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Corinthians.com Taken Away, Given To Soccer Team
TomCollins writes "I just read on Declan McCullagh's
politech
mailing list that J D Sallen, the current owner of
corinthians.com,
has
lost the domain
to the Brazilian soccer team Corinthians in a ruling by Roberto Bianchi of WIPO. Sallen had been using the domain to display scripture from the book of Corinthians long before hearing about the soccer team of the same name."
This guy is just a squatter, plain and simple. He grabs domains that make use of other people's names and makes money off of them. He uses the fact that he wouldn't stand up to real companies like Dow Jones to illustrate that he's a good guy. Puhleease. The only reason corinthians.com has any content on it at all is so he can get you guys to rally behind him without any of the facts.
Don't believe me? Check out his other NIC handle (with the token aol account even)
It's too bad it wasn't a real judge in a trademark infringement case that could have awarded damages also.
Very good points. You seem to have missed the boat on one simple issue though. When the domain name was registered it doesn't matter what content the owner post at his site. You are not legally bound to post commercial info or anything of any nature at ones .com site. If that's the case then the "Internic" needs to formally alert people of this BEFORE they register a domain name.
Another point is simply that he paid his 70 (or whatever the going rate is right now) to purchase the domain. There are no RULES saying he has to use it. He can do whatever he wants with it because he paid his money to register it. He wasn't stopped. No one questioned him. There was nothing but a transaction made for property.
The Judge is a bloody idiot for not seeing this. This is a clear cut case to me and if I was the owner I'd go to my death fighting this in court. The simple matter of fact is that he owned. Someone else came along and said we want it because its the name of our Soccer Team and we are more important than you. The Judge like the bloody babbling foolish idiot he is said, "Take it, you want it to make money". (How does a soccer team make money from a web page btw? - There's gotta be a model right?) The guy who legitamately purchased is now out of whatever he bought. Simple analogy for me is. You just bought a flatbed truck (not because you use it for towing or hualing anything you just bought it to sit in your driveway) Some guy rolls around and says "HEY~!!" I have a construction company and I want your truck. You obviously laugh at the fool and slam the door. You appear in court where the Judge orders you to hand over your keys. End of analogy.
If this becomes standard and no one raises goddamn hell about it. We are in serious trouble.
-anon
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
Yes, we need new TLD's faster than ICANN seems to be moving. Yes, Us should use .us and the soccer team should've been content with their .br domain.
.us, .cx, .uk, etc. So it's a .com. It could be whatever else was the defacto business domain, as it's a business. But it's going to be one thing, just one name, country neutral.
Enter realistic life. I'm working on a website for a company. The company is non-us based, but if all goes well it will attract business from all over the world. I'm not going to register the name in
Do we need DNS changed? yes. Should country codes matter much? No. Do I know what it will change into? Nope, I'm just along for the ride.
bash: ispell: command not found
This sig left intentionally blank.
B) The soccer team is a national thing and probably should use their own country's TLD. Biblical quotations are global in scope and are more suited to using a gTLD (although admittedly
C) The soccer team doesn't even have a trademark on the name Corinthians; their name is Corinthiao, which is apparently pronounced the same in Portuguese, but not spelled the same - and domain names are spelled, not spoken aloud (generally).
D) The way trademark law works, I could sell a trivia game called "Guess?" but I couldn't sell bluejeans called "Guess?". Why should domain names be any different? If he had corinthiansoccer.com or corinthianfutbol.com or corinthiaofutbol.com or something, it might be a different situation.
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
I've often wondered why the US got extra domains besides .us. And I've often answered that question with "we came up with it in the first place." Ok, score one for democracy. That, however, is where it all went to hell.
.gov.us seems reasonable.
If it weren't for the special US TLDs (com, net, org) we'd have microsoft.wa.us and no one would think twice about it. If you didn't happen to know the URL, your ISP's home page (isp.state.us) would have links to portals where you could search.
The solution is not more classifying domains. Rather, the solution is less domains... precisely 3 less... com, net, org. I'm at a loss as to what to do about edu, mil, and gov. I guess we should get rid of those too.
Looking far into the future, I see a net without domains. I see myself hitting my isp's portal (or perhaps a portal the isp contracted its users out to) that could find things for me, including other portals. I see email addresses that are more like phone numbers and email programs that handle the name-to-number conversion. I see the end of spam, as it becomes impossible to send an untraceable message. (Privacy buffs, think caller-id vs caller-id-block vs "this number does not accept calls marked private...", you'll be free to send anonymously but you should expect it to be bounced instantly without my ever seeing it.)
I find it hard to believe that the net really needs domain names. The postal and telephone systems accommodate more "nodes" than the net without needing to name each "node" after its owner.
Er... scratch that... I just remembered a particular company in Redmond whose address is... One Microsoft Way
--Threed-Looking out for Numero Uno since 1976!
Same reason Commercial companies use .net and .org names.
Too bad this isn't really followed anymore
"anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding."
So the constitution wins any conflicts between itself and treaties, where treaties differ.
It does not say: "anything in the Constitution or laws of any State or anything in Treaties to the contrary notwithstanding."
So should you. The constitution is the SUPREME LAW OF THE LAND in the USA. Not even the executive and the legislative branches of gov't combined have the power to alter it.
Did 75% of the states also approve the WIPO treaty?
No.
Then where the constitution and WIPO conflict, the constitution always wins. always. Always. ALWAYS. That what SUPREME in "supreme law of the land" means.
Now I suppose you're gonna say how does the constitution apply to domain names? Well, here's the answer... the 10th amendment:
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
WIPO is neither the "States" nor "the People". Thus WIPO has zero legal power in the USA to enforce anything and its rulings are not at all binding on US citizens or residents.
I challenge anyone to prove me wrong.
They did have the trademark before I registered my domains, but I hadn't heard of them.
What's funny about this is their laywers are telling me if I have cybermacfubar.com, I would be fine, but since the domain matches the word exactly, I'm screwed. But that brings up an interesting point - I don't just have cybermac - I have cybermac.com! (and .net, which I had first because some company nabbed the .com the day before I checked).
I did some calling around, it looks like I'll have to pay $200 an hour to fight having to pay $3,000 and lose my domains.
They claim unless I had my own trademark of the word cybermac, like they do, I just flat out lose and have to give mine up.
They want $3,000 for their legal fees and my two domains, otherwise they're suing for $30,000+ in damages, plus legal fees.
Anyone know any cheap lawyers in Minnesota?
