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WIPO Settles 'Cybersquatting' Disputes
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.
I realize that one of my statements is not predicated by the previous post...I said that there is no place for foreign gov'ts inside of domestic policy. What I meant to say is thus: There is no need for foreign intervention into problems that individual nations can solve themselves. There's no need for Germany to shove their decision on the people of the US when the NameServers are run by the US.
.com, .net or .org, and squatters are a global problem.
Run by the US huh? Lets just look at that...
I.ROOT-SERVERS.NET - Royal Institute of Technology, Sweeden
K.ROOT-SERVERS.NET - RIPE Network Coordination Centre, Netherlands
M.ROOT-SERVERS.NET - Keio University, Japan
Fact of the matter is, the root servers are global, for the global population, not just for the US. Don't be so arrogant in thinking other nations don't have interest in the domain name space. Anyone anywhere in the world can register a
-- iCEBaLM
The USA doesn't own the moon because they placed their flag there first, like Spain owned the America's by having Columbus plant their flag there. 2 years before the moon voyage the US was a signatory to the UN Outer Space Treaty in which it was forbidden for any government to declare ownership of any property outside Earth.
As a brit that has lived in the US and UK, I think I can be fairly impartial about this.
Yes, the net started in the states, but wake up guys, it has moved on. The states may account for about 50% of net usage, but that is still only 50%, there is another 50% out there, and it is growing beyond 50% as time goes on.
People are saying 'how dare the UN decide things for the US' well why not? The rest of the world is asking 'How dare the US decide things for the rest of the world'.
And hold on - wait there a moment, isnt the US *part* of the UN, I think you will find it is!
This is NOT taking rights away from US citizens, it is putting the US people on a level playing field with the rest of the world. Your UN representatives have the same power as the rest.
Tux Games. Your complete source for native Linux games.
- The U.N. is not arbitrating the TLDs for everyone, they are applying the ICANN resolution dispute policy for anyone who applies to them.
- All the other approved providers are distinctly U.S., going as far as the "National Arbitration Forum".
- We can see a serious level of commercialism and lawyerism from the range of providers.
- The US is domain greedy
As an non-US citizen, I am delighted that one of the providers is not completely American, and disgusted that the "National Arbitration Forum" could be approved to rule over an international commodity! TheThe only thing that encouraged me from all my reading was that the eresolution site tried to us an appropriate domain (.ca) instead of simply using
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
No. But it's still the best.
I've read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It's obvious that they used the Bill of Rights as a starting point.
The fundamental flaw with the UDHR is that it enumerates rights and offers no protection for rights not listed. If they forgot to put it in there -- you're out of luck.
An optimist would say that a broad interpretation of the UDHR will guarantee all human rights. Unfortunately, the United States provides an example of how long broad interpretations last. Right now, we have a government and a court system which takes the attitude, "If it's not specifically mentioned in the Constitution, it's not a right." This is in spite of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments which make it absolutely clear that the Bill of Rights should NOT be read this way.
As a matter of fact, we have a hard time even guaranteeing the rights that ARE listed in our Bill of Rights.
Worst of all, the UDHR has no teeth. There is no means for resisting an oppressive government or regime. I guess you just have to wait for the guys in blue helmets to come save you -- assuming their governments decide that you're worth the effort. Even then, you'll be dead by the time everyone finishes their speeches, casts their votes, and signs all the paperwork.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
7. It is recognized that the determinations flowing from the administrative procedure do not, as such, have the weight of binding precedent under national judicial systems.
I don't know anything about international law, but this seems somewhat toothless.
Well, if you think about the meaning of this quote, you'll see that it does not say anything about enforceability. What it says is that in common-law-based legal systems (UK and US, primarily) administrative decisions do NOT set a precedent and thus do not have any impact on any future cases.
Whether you can enforce an administrative decision is a different matter altogether and depends on a lot of factors, jurisdiction being one of them. In general, though, if WIPO says you must give up your domain name and, say, ICANN complies (not because it has to, but because chose to accept WIPO decisions), then you can always sue somebody (ICANN and WIPO and all their personnel and their dogs and cats and goldfish... 8-) ) in your or their legal system. ICANN, being based in US, is probably subject to US laws.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
There is one good thing about the UN dealing with this sort of dispute that many people don't know about. The UN is a little too big for most of the influence that smaller courts come under.
You see every government which is a member must pay a prescribed fee into the UN budget. These fees are enough to run the organization so they don't need to go begging for campaign funds or other such rubbish.
