency market speculation? Balances resources internationally and assures prosperity. But domain name speculation? You filthy cybersquatter!

Personally I could see this being useful in 1995, when companies were just waking up to the internet, but I think it's run its course. Any company in 2001 that hasn't registered its corporate name, and all its major products' names before making them public, is stupid and deserves to pay large sums of money to savvy entrepreneurs. In 2001, we're just seeing natural selection running its course. Bailing out stupidity is corporate welfare.

Anyway, the big picture is that the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), in adjudicating the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Protocol (UDRP), is trying to find a way to apply trademark law to the internet. The rules put in place ensured that there was to be no free market on "LockheedMartin.com" -- the company that owns the trademark on "LOCKHEED MARTIN" gets it, and others are only allowed to have it if they are doing something appropriate with it (not using it in "bad faith," to be precise).

WIPO makes its decisions based on the UDRP, but has a wide latitude in interpreting it. This is one of its problems, of course. The UDRP has a handful of fuzzy two-word clauses like "bad faith" and "legitimate interests"; WIPO's panelists can interpret them almost any way they want. Consistency is a prerequisite of justice, and randomly-administered justice is no justice at all.

But Monday, the two fuzzy words were "confusingly similar," namely, whether LockheedMartinSucks.com is confusingly similar to LockheedMartin.com. The decisions came down, and they may be the most startling display of WIPO's arbitrary arbitration.

As the decision states, Lockheed-Martin "relie[d] primarily on previous ICANN decisions that have found domain names that combine a trademark with the word 'sucks' to be confusingly similar to the trademark."

Lockheed probably thought it was on safe ground by doing so. The list of domains taken away for that reason was long: guinness-sucks.com, guinness-really-sucks.com, etc., wal-martsucks.com, cabelassucks.com, directlinesucks.com, dixonssucks.com, freeservesucks.com, natwestsucks.com, standardcharteredsucks.com, and wal-martcanadasucks.com, etc.

But Monday's decision, for once, told the truth:

"The disputed domain names are neither identical nor confusingly similar to Complainant's trademarks, since no one would reasonably believe that Complainant operates a website that appends the word 'sucks' to its name and then uses it to criticize corporate America."

What took Captain Obvious so long to arrive?

The decision also notes that in the WalmartCanadaSucks.com decision, the only other case where the trademark-holder was told to take a hike, the sole panelist "expressed skepticism" about the confusing similarity of sucks, "but stopped just short of advocating a per se privilege exempting all 'sucks' domain names."

Likewise here; they make it clear that "no one could reasonably believe" sucks is confusing. And more interestingly -- they do not bother even to consider the other two parts of the three-part test. As soon as they decided that LockheedSucks was not Lockheed, that was it, the case was over.

But, unfortunately, I don't see any language that encourages future panelists to reach the same decision. This is an international body and they don't have to follow the almost-uniquely-American tradition of following precedent and being, you know, predictable. The next ten sucks sites might be taken away, for all anyone can tell. Or they might not. Sucks-sters will just have to hope they get the right panelist.

There were some good lines in this decision, by the way, that tell me that the panelists know what's what. "A website that functions for the exercise of free speech by its nature can not operate with bad faith intent." I like that. Kudos to panelists Foster and Sorkin.

And shame on panelist Wagoner, who was the dissenting voice.

Wagoner was embarrassingly honest in his outrage that the UDRP was being followed, for once. The implication of the majority decision, he complained, is that "the lack of 'confusing similarity' would prevent a finding that the Policy had been violated."

Well, yes: that's exactly how the Policy demands that WIPO rule. When your personal beliefs about what the UDRP should say, Mr. Wagoner, differ from what it actually does say, we'd hope you can figure out which to follow.

And among his reasons why "sucks" should be swallowed up by corporate America is that consumer eyeballs belong to corporate America. If you the consumer do a search for Lockheed, happen to notice that someone is criticizing it at a sucks domain, and then of your own free will and volition decide you want to click and see what the criticism is all about, your reckless websurfing has made you party to a filching of Lockheed's intellectual property:

"...it is likely (given the relative ease by which websites can be entered) that such users will choose to visit the sites, if only to satisfy their curiosity. Respondent will have accomplished his objective of diverting potential customers of Complainant to his websites by the use of domain names that are similar to Complainant's trademark."

The other two panelists smacked down that insipid argument explicitly, too, by the way, saying that once the searcher sees the sucks and nonsucks alternatives, he or she will exhibit a discernment and intelligence measurably higher than the average garden slug.

Someone needs to ask WIPO: what the hell is going on?

Trademark law (in the United States at least) exists for the citizen's protection, not the corporation's. The laws against dilution of trademarks exist so that you and I will not be confused. When the law, or in this case the arbitration rules, start to protect corporations' trademark interests over ours, something has gone wrong.

And domain names are the real estate of the internet. Obviously a sucks domain name is parody, and will not be confused with its target -- obviously. People who would criticize corporations have enough problems to worry about already with libel suits they can't afford to defend (win or lose). The last thing they need is a governing body that can take away their website on absurd charges of trademark violation.