So the quotes from the bible were tarnishing the reputation/diluting the trademark of the soccer team? Would that imply that they're a bunch of evil bastards? =)
You know what really pisses me off? There's all this talk about top level domains, and you give several examples of possible ones, except, they're all in English!. Not everyone on this planet speaks English, and the current TLD naming system is pretty language generic (.com, .net, .org) since they use abbreviations that can easily be transferred between both Germanic and Romance languages. How about thinking a little bit less egocentrically and more geocentric.
--
-- Slashdot sucks.
Yeah that's the most annoying part. It looks like 90% of the legal challenges WRT domaine names involve only legitimate use (etoy vs. etoys) while the real bastards, the domain squatters carry on their business.
Now I'm really glad ICANN has finally decided to open up new GTLD, and I'd love to see how the greatdomains.com kind of people looke like when it becomes a reality.
So what about that company who registered 12000 combinations of common Family Name to sell them back at a higher price ... hey they were there first ...
It's interesting to note that "slashdot dot org", when pronounced with a mouthfull of pebbles and with a bad cold, sounds pretty much like "microsoftsux" in the same conditions.
The panel therefore concludes that CdrTaco bend over and take it up the ass.
The WIPO is one of the common sorts of international organization; therefore: no real democratic representation, no due process, no appeal.
DNA just wants to be free...
You mean like China? Not exactly my first choice for personal freedoms, even if they have become capitalist and relatively democratic now.
The bigger the empire, the more difficult revolution is, as well. They have a LOT more military and police resources.
Most modern revolutions against larger empires have only managed with external help (including the American Revolution), and they only extended to part of the empire. When there is no external help (e.g. the entire government is global), you're fucked.
...and you're living in a dream world if you think any government has to play by any rules. If you study history, you'll find that all governments eventually reach a point where the only option is revolution, unless the civilization collapses or is conquered first.
I think you also don't seem to realize how much harder it's become to actually hide anywhere in the past 50 years.
Even if it were easier to hide, I don't want to have to become an outlaw for the sake of freedom in the first place.
DNA just wants to be free...
I'd like you to think very, very carefully about what it's being replaced with. I don't think a single monolithic totalitarian state (as far removed as possible from local interests, even) is such a good thing. Many of these international institutions are very far removed from any sort of direct democratic process.
(Where was the slot for e.g. "UN Representative" on your last ballot? [you do vote, right?])
I think that at best we're exchanging one load of crap for another, and possibly a worse load of crap at that.
DNA just wants to be free...
This is a lot worse than the etoy vs. etoys issue. It is so wrong for so many reasons:
.com as opposed to .net/.org/.edu/.mil/.br/.gov/.co.uk/.sg/.cx/.no/.i nt (hello WIPO). I fail to see any distinction there.
:) (not that he should be forced to or anything).
a) "This is my domain name. There are many others like it but this one is mine." Assigning "Corinthians.com" to a soccer team over a site with religious content is just fucking stupid. By a show of hands, how many people think of a Brazilian Soccer team when I say "Corinthians" and how many people think about the Bible. It doesn't take a Catholic to realize that the Bible has been around for quite a while and it has been in the "public domain" so to speak for a good number of centuries.
b) For some reason, Brazilians get priority on a domain name with a TLD designation that has, historically, been based in the USA. There are lots of TLD's out there, I don't see any reason why the Brazilian Corinthiano's or whatever the hell they call themselves have priority on
c) if they're upset about the ugly background colour at corinthians.com, I'm sure he could be convinced to change it
yeah, I probably sound like an idiot after spouting off all that. Oh well. If you would like to share some insight, I have a thick skin, so feel free to debunk and tear down everything I said
Foreign to what? The .com domain is international and does not belong to the USA any more or less that it belongs to Brazil.
The fact that the .us domainis not used for anything meaningful does not make the .net, .org and .com domains any more american.
corinthians.religion
corinthians.sports
Of course, then what would have happened if there is a football team named Corinthians? Or if the Baptists and the Methodists wanted the same domain?
corinthians.baptists.religion
corinthians.soccer.sports
Then you might have a slight problem... What if baptists in the United Kingdom and baptists in America wanted to use Corinthians? And what if the same were true for the soccer team?
corinthians.baptists.religion.uk
corinthians.soccer.sports.br
Oh no! Now we forgot, what if there is a professional league and a grade-school league? Egads, and what about two baptist organizations wanting Corinthians in the same state and city?
corinthians.menudopublicschool.k-12.amateur.soccer .sports.brt eo.ca.us.baptists.religion
corinthians.three-square-church.firststreet.sanma
Wow! I guess more TLD's and implementation of third, fourth and umpteenth level domains really does solve the problem! And it's so simple!
---
seumas.com
logan
logan
logan
This discussion is all moot. Do you really think in 10 years, we'll all still be typing www.something.com? All this will continue until technology makes it moot, and I can finally sit down on my couch and in my best scottish accent, say "Computer: find me that cranky brazilian soccer team named after some bible verse I don't remember". I will then promptly be rewarded with entirely too much information about a meaningless subject (the true purpose of the web), and an offer to purchase books about them, directly from each individual author. Unless of course, Microsoft is still around, in which case my computer will execute a small child in Brazil, and start making me coffee.
Actually, it will (still) provide you with a list of 50,000 hits, all of them porn except for two, about half-way through, linking to identical archived newsgroup articles extolling the virtues of llama farming (for meat and wool) as a hot job for the New Economy.
--G
Having worldwide domain names isn't justified for such cases.
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Here's my mirror
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Here's my mirror
An alternative, democratic heiarchy is OpenNIC, which you can find at www.unrated.net/projects/opendns/ or (once you've set yourself up to use the alternative root domains) www.opennic.
.com, .net, .org, .etc. and relegates the ICANN administered domains to .com.icann, .net.icann, etc.
While this still doesn't help with injustices like this, it is a start. Personally, I would prefer a system which simply hijacks
That would put those power hungry f*cks in their place.
Whatever form a more distributed and democratic domain name service takes, it is past time for the netizens of the world to take it out of the hands of the beaurocrats.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
First of all, the Brazilian soccer team doesn't even have "Corinthians" trademarked at all. It's merely an English translation of their trademark, "Corinthiao."
The word Corinthians has been in general use for almost 1950 years, since Paul wrote the books. Also, Corinth is still a city in Turkey.
