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Guinness Beer Really Sucks
Originally, the domain name system was first-come-first-served, and that worked pretty well. But corporations got trademark powers extended by having them formally built into the domain name arbitration process. Now, trademarks are a minefield.
And the mines are getting more powerful. If you're wondering how anyone but a blithering idiot could possibly confuse "Guinness Really Sucks" with Guinness itself, you're not alone.
The precedent here is the case of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. vs. "Walsucks." In that case, there were two things that led WIPO to determine that there was a likelihood of confusion. First, "the strength of the WALMART trademark."
And second -- interestingly -- the "intent in selecting the domain names."
Proving trademark strength is simple, a corporation just trots out its list of how many millions of dollars it's spent on ad campaigns, and how many devoted customers it has.
And in this case, proving the owner's intent was easy too. He made the mistake of getting mad at Guinness (ironically, about a previous domain case) and being foolish enough to say so. He posted on an old website:
I tell you, I was so upset when I got this STUPID ASS LETTER from the GOOFBALL JACKASS LAWYERS at guinness beer, that I went to register the domain name, GUINNESSSUCKS.COM, but guess what, that domain name is already owned by someone. Guess who. That's right. Guinness beer owns it themselves. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks they suck. THEY THINK THEY SUCK THEMSELVES!! ... So anyway I did go and register a few names about guinness beer and pillsbury. Tell me what you think....Coming Soon to a website near you!!
You may be saying, so what? Who cares whether he was angry or not? Doesn't he have a right to protest a corporation regardless of his emotional state?
You might think so, but you'd be wrong. His thoughtcrime is a big part of why these domains were taken away. The argument that Guiness put before WIPO was that "the Respondent admitted ... that he registered the [domain names] because he was angered."
Therefore, said Guinness, "the registration of the [domain names] was done in bad faith" -- which is the main thing needed to take a domain away from someone -- "and not for a legitimate purpose, rather Respondent's intent is to harass the Complainant."
I wish I could tell you that WIPO told Guinness to shove this attitude where the sun doesn't shine, and that even ordinary citizens have the right to say that some precious corporation sucks.
They didn't, of course. In their decision, they reference the owner's anger and then simply say that they "accept that the Complainant has made out a prima facie case that the Respondent registered said domain names with the intention of harassing the Complainant."
To them, anger means bad faith and no legitimate purpose, which are the key phrases that WIPO needs to assert before they take a domain away.
There are some kinds of speech corporations don't want to allow on this little thing we call the internet. In the new domain name system, it's not a "legitimate purpose" to say that a company sucks. Especially if you are one of those angry people who doesn't understand how great Guinness beer is. Sorry. Go find another domain, loser.
WIPO went on to point out was that there may be some non-English-speaking readers who may not be familiar with the word "sucks." These people might be confused as to whether they were looking at the Guinness homepage or not. Therefore the test of trademark confusion was met. I am not kidding.
Although Guinness "has not submitted any evidence of such confusion," they don't even need to: "it is unrealistic to require such evidence."
Here's the list of really confusing domains. Someone tell me how these URLs could be mistaken for the Guinness beer website:
guinness-really-sucks.com
guinness-really-really-sucks.com
guinness-beer-really-sucks.com
guinness-beer-really-really-sucks.com
guinness-sucks.com
guinnessreallysucks.com
guinnessreallyreallysucks.com
guinnessbeerreallysucks.com
guinnessbeerreallyreallysucks.com
guinness-beer-sucks.com
guinnessbeersucks.com
It gets worse. I might search on Guinness and turn up a "-sucks" website, and then I might actually be curious and click on it, thereby depriving the real Guinness of my eyeballs. Again, I am not kidding. This is actually part of the reason the domains were taken away from their owner.
I'll write some more about this later, maybe next month. If you know anyone who feels like their domain name was unfairly taken away, please have them contact me.
No more Guiness... sigh...
---
Book(n): Utensil used to pass time while waiting for the TV repairman
Somebody should register:
fuckguiness.com
guinessshits.com
guinesstasteslikeshit.com
guinessisbad.com
guinessbeerblows.com
fuckguinessbeer.com
guinessbeersucksdick.com
etc.
ByteMyCode.com: A Web 2.0 code sharing community.
Of course, the fact that he never even bothered to reply to ICANN might have had something to do with this. Generally, if you want to preserve your rights, you should make a minimal effort to do so.
By the risk of getting Irish moderators on my back....honestly! It is *not* confusing, it is just *true*: Guinness Beer Really Sucks!
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
I've been wondering about this issue since 2600 brought it up with the whole verizonsucks.com thing. For those of you who don't know, 2600 found it entertaining that Verizon purchased loads of "anti-Verizon" domains such as verizonsucks.com. So, 2600 purchased verizonreallysucks.com and got hit with a cease and disist.
.sucks top level domain that was proposed by ICANN? I don't enjoy Microsoft, so I scoop up microsoft.sucks when the new domains come out, and what happens? More than likely, Microsoft will sue me for trademake infringment.
.sucks domain (and domain names like the ones in this article) without getting in trouble?
Anyway, with these kinds of things going on, how can consumers and activists make use of the
I guess my question is how can we (consumers) make use of the
Actually, Guiness has been rather protective of their trademarks for a very long time. Useless factoid: Ireland had to reverse (horizontal flip) the harp on their flag because Guiness already used a harp as their logo(*).
They suck, but damn, their beer is really good.
(*)"Marks of Excellence", Per Mollerup, Phaidon press.
--- Worst tagline ever.
But, it's Guinness, one of the better beers available, IMHO. Cut them some slack, they were most likey half tanked when they made the decision to go through with this. Seriously, how could you turn down a Black & Tan, even if it came from Satan himself?
So I'm here trying to figure out how the "Guinness Sucks" phrase could possibly be confused as an actual Guinness trademark by any reasonable person. At first I thought it was because the Guinness people were drinking too much of their fine product, when it suddenly struck me....."Guinness sucks" is going to be their new advertising slogan. Maybe they're looking to produce a line of beer that sucks? Could they possibly be in the market for one of the American brewers, such as Miller or Budweiser?
Any way you slice it, this complaint and subsequent decision belong in the Guinness company's own Book of World Records for Stupidest Legal Complaint Lobbied by a Multinational Corporation.
fearbush.com
Finding God in a Dog
Whois Server Version 1.3
.com, .net, and .org domains can now be registered
Domain names in the
with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net
for detailed information.
No match for "GUINESSBLOWS.COM".