This is utter bullshit. UN itself is a big unwieldy beast that needs the muscle of US government to be pushed around. But just because some organization happens to be affiliated with UN does not mean that this organization is honest and incorruptible and always strives to do the right thing.
In fact, since a lot of positions within UN are filled by political appointees (as in "this year the High Commissioner must be from Chad, 'cause it's their turn"), UN is well known for both incompetence and corruption, especially at lower and middle levels.
Remember, it's people who deal with disputes, not the whole UN. And these people are perfectly well influencable. To give an example, remember the Salt Lake City olympic scandal? It turned out that "gifts" were very useful, nay, necessary factor in deciding which city is going to host the Olympics. Isn't the Olympic Committee "a little too big for most of the influence..."?
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
http://ecommerce.w ipo.int/domains/process/eng/final/annex04.html
It says:
7. It is recognized that the determinations flowing from the administrative procedure do not, as such, have the weight of binding precedent under national judicial systems.
I don't know anything about international law, but this seems somewhat toothless. It looks as if WIPO is just going to be an organ of corporate control. Corporations will be able to use WIPO's decisions to bully citizens of virtually any country, even though they have NO legal jurisdiction to do so.
The problem with what this article brings up is the issue of trademarking one's name. The specific case in question was Julie Roberts. Now, my understanding is that the original owner of the domain reg'd it and did nothing with it. He was approached by Robert's lawyers before the squatting rules were strongly in place; he offered to sell the domain for a few good bucks but they refused. After that approached, he turned the site into a fan site for Roberts, and then the squatting rules hit. The lawyers swooped in again, and claimed that his earlier offer was evidence of squatting and he lost the domain.
Ok, some of what he did was on the poor side, but let's take the case a bit further. Say I register (joking) www.patricksteward.com, and make it a fan site praising Patrick for his Shakespearing work and Trek years, etc. The site is in good nature, and no money is made off the site. Does Patrick Steward, in this case, have the ability to ask WIPO to nab the domain from the original register? Cases like the above *suggest* yes, but certainly not there yet.
Of course, I'd insert my standard rant about the need for expanded TLDs with strictly enforced rules for registering them , as such problems as the above will be limited. But I've said it before ...
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Get used to it... For the rest of the world, that foreign "legal system" is the US. And if I had the choice, I'd go for a multinational representative body anyday!
- mipe -
This is quite upsetting, especially for Americans and those citizens of other nations with respect for national sovereignty. This is another instance of granting excessive authority to an international organization of questionable political legitimacy (like the WTO). Whatever benefits of international cooperation and consultation the United Nations has made possible, it has from its questionable (some would say much worse...)founding been a source of dangerously naïve globalist dreams. Americans must reject utterly the policy of establishing UNELECTED international bodies who behave as though they have jurisdiction in the United States. I hope citizens of other countries feel similarly about their sovereignty, and act to reject this dangerous notion. As far as Americans are concerned, we ought not stand for any regulation of the internet that doesn't result from duly elected representatives of the American people.
Hi there. I'm from Canada. Canada's a country, just like the U.S. In fact, we're not too far from ya.
> The UN is not accountable to The Constitution
Hey hey, I'm not accountable to The Constitution either. Heck, I don't think any of us are up here in Canada. That makes us all *Bad* things. Especially me. I'm Bad.
Being from the United States, I should expect that you have the least to complain about when it comes to the U.N. Security Council. Heck, your country gets permanent representation on that Council, will all the wonderful goodies that come with a position like that.
> people not elected by you that have power over you
Whoa, slow down there. You mean to tell me that you elect each and every person who has any power over you? Do your children elect their schoolteachers? Did you have a hand in electing each and every Representative and Senator in Congress? (Including those from other states?) Well, unless you were shooting up heroin during Civics class, the answer is no. This is the idea of representation. Here's how it works:
I'm responsible for voting for a small number of positions. These people will have power over me. Other people in my country vote for other positions. These people will have power over me too, but I didn't elect them. That's okay, because the people I did elect will have power over all the people who voted for the people who have power over me but that I didn't elect. Still with me? All these people get together and pick other people that have power over me. No-one elect these people at all. Yet I don't hear you complaining about the lack of self-rule in the United States! (Isn't your country run by communists anyways?)
Now, in the world scene, if each nation selects representatives to send to the United Nations, true, there are people not elected by you and have power over you, but hey, you elected some people who selected a guy who has power over all the people who elected people who selected the other people who have power over you but you didn't elect! So it's all good.
Hope this helps.