What authority does a WIPO judge have? I'm not too familiar with international IP treaties. Does the registrar have to comply with this?
keep in mind this isn't american law. this is brazil where futbol, encourages everything. In jamaica when the team made it to the world cup they had a national holiday. I think it's a case of favoritism
ICANN or whoever has the power should increase the charges for domain name ownership such that ownership of more than 5 domains begins to cost you whatever you paid for your last domain times 2. This would make camping, hoarding, or otherwise hogging domain names very expensive. Even very rich corporations might think twice before shelling out million$ for a domain name they don't even *use*. Domain name speculators would essentially be out of business as the short-term gain from investing ~$600 million in 30 domain names. Private individuals wouldn't be too put out as there's little need that I can see for one person controlling or owning more than 5 domain names.
The "penalty" factor for these charges could go to ICANN, IETF or some other internet open standards group to use for R&D to help improve upon the internet as a whole.
Sure, like any other "system" (taxes, marriage, etc) there are people totally willing to cheat at it. ICANN should make the penalty for cheating at this one the IMMEDIATE suspension of and ultimately foreiture of ALL domains. Sure, there will be sleazeballs willing to cheat, but do you really think that major corporations, who are one of the major hoarders of domains, would risk losing their legit domains just to secretly own a thousand and one variants on their product names?
The fallacy that the solution is "more TLDs" is simply foolish. If a major corporation controls 1,000 domain names just to control them, who are you kidding that adding TLDs fixes this? That's only another $35k, and these clowns spend more than that on booze and hookers in a month without even the accounting department blinking an eye.
Until you start really making domain ownership a serious expense, all the new TLDs aren't worth a damn.
No slam at you, spazmoid (I hate the decision, too), but the only "of course" here is the fact that we are moving into a genuinely new realm, and there are going to be some dislocations, as we sort things out.
In the past, you could have two identical brand names (for example) in nearby town, state, or even adjacent aisles of the grocery store (would you even notice if there was an 'Encore' brand dog food, and an 'Encore' line of TV dinners [feel free to provide you own punch lines.
In the past, boundaries were much more effective at compartmentlizing business, and the primary role of the trademark was associative -- i.e. it relied on the associational mechanisms of the brain more than the actual literal words.
On the web, we rely on literals, and any hierarchy of naming will fall short of the flexibility of the old system (any system that had more flexibility than ordinary human associative thinking would be useless because humans wouldn't be able to master it) We do not live hierarchically, we do not do business hierarchically (i.e. category-busting businesses and products will always emerge), and we do not want to be ruled by a hierarchy.
Meanwhile, the fact that there is *one web* is both a strength and a weakness. It's strengths are well known, and many of its weaknesses lie in the fact that it will require us to change our thinking. This is often a necessary price for new capabilities, but it's always a drawback from the user's view, in the short term (and we're *all* users, when it comes to the web, whether third grader or multinational)
I don't much care for this decision, and I sure wouldn't enjoy debating whether the Corinthian Sailing Club (corinthian.org) is more 'worthy' of that second level domain than the guy who lost corinthian.com.
In the future, we will see new ways of doing things, and one that I expect will become more common will be "index pages" that list, for example, many 'corinthians' and link their websites. We've had examples of this for years:
until recently http://www.apc.com let you choose between the former American Power Corporation, a well-known UPS maker, or the former Alabama Power Corporation (an electric utility and management company)
If you can go to bed, knowing you did a valuable thing today, you're very lucky. If you can't... it's not bedtime
What do you do with companies who aren't "one-country-based"?
Actually, it does, and that is one possible solution. Cooperation. Let them share corinthians.com and either split it into subdomains, or just differentiate by hostnames. The soccer team could have asked to have soccer.corinthians.com point to their machine, for example.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
This would not be happening if people would just realize they don't need to use ICANN, NSI, etc. There are a number of ways to NOT use them. One of them is to use a different root zone. Once you have a root zone, you can make it point to your own .COM zone, which can have whatever domains you want, plus have a wildcard default to go to some other server (NSI?) for what isn't there.
Every DNS server that uses ICANN/NSI servers is a vote for their continued abuse of identity vs. trademark.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Ok a soccer team (international football) wants a .com TLD and finds someone else has it quoting a line from the Bible....
.com TLD space.....
Oh wait... the team spells it's name DIFFRENTLY...
It's a local team...
So if this is valid.....
ComTech... we are suing the whole
and Sun Microsystems
I don't actually exist.
If the original Corinthians.com is just a bible thingo, shouldn't it be corinthinans.org? The dot-com is for commercial use, AFAIK.
.com .org .net, and they're for international use. Why can't the European Union create its own regulartory organ, as well as the Asia/Pacific region? The Net doesn't belong to the USA only.
Now, why don't American sites use their ".us" country code, huh? All that ".com" mania doesn't bring any good in the long run, I'm tellin' you...
We *really* need new TLDs soon!
Just a question now: why is ICANN only accountable to American courts and laws? After all, they're only supposed to be managing
.max
-- It's always darker before it goes pitch black.
A big part of the problem is that the country with the most internet usage, the United States, doesn't have a country domain that works like others do. Arguments about registering in your own country are fine in theory, but while you can get corinthian.com.br or corinthian.co.uk or corinthian.co.ca, you can't get corinthian.com.us. You'd have to all the way down to the city level and get corinthian.desmoines.ia.us, which negates the brandbuilding value for companies that operate nationwide.
.us domain followed a geographic model. Now that that doesn't hold true and international companies and individuals are eschewing their local country domains for a TLD, companies and individuals in the US are at a disadvantage.
.usa TLD to try to get it right?
com, net, edu and the like used to imply US, so that the
How about a
It's not an ideal solution, but it's a step.
Kevin Fox
Kevin Fox
The last modified dates doesn't prove much. It is very likely that he, like other small web site owners, periodically edits the files on his own computer at work or home, and then uploads them all at once to the server.
However, it is interesting that a quick check of the google, hotbot, yahoo, and altavista search engines does not seem to turn up any matches for "corinthians.com" that actually point to www.corinthians.com.
That might indicate that the web site just got put up in the last little while, since the search engines haven't found it yet.
Nonetheless, even if the web site just went up in the last month... if the current owner isn't actually squatting with intent to resell the site to the highest bidder, but really wants to use it, and he got it before the soccer club, he should be allowed to keep it.
I mean... I hope nobody comes for my web site. I want to keep it, even though I don't have much there now. What if some company demands I hand it over? That would suck. I already use it quite a bit for email.
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
"HTML needs a rant tag" - Alan Cox
Can someone post a link to or explain the current domain name resolution policy in plain English? I had a quick perusal of this at ICANN but there was too much legalese :)
TIA
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
Incidentally, can you name the two countries who are the only ones not to sign the UN Declaration on the Rights of a Child?