No match for "GUINESSBITES.COM".
No match for "GUINESSSUCKSTHEBIGONE.COM".
etc
make them work for this...
Pork is not a verb
I do DNS for microsoft-blo.ws and microsoftblo.ws
Guess I can expect to hear from Microsoft.
-- I ain't broke, but I'm badly bent.
As much as I despise censorship on the Internet, I find it blasphemous that anyone would even suggest that Guinness could suck. Guinness is the nectar of the gods. In fact, I think I'll go register guinness-is-the-best-god-damn-beer-ever.com, oh wait, that'd probably be "identical or confusingly similar to" their trademark on the word "Guinness." Oh well. :)
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. -- Oscar Wilde
niceFire.com - Humor and Lego's or Lego's and Humor or Some Combination of
guinness-really-sucks-and-this-isnt-their-website. com?
t his.com?
e ak-my-bones-but-words-will-never-hurt-me.c om
= -
or...
guinness-really-sucks-and-i-am-not-angry-about-
or...
guinness-never-learned-sticks-and-stones-may-br
Feh. I'm going out right now and registering guinness-tastes-like-sh*t.com but then again, it might already be taken.
Might I suggest a massive registration rally in protest followed by massive search engine submissions?
- JoeShmoe
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
If you read the decision, you'll notice that the domain owner never filed a response to Guinness. This is the legal equivalent of rolling over and playing dead. If you don't even bother to put up a fight, you'll lose.
Because the domain owner never responded, the panel had nothing to go on but what Guinness told them. So, for instance, according to the panel:
There is no evidence before this Administrative Panel that the Respondent intends to use the said domain names as the addresses or links to any sites which could be described as "complaint sites". For this reason the issues canvassed in any of the decisions relating to free speech are not relevant in this case.
While this seems to go against common sense, that's what happens when the panel only hears one side of the argument. Just another result of the adversarial legal system, I suppose...
It is not 100% suck-free. And the code name matches.
I guess harps is pretty good, any tips of a fine stout availible all around the US?
I only post twice a year, who needs a sig?
I sure know that I'd be confused by the domain names if I had just sucked down $2,000 worth of beer....
He registered a slew of domain names just to annoy Guiness.
What he *should* have done is created an anti-guiness site, and directed URLs to it. *then* he'd have a case.
Apparantly, he didn't. He didn't "make a web site to say that Guiness sucks", he "registered a bunch of domian names just to needle Guiness."
What is the equivalent of what he's done? What's the conventional media equivalent?
If you were to plaster most of the above across a public bulletin board, you'd be sued. You'd be lucky(?) if you could even get the advert placed in the first place.
Creating an entry in the telephone book with any of the above as a company name would also get you in hot water. This is the closest parallel I can draw to registering a domain name.
Is it really so surprising that this has happened? Is it even anything to get upset about? If so... why?
Probably drinks bud too.
:wq
Guiness doesn't actually have much to do with the Book of World Records, IIRC. It's just a family name (or something like that) somehow related to the book. I can't (unfortunately) find proof of that anywhere on the web. Anyone?
~luge
IAAL,BIANLY
Guinness is good beer. If you think it sucks, it prob'ly because you were brought up on budweiser or old milwaukee (pardon my spellin'). It's bitch what the WIPO is doing, but Guinness is good beer, and yet again thats the bottom line -------------------------------------------------
I'm sure you can find a pub somewhere that will serve you a glass of Murphy's. A fine alternative if you want to stick it to Guiness.
It may look like I'm doing nothing, but I'm actively waiting for my problems to go away.
--Scott Adams
If this argument were taken just a teeny bit further, they could argue that when a user searches for "Guinness", the only pages that should show up are Guinness's own pages. No Guinness fan pages should show up. No parody sites. No fair use.
--
Hmm...One of the computers here at my workplace is named Guinness. Think we have to worry about da' man coming down on us for that?
You are more than the sum of what you consume.
You are more than the sum of what you consume.
Desire is not an occupation.
You want to see who they are?
You want to contact them?
http://arbiter.wipo.int/contact/index .ht ml
cheers,
.j
/dev/psychic: No medium found
Is there any appeal path available after WIPO decisions like this? They appear to be becoming increasingly arbitrary in their rulings.
I used it to send them my letter explaining that I will no longer be purchasing their products.
Someone tell me how these URLs could be mistaken for the Guinness beer website
As was stated in the original rant by the owner of the questionable domains, Guiness owns guinesssucks.com. guinesssucks.com and guiness-really-sucks.com are quite alike, so there's definitely confusion. If I were trying to go to guinnesssucks.com, it's quite likely that I'd go to guinness-sucks.com by accident.
But I doubt Guiness has a trademark on "guinesssucks[.com]"
Sure you may get microsoft.sucks, and you could post informative stuff. But what's to say an "individual" (that may have some unknown ties with the company) get [companyname].sucks and put in there, "I used one of their products, and when I went to use their automation feature....blah blah blah about all the benefits....it had me click twice on the icon instead of once. They really do suck!
.sucks makes no sense. patents.sucks? No...patents.suck
Then you'd have to have rules regarding what is actually sucking and what isn't and how the website reports it.
Also, what about plural nouns?
it doesn't matter whether or not you can confuse the trademarks or not. the law should protect the first person to come up with an idea. if that idea is to use the name guiness to sell beer it counts. the law and its enforcers should be conservative. but the people who instigate action (guiness in this case) should refrain from attacking little people like the guy in your story (the pick on people your own size theory) or satirical people. its guinness that sucks not wipo
A proud daddy registered a domain for his 2 year old daughter, Veronica. It was a website where he had some pics of his little girl online. Pretty simple.
Then Archie Comics deciced it was rightfully theirs, because one of their characters is named "Veronica".
"We had Veronica.com registered, and these people didn't want to give up the [Veronica.org] name for some reason," said Michael Silberkleit, publisher of Archie Comics.
Well Gee! Maybe he wants to keep the domain "for some reason", perhaps for his DAUGHTER?!
Interestingly enough, Veronica.Org doesn't exist, however the whois entry still shows the father owns it. Good.
If you're interested in the details regarding this specific incident, head here:
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-100 5-2 00-337433.html
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
They're not claiming that people will be confused and think that his site is a Guinness site, they're worried about people thinking his site is a "Guinness sucks" site, which they are obviously working on, since they registered the domain.
-=Best Viewed Using [INLINE]=-
oh, great... I have http://www.dmcasucks.org
WTF are they going to do to me!?