Donny
Quite a few posts are right on here.
This is a Bad thing. And it
is just a taste of the things to come.
The UN is not accountable to The Constitution
(read: Bill of Rights). It is
an organization given power over sovereign
nations, and hence their net access.
All well and good when its on the other side
of the planet in a war zone. How would you
feel if they felt the need to intervene in
a situation in your country (the U.S. is mine)?
There is a move to expand the permanent
membership of the security council in the
works right now. Expand it with more people
not elected by you that have power over you.
World peace is a goal worthy of all our efforts,
but at the expense of self rule? Life on the
net is gonna get much harder my friends.
-- "It was as if the paint factories had decided to deal direct with the art galleries." - Thursday Next
Exactly! And they also seem to think there's very few Net users *outside* the US of A either.
The truth being USA users merely represent 20-something percent of all Net users, and decreasing since more and more people access the Net all over the planet.
I'd be happy if the Net was no longer "ruled" (for whatever it means) by the US of A and its representative corporations. As usual, Americans (from the US of A) are against anything that doesn't come from them. They claim *they* officially have freedom of speech(tm) and are the only ones in the World, which is complete BS. They're just somewhat scared by something they don't know: The Outside(tm). Really sounds like a redneck attitude to me, sorry guys.
As a reminder, here in Europe we have freedom of speech, maybe even more than in the US of A. Local constitutions abide by the Univeral Declaration of Human Rights and anybody can appeal to the European Court of Human Rights (at no cost) if one thinks he/she's been/being repressed in his/her fundamental rights. At least, if we say something that upsets someone, we don't have the risk of getting shot for what we said. Freedom shouldn't be determined by the amount of guns you got. Eh, there's no guns here guys! And a debate here does not have to involve either guns or huge amounts of money.
It really pisses me off Americans *believe* they invented Democracy and Freedom. Heck, my country (Switzerland) has been a federal democracy for over 700 years!. And the French (as bad as they sometimes are) came up with the Declaration of Human Rights in 1791! In the meantime, the US of A were the last country to officially enforce slavery, and only abolished racial segregation in the 1960's. And I'm not talking about the US so-called half-democratic electoral system here.
Maybe Americans are just scared to lose their assumed ownership of the whole Internet. Bah, after all, the US of A only represent 260 million people... And the World has over 6 *billion* inhabitants. The European Union alone has something like 350 million people. Good thing some international agency tries to put things back to reality.
Have a lot of fun...
-- It's always darker before it goes pitch black.
But the UN Charter says precisely DICK about the web.
Hrmm, neither does the US first amendment, gee, I guess it doesn't apply.
On top of that, it's a voluntary treaty and not a binding one, and if the Charter's non-binding, then so is the WIPO.
Any treaty a country SIGNS is a binding treaty. All a treaty is is a contract between countries. What you just said was akin to saying "My verbal agreement to buy your car isn't legal, so neither is the contract I just signed." It has as much logic as a Dr. Seuss book.
-- iCEBaLM
Could an international committee alleviate that? Probably not. I think an international organization would be more likely to turn the net into just another global social program, of sorts. And worse, I doubt they'll be as accountable as, say, our own governments.
When Senator so and so votes to uphold the CDA or CDA2, I know who to hold accountable come the next elections, in America. Same in Australia. But what do I do if some UN Chartered (or similar) group who's members are relatively unknown and are not voted into office, decides that some random rule must be enforced and that I just have to live with it?
Further, what if the United States Government decides that they are not going to require their populace to follow said rule(s)?
I'm not a huge fan of 'government' in any form, but I have to say that I prefer the internationally independant choices of each country and jurisdiction over some half-assed elitist group of eighty-year-old computer-illiterate white-haired international internet committee. I thought the glory of the internet was supposedly the lack of need for government and the stretching of physical political boundaries -- not mass netizen unification under some group who proclaims total online governance.
But that's just me . . .
---
icq:2057699
seumas.com
Isnt is better to have something other than the US controll non-US issues? The UN in theory would provide a non-biased view on a macro level...
There's been an example of this in New Zealand just in the past week. An indigenous fishing company, Moana Pacific, discovered the domain moanapacific.com had been registered by a competitor.
/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=139411
http://www.nzherald.co.nz
They successfully had the domain overturned.
Wired has an article in the same vein as the CNN one:
http://www.wired.com/news/p olitics/0,1283,36899,00.html
Cheers,
Alastair
-- "I believe the human being and the fish can coexist peacefully." - George W. Bush, 29 September 2000
Ummm... where does the UN get its jurisdiction? I'm not familiar with how international law works in this type of situation, but what/who gives the UN jurisdiction here?