I can. Somalia. And the United States.
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
For the same reason the USA has a voice in the UN, although they haven't paid their dues in a VERY long time?
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
Alright, this has gone WAY to far...
They already have http://www.corinthians.com.br/ in BRAZIL now they also want it under the infamous dotcom? Damn, why don't they go all the f**kin way and register under ALL the other TLD in ALL the other countries?
Sorry for the rant but I get p***ed off whenever brazilian companies register dotcoms "just to be cool"... Well they can just "tomar no cÃ"!
All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
I don't know if many of you realize this, but whenever some one signs up for a domain name with network solutions, apparently they agree to settle all disputes via arbitration with the WIPO.
Take a look at the list that someone else mentioned, and you see that nearly all of the disputes were settled by transfer of the domain name.
Some are very obvious domain squatters, but some of them are honest, non-trademark-infringing domains. Yet another reason not to use NetSol
He doesn't speak for any Christians (If you ask Kierkegaard there aren't any anyway). The word "Corinthians" has been around long enough that it's in the public domain (unless Congress just extended the time period after death from 80 years to 2000+). Even in its current form and spelling it's 400-500 years old (not allowed to be translated into English until the Protestant Reformation), at which point it should be first come, first served. So JD Sallen gets it.
Besides, if you hand that stuff to the religions you'll have the jews suing the catholics for incorporating their copyrighted works into the Old Testament, and the Orphics suing the christians for stealing the trademarked concept of the martyr, and the Egyptians suing everyone for copying Akhnaten's trade secret - monotheism.
Atheism, on the other hand, continues to be open source.
-jpowers
-jpowers
...on corinthians.com?
"I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you?" Now therefore there is a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another . . . Nay, ye do wrong, and defraud your brethren. Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not decieved; neither . . . idolaters . . . nor theives, nor covetous . . . shall inherit the kingdom of God."
Very pointed, I say...
This is getting way out of hand. First I had to worry about using a name that was being used or planned to be used by someone in my general area, then I had to worry about the multi-national conglomerates coming and taking my name regardless if I've had it for thousands of years, now I have to worry about sports teams from OTHER COUNTRIES coming and taking away my .com or .net name. WTF?!
.xx country domain to use while we here in the good 'ol US can't register one without an act of God, especially for personal use. I mean how fair is it that the only TLDs we in America have to choose from are also the most popular globally?
.com domain name for personal use is to use their SSN. How pretty would http://www.231-22-5874.com look. (BTW, I just made that SSN up, don't go steal their identity since I dunno who it is.)
.hum TLD for humans who aren't companies, sports teams, or parts of the government but still want to have a website without it being ripped from underneath them after what could have been months or YEARS of building up the name.
I've also always wondered why other countries give their companies and citizens the
I guess the only way someone can get a unique
I guess ICANN needs to setup a
What a heaping steaming pile of crap this whole thing is becoming and once again it's the little guy who's getting the shit covered end of the stick.
You mean the .us domain? Or are you suffering from the delusion that .com is an american and not an international domain?
.com domains registered were in fact in the US. That would lead anyone to believe that .com is in fact an American TLD. Hell I remember a time when .com, .net, and .org actually MEANT something and InterNIC required proof that you fit the standard to use .com, .net, or .org. *sigh*, the good old days.
.com was not meant to be a US specific domain name, why isn't there a .com.us like there is for *many* of other countries using their country code after the .com?
... I, as a US citizen have no claim on a .br domain since that would take away from the domains set aside for Brazilian companies and citizens ... since we only have .com, .net, and .org to choose from, how fair is it that now we're not only competing with ourselves, but everyone else on the planet even though they have their own, exclusive country coded domain to use?
If memory serves, the Internet did in fact originate in the US and until VERY recently (relatively speaking), 99% of all
If
I guess my point is
Ah, so you think we should all switch over to grey book email addresses?
I had read about this dispute, but I was pretty sure nothing was going to come out of it. There goes my faith in domain dispute resolutions...
The really ridiculous part is, the Brazilian Corinthians have this name because they patterned themselves after the Corinthians, a UK team. I remember when they played against each other a few years ago... Shouldn't the domain name go then to Corinthians UK, since they owned the trademark before?
(All this makes me really ashamed of being a Corinthians supporter since childhood... Don't think I'll be paying attention to soccer anytime soon)
"CORINTHIAO in Portuguese is pronounced as Corinthian in English. In fact, unless the English word itself is used, phonetics (because of the nasal pronunciation) and correct spelling require that the word Corianthiao is used in Portuguese. Thus, when comparing Corinthians with Corianthiao, the Panel concludes that the domain name at issue is phonetically nearly identical to the Complainants trademark CORINTHIAO."
I knew I hated phonics "
[SARCASM]Great... we really needed a precedent set for taking a way a properly used domain name because it is phonetically similar to the name of foreign entity...[/SARCASM]
Are the judges and lawmakers of this world *THAT* fucked up in the head?!?!?! Seriously? Some of the things they come up with continue to defy explaination. There *MUST* be some alien conspiracy causing people to make decisions like this, probably to make it easier to take us over when the main fleet gets here in a few decades.
In all seriousness though, I hope that this is overturned somehow...And while I realize that a: not everyone is religous ,and b: In some countries [ie Brazil] soccer *IS* a religion, does it make sense to anyone that the World Intellectual Property Organization is basically saying that the word "Corinthians" is better well known as a soccer team than as a religious text. Ha!
In doing some reasearch, I found a site with various domain name disputes. One dispute [that has been decided] jumped out at me. It seems that a fellow in Germany registered 'scientologie.org' and of course you-know-which-quasi-religious-entity had a hissy fit. In this case, even though that 'religious' entity had a trade mark on SCIENTOLOGIE, the judge dismissed the case...
It'd be nice if they were at least consistent, no?
Ender
PS. having looked further into it, there were [to me] good reasons for letting the guy keep the domain.
Nothing to see here
The United States Constitution, Article II, section 2, paragraph 2 reads as follows:
i tution/con005.pdf
"He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments."
Looks pretty clear to me. Also clear is that the Constitution places no limits on what a treaty can dictate, which essentially allows treaties to superceed the Constitution. I really don't think this was the intention of the founders.