-aicra
The Complainant argues that if the Respondent were to use the said domain names in connection with active www sites, it is likely that such use would disrupt the Complainant's legitimate business and divert members of the public from the Complainant's www sites. It is further argued by the Complainant that if the Respondent were to use said domain names in connection with active www sites, consumers searching the Internet for the term would likely discover any such site established by the Respondent. The Complainant further submits that it would be likely that such consumers would choose to visit the such sites established by the Respondent, if only to satisfy their curiosity as to the content of such sites. Respondent would thus divert potential consumers of Complainant to his www sites by the use of said domain names.
So the only entitity authorized to provide any information related to Guinness Beer is the company itself? If I want to criticize their product, I must make sure only to use domain names that will not show up in a search, i.e. no one will ever see my criticism.
Mandatory stupid analogy: A guy passing out pamphlets that oppose Company X's (insert gripe here). The WIPO rules he can't put the name of the company on the front of the pamphlet because people might see it. He also can't pass out pamphlets in the same city as Company X because passerbys might be curious about the pamphlets. All the pamphlets are confiscated and he goes home very sad
Q: So when will Guinness World Records lose their domain?
A: They Won't
Q: Why?
A: Because nobody at Guiness complained about them?
Q: But couldn't GuinessWorldRecords be mistaken by non-english speaking people?
A: Like whom, WIPO?
Quid rides ignare?
Clearly, Guiness does not suck. Therefore, all this a load of mindless drivel
Would it be possible, or feasable, to fork
DNS at this point, running it by a board of
people opposed to corporate interests and IP?
It seems that the interests of big business
may have made the current system lost...
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Just as a reminder, Verizon registered 700+ domain names based on the Verizon name variant. Emanuel Goldstein then registered verizonreallysucks.com. Looks like he will be losing this on too!?!
: beats the coward down
If a good lawyer out there could make a firm case that you can actually _say_ somthing with your domain name then you'd have first amendment protection in the states. And WIPO could probably be sued up the ass for infringing upon that right (over and over again). Just a though.
Seems pretty piss poor (or pour =) to go after companynamesux.com
Seems even poorer to have pre-emptively registered companynamesucks.com (according to the WIPO doc)
*shrug* Their better off just leavin these sites be, rather than drawing attention to them. It validates the disconted opinion, because they take it seriously... plus that's just a crappy-big-ish company thing to do.
*shrug*
E
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
It's just a tricolour. I've never seen a harp anywhere. Coat of arms, maybe...or have they changed the standard recently?
Never play leapfrog with a unicorn.
Secaucus Group (WIPOSUCKS-DOM)
= -
295 Greewich Street Suite 184
New York, New York 10007
USA
Domain Name: WIPOSUCKS.COM
Administrative Contact, Technical Contact, Zone Contact, Billing Contact:
Parisi, Dan (DP996) dparisi@GARDEN.NET
Dan Parisi
Post Office Box 1009
Secaucus, NJ 07094
973-503-1785
...how about wipo-really-sucks.com, anyone?
- JoeShmoe
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
I just think this is another argument for why we need an alternative domain system. Regardless of what trademark law says, this is an infringement of the guy's free speech rights, which trumpt the legal rights of Guiness. The Guiness company is not a person, so it doesn't really have any rights.
Folks may think that WIPO has some kind of legal standing, but the fact is that nobody had any input on the creation of this international treaty. Did you see anything about it on the most recent ballot you cast? If you didn't have a say on it, then you dont' have to obey it.
The intellectual property emperor has no clothes!
- The previous domain dispute the guy was upset about was over guinnes.com, a typo domain;
- He never had any sites up on the guinness-sucks domains he registered;
- The Respondent (aka defendant) did not respond to the action he was served with;
- Quoting the decision (Complainant is Guinness, the Registrar is CORE):
- Again quoting the decision:
This guy is a squatter who didn't even bother to contest the charges. Why should we cry for him?Save Maine's economy: write stuff down. All comments are exclusively my own, not my employer.
It's so thick it's like drinking bread, I swear.
.. I have to agree with you though.. I like Real Beer (is that a trademark too??) .. much more so than the flavourless shite that's normally served up in the USA, but Guiness is pretty heavy stuff.. you can feel like you've eaten a whole meal by drinking a pint of that stuff.
.. makes it very like a regular pub-pulled pint. I don't know how many of them are imported into the US though. I know I've had Boddingtons over here... that was somewhere in NYC though, bit far from where I live currently.
.. oh well..
*ROTFLOL*!
Btw (FWIW) lots of other beers (Like Boddingtons or Caffreys - yum! - wish that was around here) have the 'draught-in-a-can' thing (draughtflow?)
- Brit beer drinker who's reduced to drinking Samuel Adam's Beer here in the USA
--
Delphis
Heh... we always call it "breakfast in a can".
wolf31o2 Developer, Gentoo Linux Games Team
The way WIPO is behaving in these decisions is a good example of why the U.S. ought to avoid surrendering authority to international bodies in the future. I can only imagine what we'd see if the Kyoto or Outer Space Treaties ever got signed.
"If I have seen further than other men, it is by stepping on their glasses." - Michael Swaine
WIPO went on to point out was that there may be some non-English-speaking readers who may not be familiar with the word "sucks." These people might be confused as to whether they were looking at the Guinness homepage or not. Therefore the test of trademark confusion was met. I am not kidding. True, and those same non-English speakers probably can't tell that bit.com has nothing to do with bitch.com... um... who the hell cares?
got drum'n'bass?
http://mp3.com/vitriolix
If a person did this, maybe then they would be guilty of a serious lack of humor. But businesses aren't people! They have to act in certain ways because they are required to by law.
- If Guinness isn't anal about the use of the word "Guinness" with reference to beer, they will lose their trademark and it will be gone! Arguably, if they allow these Joe Schmoe domains, then every two-bit brewer in the world will be able to put "Guinness" on their beer too -- killing off one of the better-known brand names in beer.
- Corporations must act to protect the interests of their owners! If you or I had this problem, we could forgive and forget. A corporation cannot! The directors of a business must do all they can to protect its assets and profit flows or they will be sued for a breach of feduciary duty.
- Yes, free speech and all that. Parody, etc. But even if it isn't cool, it is perfectly understandable that the Guinness corp wouldn't want these domains out there.