----
----
Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
There is a net-libertarian idea that since Internet makes things international, that means governments will disappear. Nonesense. It means we'll get some sort of international government. And it may not be a nice one. For the proof of this, just follow the doings of ICANN, WIPO, and their ilk.
There is good reason to be paranoid about the WIPO and their sources of funding.
.com startup run by teenagers. Their IT and telecoms groups are like disneyland for the people who work there. Top of the line equipment, excessive bandwidth, and perqs that make all other orgs in the geneva area sick with envy. Since they are an international org, the foreign workers don't pay swiss taxes (local workers still have to), and all the pay scales are shifted way up. System admins would normally be on the "functionary" pay scale (US$35k, local taxes), but at the WIPO they start as mid level "administration" (US$75k tax free).
When the WIPO was created, it was entirely funded by IP holder interests. This includes the MPAA, Sony, Disney, Time Warner, and many others.
The WIPO web pages used to highlight this as a positive effect, freeing them from the normal funding hassles seen by many other international orgs who have much trouble collecting money from countries who suddenly don't want to pay. Many organisations are struggling because the US congress has stopped payments when they don't agree with an outcome. The US stopped paying the ICITO/GATT, precursor to the WTO, when a decision came down against american banana and beef interests. When the WTO agreed to side with the US, funding was restored. Europeans are very upset, and many far right nationalist politicians are gaining votes by threatening to pull out of the WTO, or declaring economic war against the US. [France is a leader here, since french doctors have shown in several scientific studies that the bovine growth hormones used in most US cattle is a major cause of obesity, and thus outlawed in france. But the WTO has ruled the french health laws do not have priority over free commerce, and ordered france to allow american beef to be sold in france. The french are refusing for now, and the US has started to heavily tax many french goods being imported into the US in retalliation. But many organic US beef farms are getting into the french market, complicating the whole thing]
Back to the WIPO topic. The WIPO is a strange beast. They have tons of money, and are spending it like a
When it became clear the WIPO was forcing treaties on countries just to benefit the IP holders at the expense of citizens rights in many countries, they scoured their web pages of any mention of their funding. Can't be documenting that possibly illegal conflict of interest.
It is very scary that the WIPO has closed door meetings open only to carefully selected delegates who are employed by some of the largest IP holders in the world. The working groups who created the wording of the treaties are run by law firms whose only clients are the main IP holders in the world, Bertelsmann, Sony, Time Warner, and a few others. They have used law students right out of university to create the most outrageous treaties, which carefully bough^H^H^H^H^Hselected politicians then introduce in each country. This results in the elimination of consumer rights in the US, with the DMCA, and similar laws snuck onto the books in other countries.
The Norwegian parliament was looking into how the WIPO treaty laws were passed without any discussion in the Stortget, as a direct result of the media attention around Jon Johansen and the deCSS case. That investigation into some corrupt politicians coupled with some other scandals (internal to Norway, not related to the WIPO) brought down the parliament earlier this year, and they are still figuring out how to clean up the corporate corruption of the political process. Any Norwegians are welcome to add comments to this, my norsk is not well enough to follow the daily papers.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
Does that mean that the UN would ask for peace-keeping forces from the United States when a dispute arises between Bosnia.com and Serbia.com?
--
Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
If those pesky French are involved, I want no part of it.
-JimTheta
My stupid web site
It seems to me that since each country has it's own set of domains, they should have control over them. So if some tiny country wants to sell www.coke.co.?? to the highest bidder, I say let them. The UN should only have control of the international domains... like .com or .org.
Just out of curiousity, has anyone ever seen the USA's domains used? Or are the international ones just considered ours, de facto?
[paranoia on] WIPO, like WTO and GATT has more power than most people realize. WIPO meets behind closed doors and is not accountable in any true sense of the word. Do we want that type of agency or organization ruling on any matters which affect us? I don't, but it's too late because they are and we can't do much about it. What recouse have we to dispute the ruling of a non-govermental body?
Jethro Tull was a band.
Okay wit yer Jethro Tull, but what I really want to know is ... which one's Pink?
And two serious comments ... er, more serious, I guess ... first, isn't Tull still a band, at least sometimes? And second, I'm guessing it's possible for "the band" to have a dispute with an entity, but calling the band a "celebrity" is certainly wrong. Good catch!