Here is some commentary found on the senate web site:
http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate/const
''In the United States, a different principle is established. Our constitution declares a treaty to be the law of the land. It is, con-sequently, to be regarded in courts of justice as equivalent to an act of the legislature, whenever it operates of itself, without the aid of any legislative provision. But when the terms of the stipulation import a contract--when either of the parties engages to perform a particular act, the treaty addresses itself to the political, not the judicial department; and the legislature must execute the contract, before it can become a rule for the Court.'' 265 To the same effect, but more accurate, is Justice Miller's language for the Court a half century later, in the Head Money Cases: ''A treaty is primarily a compact between independent nations. It depends for the enforce-ment of its provisions on the interest and the honor of the govern-ments which are parties of it. . . . But a treaty may also contain provisions which confer certain rights upon the citizens or subjects of one of the nations residing in the territorial limits of the other, which partake of the nature of municipal law, and which are capa-ble of enforcement as between private parties in the courts of the country.'' 266
263 Cf. Art. I, 5, cl. 1; see also Missouri Pac. Ry. Co. v. Kansas, 248 U.S. 276, 283-284 (1919).
264 For instance, see S. CRANDALL, TREATIES, THEIR MAKING AND ENFORCEMENT (Washington: 2d ed. 1916), 53; CRS Study, op. cit., n. 264, 109-120.
265 Foster v. Neilson, 2 Pet. (27 U.S.) 253, 314 (1829). See THE FEDERALIST, No. 75 (J. Cooke ed., 1961), 504-505.
266 112 U.S. 580, 598 (1884). For treaty provisions operative as ''law of the land''
(self-executing), see S. CRANDALL, op. cit., n. 264, 36-42, 49-62, 151, 153-163, 179, 238-239, 286, 321, 338, 345-346. For treaty provisions of an ''executory'' character, see id., 162-163, 232, 236, 238, 493, 497, 532, 570, 589. See also CRS Study, op. cit., n. 262, 41-68; RESTATEMENT, FOREIGN RELATIONS, op. cit., n. 262, 111-115.
If this is the way everyone is going to squable over DNS entries, I say we turn off the DNS and let everyone go to their rooms and think about what they have done wrong for a while. We can turn around this Internet right now and go home, do you want that?
He's touching me!
Am not!
Microsoft is barely the running at number 84, and Cisco is right out, ranking 146.
Of course, if you include national governments in the list of "organizations" then even GM doesn't stand a chance.
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"I have a good idea why it's hard to verify programs. They're usually wrong." --Manuel Blum, FOCS 94
Just wondering... this is a pretty absurd theft. Since the registry is American, does the "former" domain holder have the right to sue the registry or Brazilian team for that matter? That would put the case before an American jury. Or is WIPO somehow above American civil law? (anybody can sue anybody for anything here, no?)
Oh, get off it, the guy was squatting. He just threw up a few biblical passages, without any real content.
And besides that, he should have been at corinthians.org.
Cheers,
Rick Kirkland
It would be sufficient that trademarks couldn't be enforced under such a TLD.
No, but it's more important...
The article was kind of one-sided. The claim that the guy was
squatting was due to the fact at the time that the complaint was made,
no use was being made of the domain name. Whaile I think it is a bad
decisions, I think that the article should be taken with a pinch of
salt.
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwith-standing.
So treaties and the Constitution are both "the supreme law of the land."
--
Someone you trust is one of us.
The Biblical book of Corinthians was also known as the "Letter to the Church at Corinth".
Corinthians was the name given to those who lived at the City of Corinth, which had undoubtably been around a long time before the Apostle Paul founded the Church there, and sent them his letters.
What if the someone who lived in Corinth today wanted to promote the City? Would they have more of a right to the corinthians.com domain name than some soccer team from Brazil?
_______________________________________
Is that an African or European swallow?
*Soapbox out*
/. readers that are so vehemently anti-Christian. Just because you don't believe, doesn't meant you have to bash. There are those of us who are religious for very good reasons, and those ideas and beliefs fit perfectly in a modern world of technology and information. Like I said, just becuase you don't believe, you don't have to flame those of us who do.
.com for personal use. If a person wants Corinthians.com then they should get Corinthians.com. And the saddest thing, if it was some special interest domain like a minority site or native American domain, the government would be falling all over itself to protect this "hate" lawsuit. This is pathetic. I wish I had money to fight on behalf of this guy.
Just becuase you don't believe in a certain religion, doesn't give you license to bash Christianity or any other religion. I think it's sad and despicable that there seems to be a fair proportion of
*Soapbox put away*
If you check the regs on domain names, there's nothing that says any person can't register a
Some people take their .sig way too seriously
If you want to find the official web site for the Corinthians soccer team check the link out. (Unfortunately, bable fish is bombing out right now with this page.) What is really interesting, contrary to the posting, is that the name "Corinthians" is used by the team itself. They are also using currently corinthians.com.br
An important point that should be made, is that if somebody in the US were using the URL of www.dodgers.com, there wouldn't be any doubt what would be at that site. In the case of the Corinthians soccer team, it is one of the big sports franchises in Brazil, and for somebody living there they clearly understand why there is a dispute.
The traditional use of .com for businesses has long been ignored. Face it folks, just because something "should be for business" doesn't mean it is. While we're at it, let's change www.sunfreeware.com to www.sunfreeware.org, because I want to setup a company selling Sun freeware on CD and not make it available for download. Therefore the domain is mine?
NO.
Also note that the team DOES NOT OWN any relevant trademarks!
The religion issue also should not matter, though it weighs in favor of the current owner. The domain name is MORE RELEVANT to the current subject than the new subject. This also does not matter, but weighs in favor of the current owner.
The fact is, this is just a trampling of rights. The deciding judge for this case should be kicked out of WIPO. He is showing himself to be easily influenced by corporate interests. He is not setting a good judicious example for anyone, anywhere.
I hope this does enter the US court system.
It's been said before, but it bears saying again.
.com.us. They "developed" arpa net under the arm of DARPA. They have earned it.
A country does gain something for coming up with things first.
The metric system is "System Internationale" -- a French name, because the French came up with it.
Stamps from England do not bear a country name anywhere on them. This is because the English invented postage.
The US does not need to force people into
(PS: I'm Canadian, so don't think I'm boosting my own country)
---
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Yeah, but the publisher can only print them just so fast. The initial print run was supposed to be 3.8 million. Since there are more English-speaking children than that in the world, and there is no chance getting it from a library in the next 5 years, I think there will be additional printings.
