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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."
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
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? =)
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.
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...
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!
People seem to have completely forgotten that there's more to the Internet than the Web.
-=-=-=-=-
-=-=-=-=-
My mom's going to kick you in the face!
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.
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
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.
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