Stop bellyaching about Guinness. This is merely a sympton of a more generally screwed up system.Can't a big company take a little criticism? After any kind of bad press or at the possibility of it their 1st response is "let's sue them!". I myself own and operate a Sucks site and when they found out they sent the cops to my room and made me shut it down with some flimsy excuse. Needless to say the site was back up 48 hours later with a new design and because of getting shut down we got all kinds of free press. it worked out well for us and they screwed themselves over. Knowing a little about fair use really helped us out.
For those tuning in late, like myself, would some mind making a brief post explaining what WIPO stands and what they do, or at least claim to do? Thanks. I feel like I'm tuning into an interesting TV show half way through.
Ironically, wiposucks.(com|net|org) are all taken.
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
What about Sir Alec Guinness fan (or hate sites, if there is such a thing...)
Which Guinness would have the "right" (or the right to suck in this case) to have claims to that domain...
"It was as if a million company-sucks.com sites all screamed out at once in horror, and then were silenced (sic)...."
E
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
I'm going against the grain here.. I know..
What the hell is this guys problem? Registering a slew of domain names against a beer company? Not only does this ring of some weird anger management problems but he is using their trademark, their name - and that should be protected to an extent.
I don't think either party is in the right here, but Guiness is protecting their name.. and c'mon - guinness-really-sucks.com could show up on a Guinness receipe search hit or something, and that is misleading.. so I really have no qualms against people losing their maliciously created domain names. Domain names should not be used to get even at a company you feel has wronged you..
Open up your mind a bit, understand that Guinness is not a big hungry evil corporation bent on screwing the little guy but a corporation trying to make money and protecting their trademark. Granted, I would have a different view if it was say.. Colgate or something - but two separate companies..
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
Maceson's Triple Stout makes Guiness seem like spring water.
love is just extroverted narcissism
What if I were registering the domain to state that redhat guinness sucks, which it does in comparison to the last release because its full of bugs?
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
I think everyone should call upon the net gods to create a .sucks TLD. We have seen intellectual property lawyers take piece after piece of the Internet. Put your damn foot down and show them who's boss. .edu, .net, .gov all have their purposes and restrictions on what content is allowed and what is not. Create a .sucks domain that only allows critical reviews of companies, products, and organizations and protect it with a free speech and free press arguments. Each site can link to the rules of the .sucks domain which explain is several languages (including lawyer-speak) what the TLD is about and where to send complaints (i.e. /dev/null).
Lets get ONE thing squared away - Guinness might suck, but Guinness BEER does NOT suck! :-)
Mike Roberto
- GAIM: MicroBerto
Berto
Ah yea!! .. that's it.. I noticed you'd posted while I was writing mine and trying to think of it.. That name 'widget' makes me recall an image of Jack Dee (british comedian for non-Brit folks) hopping about with a lot of penguins for John Smiths.. dunno if that's the right commercial I'm thinking of or not. Jeez.. been a while since I've seen that too .. makes me wonder why I still give it mind-space..
--
Delphis
Whoa! Takes away a registered domain because a guy is angry, imagine that. Ok, that's lame. But, how is this guy expecting to trap people into visiting any of his websites, without generating lots of publicity?
Gosh, I sure do like Guinness! I should look them up on the web and see where they are and if I can get a tour of the St. James Gate Brewery! Golly jeekers, what could their URL be... uh.. www.guinnesssucks.com, sure that's got to be it! Duh! Drool. Drool.
Gimme a break. This is a pissing contest and nothing else. Now if he created a site like: www.BoycottGuinness.com and had a thoughtful editorial on his grievance and Guinness and WIPO took it away, I think he would have a pretty strong case. As it is he's nothing better than the cybersquatters who take a celeb name and put some mindless hateful rant on there. What he is deprived of should have some value, merely a domain name of guinnesssucks.com is pathetic.
OTOH, if WIPO takes away his domain names, WIPO or Guinness should reimburse him his fees.
--
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I just registed boycottguinness.com, I'll point it to this discussion page and email guinness about it.
Well, I guess THESE& lt;/a> guys are next.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Well, there's this flag, but it isn't the Irish flag.
I was looking for Guinness' website and while typing out the web address, my finger slipped and i accidentally typed "www.guinness-really-sucks.com" instead of "www.guinness.com"... Damn that bastard's tricky!
Let's look at the facts:
- The guy got pissed at Guinness and registered a bunch of domain names that, in effect, stated Guinness sucks.
- Guinness got pissed and played hardball to have the domains removed.
- The guy never responded to the WIPO inquiry - and he had A MONTH to do so!
- The guy has registered (and had taken away) numerous other domain names he registered in bad faith - the docket lists 5 other cases he's been involved in
- Finally, instead of doing something - ANYTHING - with the domain names, he posts that he took them from Guinness becasue he was pissed they took his original domain to another site.
I'm sorry, but he DESERVED to have those domains taken away. I've been working to get a domain for a group that I'm friends with, and they can't get it because some squatter claims to be 'opening an email service with 3 letter domains' but all he does is sell domains on it. And, it doesn't even point to itself! Plus the DNS entries contain 'THIS-DOMAIN-FOR-SALE' in whois...Slashdot needs to look a bit more carefully at the stories they run and select, lest too many more things like this pop up that ruin their credibility further.
Score: -1, Flamebait
You can almost live on Guinness! (Almost, you try a totally liquid diet and see how you feel)
gone off to register:
guinness-does-not-travel.com
guinness-in-a-can-really-sucks.com
--
Wassup!!!
True,...
"Your American beer is like sex in a canoe, fucking close to water!"
-- Monty Python (i think)
Are we not going to be allowed to have any url's with something that says Suck, sucks, etc... What is this world coming to when you are not allowed to have what you want. I mean maybe there is a reason they wanted those sites. Also one more comment: If Guinness was smart they would register: Bud sucks, Red Dog sucks, or any other beer that comes to mind.
To me there is no way that anyone would confuse a sucks site with a real site..
well.. maybe if the site was for a vacuum cleaner..
There is something like this in the public-participation arena, called SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation). Because of the abuses of SLAPPs by companies trying to silence their opponents, many US states now have anti-SLAPP laws. Not only are SLAPPs tossed out of court, but the damages one can recover in the counter-suit against a SLAPP is enough to really hurt. Bottom line: SLAPPs have essentially stopped where these laws are in effect.
We need something like the SLAPP law to defend opinion and parody, including and especially in all parts of the Internet. If Guinness wound up being on the hook for some millions of dollars (and had to give the domains back), they wouldn't be pulling this crap in front of the WIPO. They'd have to grin and bear it. Somehow I don't see them suffering; of all the Guinness drinkers in the world, how many of them are going to care that one person with a domain thinks that they suck? Instead, they felt they had to be the bully. They've lost my sympathy, totally. I shall never again buy any Guinness product.