What I want to know is whether anyone has seen a copy of any Harry Potter book on a bookstore shelf or online that wasn't marked down at least 25%.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
Essentially, domain names and trademarks should both be viewed as property. Now let's consider what each side had. A domain name corinthians.com, vs. a trademark that should never have been granted trademark status because of it's status for centuries as the title of a couple of chapters in the most widely published book in human history. I think you can see whose side I'm on in this case.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
Good points, but even though the internet removes boundaries, and limits (at least geographically) the human mind still craves them. Am I dealing with sony of japan, sony of america, sony of germany, ect.
www.mp3.com/Undocumented
www.mp3.com/Undocumented
You give them a domain in EACH country they do business. With more domains under the geographical (like .shop,.film ect), strictly enforced, we would not have this petty little problems.
www.mp3.com/Undocumented
www.mp3.com/Undocumented
Countries should be forced to use their geographical TLD, including the US. But instead we have no one enforcing TLD usage, domain squabbling, and stupid judgements.
Ain't that nice.
I hate the internet.
www.mp3.com/Undocumented
www.mp3.com/Undocumented
Since they found NO reference to soccer in Corinthians (KJV, Bible) or in the rest of the bible, the not only ordered corinthians.com to hand over the doamin, but the books of the Corinthians in every new bible printed must at least display a (c) Corinthians Soccer, brazil, at the bottom of each page, and an appendix chapter in the book with the previous years team standings.
Seems the bible was a copyright violation too.
www.mp3.com/Undocumented
www.mp3.com/Undocumented
I'm dreading the day I get that "cease and desist" order that tells me since I don't have a website there, I've been found "guilty" of "domain squatting" and they've given my domain to some megacorp with enough money to buy lawyers.
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My mom's going to kick you in the face!
People seem to have completely forgotten that there's more to the Internet than the Web.
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My mom's going to kick you in the face!
> I've also always wondered why other countries .xx country
.us domain? Or are you suffering from the delusion that .com is an american and not an international domain? If you want to be more precise, there are also .<stateabbreviation>.us. Why not use those?
.sex domains will start putting six pages of frequently used keywords in the dictionary, and we're back where we started. :P
> give their companies and citizens the
> domain to use while we here in the good 'ol US
> can't register one without an act of God,
> especially for personal use. I mean how fair is it
> that the only TLDs we in America have to choose
> from are also the most popular globally?
You mean the
Because then you won't be found.
That's the usual problem with DNS. It's not built to scale. People want to have an easily memorable DNS name, but there simply aren't enough to go around. Someone wrote that NSI thinks of domain names as telephone numbers, and in the end, that will probably be just what they will be. You will need a dictionary to look them up. What we need then
is a good, easily accessible dictionary. Something like DNS, except you search by keywords...
then the
/L
The Vikings could always just pick another domain name.
Like "VikingsFootball.com".
Even if we don't have all those ".sport", and ".bible" type addresses, it's pretty painless to add another common word to your domain. You can still have the coveted ".com" ending, but also a unique domain name that describes your company.
- Isaac =)
(What's funny in this Vikings case is that "vikings.com" goes to the team, and "vikingsfootball.com" goes to a mn tv station...)
The trend has been for domains to be treated as trademarks. I.e. cocacola.com, if not owned by Coca-Cola, is a trademark violation.
However, traditional trademark law allows for multiple companies to have the same or similar names, with the stipulation that the two cannot exist in the same market. I couldn't market a Coca-cola soda, but I could market a Coca-cola ice cream if I felt like it.
The problem is that the DNS system currently does not allow for multiple sites from the same domain. In fact, it was never meant to.
Therefore, domains (in their current form) cannot be used effectively as trademarks in the traditional sense.
In order to accomodate trademarks, the DNS system would need to be overhauled so that the DNS entry is given based on classification of the server.
Take, for example, Amazon the book seller and Amazon the BDSM store. The first might be:
www.retailers.periodicals.amazon.com
The second might be:
www.retailers.adult.amazon.com
An alternate solution would be rather simple: for a given .com domain, the root page (i.e. http://www.amazon.com/) would be a mini-directory of all companies named amazon, which would exist as subdirectories from the root based on category. So our two examples above would be:
www.amazon.com/books
www.amazon.com/adult
As it stands right now, though, the DNS system is inherently incompatible with trademark law, and applying trademark law to it is futile at this point.
Nathan
The company that makes Ghostscript, Aladdin Enterprises, has a very informative homepage on all the other "Aladdin" companies on the web. Aside from the makers of Stuffit Expamder for Macintosh, there is an Aladdin Knowledge Systems that makes software security products, Aladdin Industries that makes Thermos (tm) bottles, the Aladdin Casino in Las Vegas, and an Alladin company in Queensland, Australia that no one seems to know what they do.
NO CARRIER
With that points in mind, please note that I DO NOT agree with this suit or its result. The team already have a national domain. However, bear in mind that the team just signed a BIG deal with an american group, Hicks Muse. This company has all the rights to explore the image of the team worldwide. This must come from them, not from the Brazilian team.
In this perspective, this is just your plain domain litigation... The team may be Brazilian, but surely the lawyers get they pay in dollars...
What about a small startup company (started with funds from one person's pocket, no VC's or investors) which cannot afford to get a trademark YET? I know people who have registered a domain name, and have even gone to the County Clerks office to fill out a certificate of Assumed Name (Doing Business As) form, but have not registered their trademark yet because it's too expensive. Should they have to give up their domain, even though they're a registered company?
If they don't win a championship in the next couple of years the rumors will start:
"They are cursed for taking the Bible off the internet and will never win again!"
Bullshit. Who has had a claim to the name Corinthians longer? Christians, who have used it for at least 1500 or so years, or this soccer team?
A case _could_ be made for both having an equal claim, at the most. In a case where two parties have an equal claim to a domain name, whoever registered it first assuming they did not resort to illegal practices to impede the others registration or speed theirs, gets it. Period.
Religion is totally irrelevant in this case. Its a matter of two groups, one with several centuries of use of a term, one with a few decades at best, both wanting it for a domain name. Gee guess whos the obvious winner?
This is wrong. I'm all for freedom of religion, and seperation of church and state and all that stuff.. But this is dumb.
Lets say I go out and register for my family www.worroll.com. And then a company(that probably had rights to the name worroll for less time than my family has been in the USA) decides I'm infringing on their trademark? Who wins?