On one hand, the US has some of the most boneheaded, corporate-serving IP laws in the world, and a non-US organization could knock some sense into the Net (and maybe the rest of the US) by making it finally realize that government is there to serve people, not corporations (who ever got the idea that a corporation, which isn't even a living thing much less a human being, should be treated as a person under the law anyway? That's where the mess got started).
On the other hand, the US has heavy influence in WIPO, and will likely use it to pollute the Net with its corporatist ideals (people forget that IP was never meant to benefit the inventors; it was meant to benefit the people by promoting the growth of the arts. Rewarding the inventors/artists/etc. was only a means to that end).
That's the problem with the US nowadays; the government is now little more than a front for corporations, what with all the lobbying and bribery that goes on. This is hardly a Good Thing.
But there are even more sides to the issue. Consider: most other nations restrict free speech (the US is the only nation which even ostensibly guarantees free speech to its citizens in all matters; every other nation in the world either does restrict speech or, because it is not guaranteed, could conceivably do so in the future. And before the Canadians attempt to call me on this, as they've tried before, I suggest they read the charter which grants free speech VERY carefully; it grants free speech but stops short of guaranteeing it). The US could conceivably become polluted with this as well, leaving no haven for truly free speech left on the face of the planet. People have been trying to pollute the free-speech doctrine ever since it was first introduced; at times they've succeeded temporarily but their efforts have always been overturned in the end. But if the influence of the whole rest of the world were turned towards doing it, things could be different.
So I'm wary of this. I doubt it will be a Good Thing. More than likely the status quo won't change, or the world will become polluted with even more corporate greed than before. But even worse things could happen down the road, and this would only be a step towards that.
Sorry but being European what worries me more is to have to worry about my rights online inside the United States given the recent court decisions trying to make the DMCA apply to foreign (read, not under US juridiction) websites.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
Even in the US constitution there is such a clause:
What is WIPO
(emphasis added)Sorry about the California/Canada mistake. However the difference between Canada and the US is at times irrelevant, as both can have an incredibly North American view of the world, though at least no Canadians I hae ever met would refer to anything outside their own country as "off-shore". .ca. I had actually been looking in to the domain registration dispute policies from ICANN the other night, and at that time I was pleased to see the UN involved as I would rather that any-day than a "non-profit leadership alliance of 500 major corporations and law firms" or the national arbitration front. Yep good old commerce and law making the net safe for the corporations! .us? I just checked to see if anything was up on "www.linux.us" and "www.microsoft.us" for example and surprise, surprise their was nothing there! Can anyone else find either of those domains on other tlds?
Most of this post was inspired by the content of the 106 comments posted at the time (of which many were Americans protesting at having the UN interfering with their constitutional rights!!!!!). One of the posts made a reference to american state domains and my brain put 3+7 together and got 4 when I saw
Finally on-topic, why do no american companies want to use
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
On a tangent, one of the very good reasons for the UN to not start a war with China is that the People's Republic of China is a permanent member of the UN Security Council, and they would, well, have to agree to it first...
I'm going to live forever or die trying.
The treaty in this case is only as binding as the country WANTS it to be. The US can walk out of the UN Charter whenever they feel like it, that's part of what makes the UN such a joke in the international community. We don't HAVE to be there, instead we CHOOSE to. We've also CHOSEN not to pay our UN Dues for the past umpty-squat years. Some treaties are binding, some are voluntary, the UN Charter is NOT binding.
You're confusing legality with enforcement. All treaties signed by countries are legally binding according to international law, of course, there is no higher power that can enforce them except the member countries themselves, but that has no relevance on whether they are legally binding or not.
There is no distinction between "voluntary" and "binding" treaties as all treaties are both.
Jaywalking is illegal, it is hardly enforced by police, still it is illegal regardless.
The UN Charter is legally binding, member countries willingness or unwillingness to enforce it does not negate the legality of it.
-- iCEBaLM
There is one good thing about the UN dealing with this sort of dispute that many people don't know about. The UN is a little too big for most of the influence that smaller courts come under.
You see every government which is a member must pay a prescribed fee into the UN budget. These fees are enough to run the organization so they don't need to go begging for campaign funds or other such rubbish.
It is worth noting that the UNDP actively promotes Linux in 3rd world countries. I asked one of there staff members and he said "We have a large budget but it would have to double before we could buy Windows. It would here to quadruple for all the extra staff we would need to manage that."
BTW : It was a UN staffer who introduced the Jamaica LUG to the Barbados LUG. These people have no reason to rule against the Open and Free camp unless we are genuinely in the wrong.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?