And the second-to-last thing they need is a governing body that can't make up its damn mind.

Snocone asks: "It seems lately that a whole lot of the discussion on Slashdot centers around copyright law. Napster, DeCSS, the GPL; in all of these discussions the fundamental power over which there is a struggle derives from the law of copyright. And in all these cases, the fundamental existence of copyright is hardly ever questioned. However, copyright is not a law of nature. Such force as it has is a product of international treaty, specifically the Berne Convention and related treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization. And there are nations which are not signatories to the Berne Convention; a complete list of contracting parties can be found here. Note that as of July 19, 2000, there were only 146 signatories. Just to pick a few A's, Afghanistan, Andorra, and Angola are not included. What, exactly, would the RIAA be able to do about it if Napster had been bright enough to set up its servers at napster.ao in Luanda? What would Microsoft be able to do about ftp.freewindows.af in Kabul?"

"Now, think about what this means. These countries have no protection for intellectual property, at least not for any not produced and/or registered within their borders. That means you can freely appropriate music, DVDs, commercial software, GPL'd code -- anything available is public domain, as we understand the term. This used to be of only marginal interest since the infrastructure for entrepreneurial types to capitalize on this lack of protection wasn't available, but the growing use of the Internet makes this lack of universal copyright applicability a bit more interesting.

Sooner or later, these outlying regions are going to have significant Internet connectivity. Will they all bring their intellectual property protection standards into line with the 146 Berne nations ... or not? And if not, what exactly, will happen then? Is intellectual property protection important enough to cause diplomatic isolation? Trade wars? Real war?"

Snocone asks: "It seems lately that a whole lot of the discussion on Slashdot centers around copyright law. Napster, DeCSS, the GPL; in all of these discussions the fundamental power over which there is a struggle derives from the law of copyright. And in all these cases, the fundamental existence of copyright is hardly ever questioned. However, copyright is not a law of nature. Such force as it has is a product of international treaty, specifically the Berne Convention and related treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization. And there are nations which are not signatories to the Berne Convention; a complete list of contracting parties can be found here. Note that as of July 19, 2000, there were only 146 signatories. Just to pick a few A's, Afghanistan, Andorra, and Angola are not included. What, exactly, would the RIAA be able to do about it if Napster had been bright enough to set up its servers at napster.ao in Luanda? What would Microsoft be able to do about ftp.freewindows.af in Kabul?"

"Now, think about what this means. These countries have no protection for intellectual property, at least not for any not produced and/or registered within their borders. That means you can freely appropriate music, DVDs, commercial software, GPL'd code -- anything available is public domain, as we understand the term. This used to be of only marginal interest since the infrastructure for entrepreneurial types to capitalize on this lack of protection wasn't available, but the growing use of the Internet makes this lack of universal copyright applicability a bit more interesting.

Sooner or later, these outlying regions are going to have significant Internet connectivity. Will they all bring their intellectual property protection standards into line with the 146 Berne nations ... or not? And if not, what exactly, will happen then? Is intellectual property protection important enough to cause diplomatic isolation? Trade wars? Real war?"

Snocone asks: "It seems lately that a whole lot of the discussion on Slashdot centers around copyright law. Napster, DeCSS, the GPL; in all of these discussions the fundamental power over which there is a struggle derives from the law of copyright. And in all these cases, the fundamental existence of copyright is hardly ever questioned. However, copyright is not a law of nature. Such force as it has is a product of international treaty, specifically the Berne Convention and related treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization. And there are nations which are not signatories to the Berne Convention; a complete list of contracting parties can be found here. Note that as of July 19, 2000, there were only 146 signatories. Just to pick a few A's, Afghanistan, Andorra, and Angola are not included. What, exactly, would the RIAA be able to do about it if Napster had been bright enough to set up its servers at napster.ao in Luanda? What would Microsoft be able to do about ftp.freewindows.af in Kabul?"

"Now, think about what this means. These countries have no protection for intellectual property, at least not for any not produced and/or registered within their borders. That means you can freely appropriate music, DVDs, commercial software, GPL'd code -- anything available is public domain, as we understand the term. This used to be of only marginal interest since the infrastructure for entrepreneurial types to capitalize on this lack of protection wasn't available, but the growing use of the Internet makes this lack of universal copyright applicability a bit more interesting.

Sooner or later, these outlying regions are going to have significant Internet connectivity. Will they all bring their intellectual property protection standards into line with the 146 Berne nations ... or not? And if not, what exactly, will happen then? Is intellectual property protection important enough to cause diplomatic isolation? Trade wars? Real war?"

Dram writes "In this article at CNN.com they talk about how the UN is handling cybersquatting cases. The news in itself is nothing big but does this set up a precedent for the UN to handle other internet related cases? Will the UN soon be the ruling body on things like deep-linking and Napster? Will we soon have to worry about our rights online in a legal system outside of the United States?" WIPO stands for World Intellectual Property Organization, and they're a United Nations trademark and copyright agency.