The real problem is implementation. Getting something like a SLAPP law recognized by the [bought and paid for corporate lackies of the] WIPO is going to take a lot of doing. It might be easier to declare geekdom a religion and issue a fatwa against the execs of Guinness, Digital Convergence, the RIAA, DVD-CCA and all the rest. Not necessarily more productive, but easier (and certainly quicker).
--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Linus Torvalds has spurred a love of beer amongst Linux users according to Jargon.org, he really loves Guiness. Wierd, really given the Guiness used to flavour their beer with dead horses in the early years IIRC.
Oh what is a Linux geek to do? Boycott Guinness? Offend the founding father, Oh! Agony!
That's it. Im switching to BSD, Penguins like beer but Demons drink a mixture of sulpur and brimstone, as far as I know no one has tried to register sulphur-and-brimstone-really-sucks.com!
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
This guy should register "gu1n3zz-b33r-b1tez-b1g-0nez.com" and see what they do..
http://wipo.really.fuckingsucks.net/http://guiness .really.fuckingsucks.net&l t;/a>
________________________________________
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
damn, finally someone else with some sense. If i wanted to drink liquid dirt I would go to New Jersey, or possibly Lake Erie. When i want good beer I will drinking something that tastes good, not the 30-proof motor oil that is Guiness.
http://wipo.really.fuckingsucks.net/
... and of course, so I stay on topic,
http://guiness.really.fuckingsucks.net
________________________________________
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
The WIPO made the right decision in this case, given the evidence they had. The domain holder chose not to send a response to the dispute arbitrators and so they only had evidence provided by the complaintants (guiness).
If you are sued and you choose not to show up in court and defend yourself, the judge will decide the case based only on the evidence presented by the complaintant and likely judge against you. If you get a sommons to appear in court for trial and decide not to show up you will likely be hauled off to jail. Likewise if you recieve a notice from a domain dispute arbitration board requesting a response to a domain being disputed you had best defend yourself or accept the fact that you will lose your domain.
The WIPO board had no evidence to go on except that presented by guiness and ruled accordingly because the domain holder chose not to respond. Guiness could have gone on to accuse the domain holder of serving the guiness laywers scalding hot coffee which the laywers spilled into their laps causing second degree burns and if the domain holder chooses not to defend themselves against these accusations than the WIPO has no option but to accept them as fact.
So, its a bummer that this dude loses his domains but thats what will happen if you don't bother responding to defend yourself.
-- Greg
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
Apparently he didn't like them taking away guinnes.com (only one 'S') so he decided to try again. Anyway... you'd be hard pressed to make me stop drinking Guinness.
Granted it's not quite the same, but Mississippi Mud does have the same consistency and some other similar .... blah blah blah etc ....
I really like a good open source Homebrew!
<i>But i prefer, a good proprietry comperate international brand. <i>
Its the OS holy wars all over again.
Remember their wonderful marketting camplain a while ago with the slogan "Guiness is good for you?" Ripe for perversion.
this internet thing is really starting to suck
/* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */
The Apple in 'American Apple Pie' is now a computer, not a fruit.
The authorities restrict our language on the Internet. They have taken all words away from us and make them fit for only one use - only as trademark system. It is a very bad trademark system at that, used by only one supplier of each name, out of thousands worldwide.
WIPO is big part of this. I have protest sites, WIPO.org.uk and SWIPO.org.
I have been communicating with the United States Patent and Trademark Organization and the Department of Commerce. I make the main problem clear to them. This is extract of latest email:
"Here is an analogy, just for a moment imagine, if you will:
You go to your dictionary and look up definition for the word 'apple'. It says the following:
Apple - a maker of computers. This is the sole meaning; any other use will be a criminal offence.
Nothing at all about them being a fruit used in the world famous 'American Apple Pie'. All words have had their description changed. You find dictionaries have been bastardised, for use as a trademark system. Would you not be outraged that all the words in your vocabulary for everyday speech have been perverted this way?"
Perhaps you have more sense - do you understand? Can you see - words belonging to everybody, have been given to big business? As I say, the Apple in the world famous 'American Apple Pie' is now a computer, not a fruit.
I have solution to trademark problems at www.WIPO.org.uk, which authorities already knew.
WIPO.org.uk and SWIPO.org have no connection with, and wishes to be totally disassociated from, the World Intellectual Property Organization. The above is my considered and informed opinion.
(Anyone know if the original registrant gets his/her money back if the WIPO rules against them?)
"There is no evidence before this Administrative Panel that the Respondent intends to use the said domain names as the addresses or links to any sites which could be described as "complaint sites". For this reason the issues canvassed in any of the decisions relating to free speech are not relevant in this case.
In the circumstances, this Administrative Panel is satisfied that Complainant has established a prima facie case that the Respondent has no rights or legitimate interest in the said domain names or any of them."
Basically, the guy's a cyber squatter (3000 addresses) and because he didn't do anything with the addresses, and didn't respond they ruled in favor of guinness.
It still does not seem appropriate that they were taken away. Just because you're cybersquatting does not mean that his (or any) interest is better than the company in this regard.
And guinness, geez, trying to get all of these suck sites only encourages more creative ones....
Effective proceedings to a large extent depend on the quality of the neutral. Intellectual property disputes demand not only optimal process skills on the part of the decision maker, but also specialized knowledge within the areas of patents, trademarks, copyright, designs or other form of intellectual property that is the subject of the dispute.
Who are these people? How are they selected? Should we really have one corporate IP lawyer serving as an arbitrator for another corporation's complaint? More importantly, can I sign up to be an arbitrator?
This is a long lasting joke. I guess they took it when they noticed the .com was taken
http://www.primussucks.com
I might search on Guinness and turn up a "-sucks" website, and then I might actually be curious and click on it, thereby depriving the real Guinness of my eyeballs
Rumors about any page mentioning Sir Alec Guinness being forced to have a large disclaimer, and popup the guiness site, are unfounded.
What good is boycotting Guinness going to do? "Oh, sorry, in that case we'll give all those guinnesssucks domains back." They've already spent their $2000 and screwed this guy. The real problem isn't Guinness-- sure, they're a bunch of assholes, but as we've discovered, so are most large corporations. All the other biggies are thinking, "wow-- they won? time to sue for microsoftsucks.com back!".
The real problem is the WIPO, a disgustingly ill-conceived, poorly-planned, and generally broken organization. Its origins are almost as dubious as its repeated abuse of power.