This is the same thing... A Christian person has as much right to use www.corinthians.com as anyone else, probably moreso due to the age of the context they were using it in. Did this soccer team get the rights to use the name before or after the Christians did? If they did, good call by the judge. Whats that you say? The bible is verifiably older than soccer? Oh well who cares theres more money in soccer. This makes me sick. It makes me scared to use my own name to register a domain. I know theres a magazine named George. I've seen the name Worroll used for a business at least once before, can't remember the business or even business type though... Does this mean that I can't use a name that I have every right to that has been traced back prior to 1900, and is certain to go farther back? This is ludicrous. Shoot the judge. Better yet, someone come up with a legitimate claim to his family name and register it.
My guess, however, would be that he's a fundie. Fundamentalists seem to hold Paul of Tarsus (author of Corinthians) in higher esteem than Jesus of Nazereth. As the old saw goes: Catholicism represents the victory of Peter's theology over Paul's; Protestantism the victory of Paul's theology over Peter's; and Fundamentalism the victory of Paul's theology over Jesus'.
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
The courts should not be involved in domain name disputes between two equally-valid uses of the domain. While the site displaying verses of the bible doesn't /really/ belong in .com space, neither does a soccer team, and no-one really cares that .com is commercial anymore. The two parties should have settled either with each other, or with a mutually-appointed mediator.
And to those of you who recall that domain names in fact name a machine, not a product or a company, you're absolutely right. But that distinction is lost on non-technical people, and seeing as the internet is now a truly public domain, is useless anyways.
BoneShintai.
No one has a "claim" to the name Corinthians. There should have been no case in the beginning, since the guy had a legitimate purpose for the name.
I really hope this gets appealed.
Are we watching the demise of the free internet?
What are WE going to do about it?!?!
-
There have been many posts here, saying "If they'd been granted a .org, where they're supposed to go, and not a .com, where commercial entries are supposed to go..."...But they weren't! AND, the InterNIC didn't even attempt to segregate, ever, except for .edu and .gov (.mil is handled by someone else, AFAIK).
So please, get over what "should have" been done, because it wasn't done. Would it be better, YES, it would be a LOT better if Microsoft.com was Micro$haft Shitty Software Corp, and Microsoft.org was a non-profit organization, and Microsoft.net was for the Micro$haft *cough* Network, and the InterNIC enforced it, but they don't, they didn't, so now we have to live with it.
If living with it means that ANY complaint, no matter how obviously asinine and wrong, gets the judicial nod, I feel very sorry for all of us, because if it happens to him, what's to stop it from happening to YOU, or ME?
This is my
This is my
--An Oldie, but a Goodie!
An urban legend in the making, it seems. A check of the URL reveals nothing that looks like Disney, nor Aladin Systems.
Face it, the only way people are not going to fight over web addresses are if we go to pure IP addresses (and then, the porn companies will still probably all fight over the 69.69.69.69, etc. addresses).
kwsNI
Thanks, I already knew it was reserved. It was a joke. The point is, no matter what type of convention we have, people are going to fight over who gets what address.
kwsNI
Want to prevent namespace collisions with sacred texts? corinthians.insert Brazilian league here.com.
They already have www.corithians.com.br. That should be enough. I hate companies that think that because they're really late getting into the domain name game, they can sue people or other companies that have beaten them to their name. I don't agree with cybersquatting (sitting on a domain just to sell it for a higher price), but anyone using a domain for something related to that domain name should be protected from these frivilous lawsuites.
kwsNI
I checked the WHOIS database and it would seem that he still has ownership. Hopefully he can get an injunction against the transfer. Regardless of who the domain registrars listen to usually, if they're based in the U.S., they'll listen to a U.S. court. If not, they'll be in much more trouble than the WIPO could ever give them.
I hope he wins this. Just because we need reform doesn't mean we need yet another martyr.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
1 ICANN called to be an apostle of Jon Postel through the will of The Internet, and Slashdot our brother,
2 Unto the church of The Internet which is at Corinthians.com, to them that are hosted in Jon Postel, called to be webmasters, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jon Postel our Founder, both their's and our's:
3 Bandwith be unto you, and low latency, from The Internet our Network, and from the Founder Jon Postel.
4 I thank The Internet always on your behalf, for the bandwith of The Internet which is given you by Jon Postel;
5 That in every thing ye are enriched by him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge;
6 Even as the testimony of Postel was confirmed in you:
7 So that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Founder Jon Postel:
8 Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be well connected in the day of our Founder Jon Postel.
9 The Internet is connected, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Programmer Jon Postel our Founder.
10 Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Founder Jon Postel, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.
11 For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Slashdot, that there are contentions among you.
12 Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of ICANN; and I of WIPO; and I of NSI; and I of Postel.
13 Is Postel divided? was ICANN slashdotted for you? or were ye logged on in the name of WIPO?
14 I thank The Internet that I logged on none of you, but r00t and Signal 11;
15 Lest any should say that I had logged on in mine own nick.
16 And I logged on also the household of Kiro5hin: besides, I know not whether I logged on any other.
17 For Postel sent me not to log on, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the DNS of Postel should be made of none effect.
18 For the preaching of the DNS is to them that squat on domains as HTML; but unto us which are hosted it is the power of The Internet.
19 For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.
20 Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the troll of this website? hath not The Internet made unreachable the wisdom of this website?
21 For after that in the wisdom of The Internet the website by wisdom knew not The Internet, it pleased The Internet by the HTML of preaching to save them that code.
22 For the Users require a URL, and the Geeks seek after wisdom:
23 But we preach Postel slashdotted, unto the Users an unreachable network, and unto the Geeks HTML;
24 But unto them which are called, both Users and Geeks, Postel the power of The Internet, and the wisdom of The Internet.
25 Because the HTML of The Internet is wiser than men; and the weakness of The Internet is stronger than men.
Here endeth the Lesson.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Anomalous: deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Canard: a false or unfounded repor
Neither of these qualify as cybersquatting. If I were to grab etoy.com or some other $trademark.com and waited to see if the folks owning the $trademark name wanted to talk dollars, THAT would be cybersquatting. In both of these cases the original user had created a site and weren't looking to sell.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
.com == commercial, I think religious establishments may have a rather large number of back taxes to pay if they think they have a right to live outside .org
Special Relativity: The person in the other queue thinks yours is moving faster.
What does does a .com domain have to do with scripture? I thought religious stuff was generally non-commercial, and thats why religions get a tax-free status. A commercial entity has more right to a .com site than a non-commercial entity... I'm sure if a commercial Brazillian soccer team tried to steal corinthians.org, they would have had a harder time, and rightly so.
Just my view...
FYI, the official web page of the football team is at http://www.corinthians.com.br/
I'm not so sure if that's true. Take a look at the dates on the 5 pages--yeah, just 5. Real benefit to the community, huh?--that make up the site:
Location: http://www.corinthians.com/
Last Modified: Monday, June 26, 2000 1:59:50 PM GMT
Location: http://www.corinthians.com/2chapter1.htm
Last Modified: Monday, June 26, 2000 1:59:46 PM GMT
Location: http://www.corinthians.com/2chapter2.htm
Last Modified: Monday, June 26, 2000 1:59:46 PM GMT
Location: http://www.corinthians.com/2chapter5.htm
Last Modified: Monday, June 26, 2000 1:59:47 PM GMT
Location: http://www.corinthians.com/2chapter6.htm
Last Modified: Monday, June 26, 2000 1:59:48 PM GMT
--
Have fun: Join D.N.A. (National Dyslexics Association)
For starters, not very many of us Americans are familiar with soccer, so the Brazilian team Corinthians has little or no impact on us. But what if it were the Minnesota Vikings wanted to register vikings.com and found it was held by a Scandanavian man who wasn't doing anything with it? Would our viewpoint soften a little?
And if Sallen really wanted to display scriptures on his site, why not register corinthians.org instead? Was he similarly planning on registering .com domain names for the 65 other books of the Bible? Or was it just the Corinthian epistles that held such endearing value for him. (BTW, was that I Corinthians or II Corinthians?!) Sorry, JD: matthew.com, mark.com, luke.com and john.com are already taken.
Thirdly, there's this quote from the WIPO arbitrator, Roberto Bianchi:
Apparently, aside from its biblical posting following their acquiring notice of the dispute... Respondents have no made any other use of the domain name.
Now IMO this is a serious charge. If Sallen put up content on the site after being informed of the domain dispute, this is tantamount to deleting evidence after being informed that it's been subpoenad. It remains to be seen whether the above is true or not. In his post, Sallen doesn't dispute the charge.
It also remains to be seen which TLD's ICANN will adopt this week. This certainly would alleviate the way-too-broad .com problem that has everyone fighting for it. Perhaps a .team is in the cards.
--
Have fun: Join D.N.A. (National Dyslexics Association)
I seemed to remember that Disney pulled something similar on Aladin Systems a while back. They apparently wrested the aladin.com domain name from Aladin Systems on the basis that someone typing in aladin.com would be expecting to see their version of a classic public domain character.
What's really scary is that according to this judge, you can. After all, what's so important about a bunch of geeks discussing their new Mac cubes?
The team doesn't even have to be called Slashdot, just find a word in a language in which the pronunciation is similar. Trademark it, go to WIPO HQ in Geneva(?), and then fend off the ensuing army of militant nerds. Of which I will be a member. Nobody takes away my /., dammit!!!!.
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Dyolf Knip
Here is a link to a FAQ at the WIPO http://arbiter.wipo.int/information/faq/index.html It looks like they try and handle things by mediation. They also do arbitration, but both parties have to agree to the arbitration. I can't find anywhere on there site that says they have actual enforment power? It looks like the bible guy and soccer team choose to use the WIPO because it was cheaper than going to court.
http://www.windmeadow.com/
Hello, my name is señor Tilverd. I have registered my family name as trademark in Spain, so it is protected.
Now, I find someone has made a website called www.dilbert.com ! I am outraged !
Everybody knows that the Spanish speaking people pronounce the v as a b (and vice-versa) and the t as a d when followed by an i and that an unvoiced d at the end of a word is pronounced as a weak t...
Ergo, the word dilbert is phonetically identical to the pronunciation of my family name and my registered trademark.
So, I am giving a yankee judge a pig pak of tollars to award me the domain dilbert.com, as is it rightfully mine!!!
This discussion is all moot. Do you really think in 10 years, we'll all still be typing www.something.com? All this will continue until technology makes it moot, and I can finally sit down on my couch and in my best scottish accent, say "Computer: find me that cranky brazilian soccer team named after some bible verse I don't remember". I will then promptly be rewarded with entirely too much information about a meaningless subject (the true purpose of the web), and an offer to purchase books about them, directly from each individual author. Unless of course, Microsoft is still around, in which case my computer will execute a small child in Brazil, and start making me coffee.
"Don't you know you're going to shock the monkey?"- Peter Gabriel
In the United States, a different principle is established. Our constitution declares a treaty to be the law of the land.
Yeah, tell it to the Indians.
I don't think anyone should be able to take a domain name as generic as Corinthians.com away from the original owner, as long as they are using it and not cybersquatting.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Galilee, 4:59 PM CIT --
Paul was called to be an apostle through the will of G-d, but Sosthenes our brother
had hitherto registered the name Paul in the
Roman registry of Licensed Apostles.
At the church of God which is at Corinth, there was great legal battle with much quoting of scripture, wherein Sosthenses was given the right to use "Paul" for purposes of religious marketing and branding. In a separate petition, Pilate's Goat Meat in Galilee was granted rights to the phrase "Jesus Christ." Their claim rested on the fact that they had registered the phrase several hours before "Jesus Christ" was listed on the birth certificate of the well-known Phrophet from the same region. Mr. Pilate, a shepard at the time, successfully proved that he had uttered the phrase when he witnessed the birth of a two-headed sheep on December 25th, 1 B.C.E.
As a result, in an official press statement the Son of God declared today that he has decided to name his new religion "The-Prophet-Formerly-Known-As-Jesus-Christ and-His-Apostle-Sosthenes -ity," in the hope that this name will allow him to avoid the costs of further legal representation. Stay tuned for follow-up reports.
"[I]t is well established that no agreement with a foreign nation can confer power on the Congress, or on any other branch of Government, which is free from the restraints of the Constitution." Boos v. Barry, 485 U.S. 312 (1988).
J D Sallen has posted how he feels about the ruling by quoting I Cor. 5:6 & 6:17.
Not truely scripture in-context but it gets the point accross.
My $0.02 will always be worth more than your â0.02, so
IMHO, the fairest solution to all these domain name disputes is to eliminate domain names altogether and stick with IP numbers.
(Imagine that wavy fade to daydream here...)
"... or check out our website at 206.144.183.14"
"Which search engine did you use? 102.64.119.4, 218.95.166.19 or other?"
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Something cleverDid anyone ask them? If not, the WIPO is smoking crack.
sulli
sulli
RTFJ.
Or maybe they just decided that the followers are more passionate and more numerous:)
I guess they decided soccor has been around since before the bible? That's news to me!!
Kate
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