As the W in WIPO stands for World, I guess their limitations are only confined by gravity and their gravy filled minds of morality.
Let's not forget this tidbit from Ralph Nader's anwsers to slashdot reader's questions.
Mr Nader--
I am opposed to patents on software, and opposed to patents on business methods. I believe that parody should be protected in copyright and trademark, that copyright enforcement should not override privacy rights, and that use of patents, trademarks and copyrights should be limited by fair use, and when necessary, compulsory licenses.
The public domain should be protected, and public figures need to speak out against the ever-escalated march of corporate lobbying for expanding intellectual property rights.
--end quote--
Its official, this story is another move by Roblimo to continue his underhanded scheme to get Nader elected.!
WIPO is the World Intellectual Property Organization. It administers international intellectual property treaties (such as the WIPO copyright treaty and the Trademark Law Treaty of 1994).
_ content_frame=/about-wipo/en/gib. htm and at http://arbiter.wipo.int/domains /gu ide/index.html
ICANN has given WIPO the authority to arbitrate domain name disputes. ICANN-accredited registrars have to agree to WIPO arbitration; if you register a domain (under ICANN policy), you generally agree to WIPO jurisdiction.
More info is at http://www.wipo.org/about-wipo/en/index.html?wipo
guiness.sucks.com
microsoft.sucks.com
verision.sucks.com
digitalconvergence.sucks.com
wipo.sucks.com
icann.sucks.com
To name a few.
Personally, I think we just need a DNS revolt. Or better yet, an entire network revolt. It wouldn't be too hard to put an infrastructure on top of the current net and wall off the corporate world from it. As I've suggested in the past, an invitation only VPN would work great. Couple that with a distributed naming system of some sort, and leave the current corporations out to rot. We built this network and we don't want them and we don't need them.
Hell reverting back to store and forward would be better than what they've given us.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
What does this mean for sites like www.microsith.com, and even worse, http://www.mslinux.org?
http://arbiter.wipo.int/domains/filing/index.html
I understand, the guy was po'd but he has a right to buy a domain to criticize or state an opinion. (but that's just mho...)
shouldn't the respondent have been notified by the WIPO?
Was the respondent notified??
from:
http://www.icann.org/udrp/udrp-rules-24oct99.htm .
2. Communications
(a) When forwarding a complaint to the Respondent, it shall be the Provider's responsibility to employ reasonably available means calculated to achieve actual notice to Respondent. Achieving actual notice, or employing the following measures to do so, shall discharge this responsibility:
(i) sending the complaint to all postal-mail and facsimile addresses (A) shown in the domain name's registration data in Registrar's Whois database for the registered domain-name holder, the technical contact, and the administrative contact and (B) supplied by Registrar to the Provider for the registration's billing contact; and
(ii) sending the complaint in electronic form (including annexes to the extent available in that form) by e-mail to:
(A) the e-mail addresses for those technical, administrative, and billing contacts;
(B) postmaster@; and
(C) if the domain name (or "www." followed by the domain name) resolves to an active web page (other than a generic page the Provider concludes is maintained by a registrar or ISP for parking domain-names registered by multiple domain-name holders), any e-mail address shown or e-mail links on that web page; and
(iii) sending the complaint to any address the Respondent has notified the Provider it prefers and, to the extent practicable, to all other addresses provided to the Provider by Complainant under Paragraph 3(b)(v).
(b) Except as provided in Paragraph 2(a), any written communication to Complainant or Respondent provided for under these Rules shall be made by the preferred means stated by the Complainant or Respondent, respectively (see Paragraphs 3(b)(iii) and 5(b)(iii)), or in the absence of such specification
(i) by telecopy or facsimile transmission, with a confirmation of transmission; or
(ii) by postal or courier service, postage pre-paid and return receipt requested; or
(iii) electronically via the Internet, provided a record of its transmission is available.
-----------------------------------------------
The Center can be contacted in Geneva, Switzerland by telephone at +41 22 338 9111, by fax at +41 22 740 3700 or by e-mail at domain.disputes@wipo.int.
P.S. How can I be an ICANN member...hehe I applied for that ICANN at large thing but never got my Pin #...
From the looks of the ruling by WIPO, this guy has a HUGE history of cybersquatting and using closely named websites to misdirect typo-laden users to his websites. Check out all of the US Court cases against him and the number of previous rulings against him.
Sure, if this was the ONLY case against him it might make sense to put a story up talking about how this guy was the latest victim of WIPO, but get real-- he brought the whole mess on himself because he's CLEARLY registering these latest sites as retaliation for the complaint regarding the guines.com domain. I don't want this coming off as a flame, but there comes a point where someone crosses the line from fair use to improper or childish use..
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
If you are going to bother paying money for registered domain names, because you are angry, you should be a bit more creative like this is. At least then, when they get the domain names back, their InterNIC lookup still looks funny.
Burn Hollywood Burn
Of all the freaking things... Guinness' site is down. But I think by definition that Harp is actually a Lager...
This discussion leads to the question, how best to defend a domain name against hijack attempts.
I have a domain name in mind. It is currently unregistered. It's a coined word, and I don't think anyone else is going to think of it anytime soon. My proposed course of action is:
1) Register the domain name.
2) Register a service mark on the domain name, listing the service as "providing information, products, and services via the internet." (cribbed from the slashdot trademark entry) That should cover just about anything I can imagine doing on a web site. "Using the trademark in commerce" would involve putting up the site and maybe a banner ad.
Registering a trademark is fairly expensive -- there is a $325.00 filing fee and a ten year renewal fee of $400.00.
I can't decide if this is overkill, or if extraordinary measures are now required to protect a web site against WIPO-based attack. I know that one must take measures to defend trademarks, which I doubt I could afford to do.
Has anyone gone this route?
We need a community database, with a web app to make it work, that maps company and product names to critical web sites.
A place where you could type in "guiness" and get the guiness sucks site, even if it has an ugly or non-obvious url.
Ideally, the app would be distributed, so several sites could share the same db, and there wouldn't be a single point of failure.
Guiness used WIPO to protect their trademarked name, Guiness, which is within their right. Clearly, they have owned that name for centuries. Is anyone here going to dispute the fact that when you hear the word Guiness, you don't think of a dark lager?
By using the word Guiness in those URLs, they were in essence using the trademark name without the permission of Guiness. That is illegal.
I agree, I don't like the situation. But at the same time, while the logic of the lawsuit was convoluted, it was unsanctioned use of a trademark which is within the rights of the owner to protect. And protect it they did by what they thought would be the easiest way and they were rewarded. Not like any of us will boycott the frosty beverage any time soon. Atleast "Sting" wasn't given the ability to claim his nickname is a true trademark. But Guiness? Come on people. You can't use a trademark without their permission. Just like you can't use someone's logo without their permission.
IMHO WIPO should work to discourage the creation of stupid names like those. They don't really serve any better purpose than if I write Guinness Sucks 100 times in my notebook then bury it in the back of my closet. If the author would create something of better editorial content than that rant he might have a point, and I'd view his argument favorably. That guinness acquired the URLs is their own burden, as an almost infinite list of insulting URLs are available.
--
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
So why doesn't everyone just start registering domain names covering every other concievable disparaging phrase possible?
i.e. Guinessisshitte.com, theworstbeerintheworldisguiness.com, etc.
They'd bankrupt themselves trying to buy back every single name.
Because it must take a lot of lawyer dollars to go and file with WIPO and get the domains. And there are nearly endless variations on the suckiness experienced.
Someone mentioned a boycott. Never mind a boycott -- how about a protest. Everyone go spend $12 on registering a related suck domain, make it its own authoritative name server, and point it at the original IP for the domain. They'll have to file hundreds and hundreds of WIPO complaints, since each domain with have a separate Respondent. Heck, you could do it yourself just by inventing aliases the WIPO would have to 'contact' for a response.
On a related note, there's another way to handle this entirely -- alternate domain name systems. No one ever said you had to use ICANN/internic/etc's infrastructure. It would be fairly easy to put some alternate servers first in root zone files, and only let stuff fall back to icann servers after failing. Owners of appropriated domains could register with the alternate service, and people who wanted to see alternate non-corrupted registrations could view them.
This tragedy could have been averted if only Congress would pass a seven-day waiting period for registering domains.
I have no idea what Zuccarini's complaint was with Guinness but it is more than apparent that he registered these domains with the intent to harrass them.
Why would I want to support this kind of childish behavior?
The bottom of the doc clearly reads:
James Bridgeman
Sole Panelist
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!
--SpookComix
You read fiction? I write it! Lemme know what you th
Respondent took Complaint?s famous trademark and tacked on other words, such as "beer," "really," and "sucks" to form the said domain names.
In other news, x.com is suing multiple domain owners over the abuse of "X", a registered trademark.
"Companies are obviously trying to steal our customers from us by adding such words as "se", "hotse", "hotdonkeyse", and "youngvirginwithagoatse" before our "x.com". We've already filed our complaint, and expect to recieve all domains ending with a "x" by the end of the week."
--BlueLines "The cost of living hasn't affected it's popularity." -anonymous
Can't get into that elitist thing, particularly when all I have so far is that some guy is pissed and trying to harm the image of a company. Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty, eh? Just because Guinness is a large company doesn't automatically mean they are evil. How about writing to their customer relations and giving equal time.
If they have done something evil, then at the very least include a bibliographical reference or URL.
--
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Just buy really.sucks, and you're done. ... and of course WIPO.really.sucks!
Then you can play with microsoft.really.sucks, guiness.really.sucks,
JB
never had a sig, never will
Great, so now the MPAA can sick the WIPO on phuck.the.mpaa.org.lu too!
Say no to software patents.
This guys registers domain names for a living. He has already registered thousands of them. I think we need to find a better marter.
After drinking a lot of guinness pints I might add.
The guy Guinness filed the complaint against did not respond. If you're not going to bother to argue your case, you shouldn't be surprised when the other side wins the argument. It is apparent from the decision that he has the financial means to respond (i.e., he's not some poor slob, see below).
The guy is not simply some little guy who got a bad pint from some mega-corp and is trying to let the world know about it. He registered these domains because Guinness originally won "guinnes.com" from him through earlier WIPO proceedings. That's right, he's a cybersquatter in the worst sense: 3000+ domains registered to himself, many making use of other people's trademarks.
His sites didn't even voice complaints (so no free-speech issues), except in one case where he put up some protest text hours after served with a complaint. He uses them for commerce by filling them with ads (for other sites and credit cards) to generate himself almost $1 million in revenue per year.
This is not his first time around the block. He has lost at least five other ICANN proceedings (vs HP and Encyclopedia Britannica, among others) and one US civil suit under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act. All found that he had registered the names in question in bad faith and without legitimate business purpose.
Look, I get as pissed off as the next guy about situations like gumby.org and etoy.com, but this case in particular is an example of the system working like it should.
I mean, at one point in time, it was actually funny when a comic spoofed movies and gave the spoofs confusingly similar names to the real, (trademarked) thing.
Oh, wait a minute! Mad Magazine is now owned by none other than our friends at Time Warner! Guess for them it's OK!
--
314-15-9265
Guinness is THE GOLD STANDARD of stouts. It defines the style. All other stouts are measured against and usually found wanting. Sierra Nevada makes great beer, but there is still only one Guinness (the kind that comes out of a keg).
Also, Guinness is not carbonated, it is poured with nitrogen.
Now don't get me started about you are near-racist "unless your Irish" comment...
I thought maybe it was Emmanuel Goldstein suing them, mad that people might confuse their site with his http://www.guinessrecords.com/
People shape laws. Not the other way around.
I may be wrong, but isn't Harp bottled by Guiness?
fuck this guy, I am not going to stop drinking guinness. maybe wipo should try some?
ARE the Guiness beer people. The whole Guiness Book of World Records was started as a reference to settle * bar bets * and the Guiness beer people thought it was a natural promotional item as well.
I wonder if anyone would contest pabstsucks.com?
This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org
Same thing happened with Sprint and SprintPCS.
Their service sucks too and it does suck a lot more than the Guiness beer, which at least serves the purpose. It gets you drunk so you can't taste it anymore.Actually, Harp is a lager. Sierra Nevada makes a great stout and it has wide distribution. Probably hard for you to get in a keg though. Also, Murphy's and Beamish are the other 2 Irish stouts available in America.
Well you could still register the following domains if you wanted to annoy Guiness, just be prepared to be flamed by their lawyers :-
www.guinness.tv
www.guinness.gs
www.guinness.ms
www.guinness.tc
www.guinness.vg
www.guinness.ac
www.guinness.sh
www.guinness.nu
11 oz. water
1 oz. real beer (e.g. Guinness)
1/4 cup sugar
dash of skunk scent
Stir lightly, add carbonation, package and overcharge.
And then when confronted with it, he could have responded with evidence or argument in his favor, thus using the system. He didn't.
Looks like he dug his own grave to me.
No unauthorized use. Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.
I strongly recommend that you try some other US beers than Sam Adams (their stuff is alright (much better than Bud), but they do have some better seasonal beers)
Try:
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale It's a dark golden color that has a great bitter taste to it. (In fact, most beers from the Sierra Nevada brewing company are really good, and can be found across the USA.
Portland Brewing Company has two great beers...McTarnahan Ale (a lighter ale that's much better than Sam) or Haystack Black, which is one of the greatest dark beers on Earth. The flavor and aroma of Haystack Black is amazing!
Also, you should give Anchor Steam a try, as it's very good too, and is made with a very unique brewing style...
Doh!
'Nuff said.
--
Americans are bred for stupidity.
If you feel really brave and want to learn more about beer and get a much better feel for what good beer is really about I suggest brewing your own beer. The project will cost you about $100 to get started on, but then you'll be able to make some damn fine beer for a little over $10/case. I've found that some of the stuff I make is as good or better than imported beer that costs me $7 or more for a 6-pack.
If you don't feel that ambitious, go to any larger liquor store and have a look at their beer selection. Most likely you'll be able to find something brewed in your area of the country that hasn't suffered the abuse of being loaded onto a ship and sent across the Atlantic. It'll cost less and taste better.
Please note, I have no financial interest in any of the companies that I linked above. I just really like good beer and these are places that help me get it. Overall, there is a whole lot of really good beer in this country. Don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise.
_____________
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
you see, by now the moderators are done reading this article, as they only moderate for a few messages each article, once there are over 100 comments, you could post the cure for cancer and not get moderated up.
--
"Don't trolls get tired?"
You're probably talking about Freenet here. Freenet doesn't depend on dns at all, so no WIPO can take your domain away from you.
http://freenet.sourceforge.net
Now if somebody could completely remove reliance on dns for e-mail, I would say to hell with dns.
Don't forget Haystack Black as a list of the best stouts...
Doh!
"my experience from local brewpubs tells me that stouts from hand pumped casks with natural carbonation are MUCH better than the same beer from force-carbonated kegs. "
Errr, Guinness has below normal carbonation, whether on tap or from a can. A small amount of liquid N2 is inserted into Guinness cans before they are sealed. When it boils, the pressure in the can is increased forcing Guinness into the widget. When the can is opened, the release in pressure results in the Guinness squirting through small hole(s) in the widget creating the head. It's nothing to do with carbonation.
I grew up in England. Most of the local brews have below "normal" CO2 levels. I hate carbonated drinks. Disgusting things. That's one of the reasons why you won't catch me drinking the bad (IMNHO) brews from Sierra Nevada (besides the bad taste).
"There is nothing special about this beer, and I strongly recommend that you try the stouts and porters from Sierra Nevada (pretty much US-wide) or your local craft brweries. If you don't like them, you are guilty of several of the charges above, and if you do like them, at least one of them will taste better than export Guinness. "
I think you're guilty of the stereotypical traditional American isolationism. (I known the stereotype doesn't hold true for the majority of intelligent Americans as I lived there for a while, and have a number of good friends there.)
The racial implications of your other statements are just utter bollocks. I'm not Irish (far from it!), I don't drink Guinness for any of the reasons you state... I drink because it *IS* the tastiest of all beers.
This is the question who has the right to a name. Companys even take away people names (Wally Amos).
This person was taken his frustration on the web and decided to create pages that insult a well known company
using thier own name. If you want to insult someone you want to use thier name. Hell Microsoft-sucks.com
as not been taken down. Companies are becoming so afraid of "Bad Press" they are trying to alot thing to stop
people from saying bad things about them. If these companies let people say what they want they are afriad
of impact on sales it will have. Also they should be afriad that do not let these people say what they want they
would impact sales. I guess these companies are looking out for thier interest but they are are not looking at
the BIG PICTURE here these action might start looking bad on them.
This guy has 3000 domains registered under his own name or various aliases. He basically registers domains that sounds like other domains to divert traffic. Yes, it's no longer a first come first game. You actually have to intend to use the domains for a legitimate purpose and not just squat on them like some sort of lottery ticket. This is WIPO vs the little guy. It's WIPO vs the asshole.
This is not strictly true. Guiness, like any beer dispensed through a stout tap, is dispensed with "beer gas" which is a 60/40 mix of N2 and CO2. Beer is always going to be somewhat carbonated, CO2 is a byproduct of the yeast that makes grain into beer. It is true that Guiness is carbonated differently than other beers, but it still isn't unique.
_____________
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
From the decision:
It would appear that providing a "sample" of "Light beverages including stout, porter, ale and lager beer" is beneficial to your case, especially if you happen to be Guiness.
Can you blame the WIPO? I can't think of too much I wouldn't do if you put a case of Guiness in front of me... (Of course, there wouldn't be much I could do by the time I got done.)
Stupid people will be persecuted to the fullest extent allowed by law.
I'm a cucumber, I'm a cucumber, I'm a cucumber, I'm a cucumber.
I'm a cucumber, I'm a cucumber, please don't take me to the pickle farm!
If you look in the right places you can find Tetley's, McEwans, etc.
But if you want something that's really hard to drink try Sam Adams Triple Bock. Ugh.
$ finger #timmy
invalid use of finger
Yhcrana
The voices in my head don't like you
Taken directly from the proceedings.
Hmm, big nasty corporation wants you to bend over. You keep your mouth shut, don't tell the arbiter why you should be allowed to remain vertical, and don't tell the arbiter how making you bend over is 'a bad thing'. Next thing you know, you're bending over. Shouldn't be much of a surprise to anyone.
Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?
when the Web first came out, it was seen as an exciting new medium, because hey, you didn't need a multimillion dollars and you didn't have regulations awarding the bandwidth to the same conglomerates over and over again. There's no reason why http://www.myvanitysite.com (just made that up, if it's a real site, I'm sorry) wouldn't get as much traffic as http://www.monolithic-bastard-corporation.com.
I guess the corporations didn't like being in control, and given that they couldn't take over TCP/IP to make it centrally managed and therefore all content on the Web would come from/be controlled by them, just hijacked ICANN.
Whoever told these people the way to make free speech a corporate right only has some serious negative karma coming. Ditto whatever moron told a certain set of CEOs that clicking on an item to buy it can and should be patented.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
Man do I love Guiness, I really don't want to boycott them, so I will look into this more. Don't wanna let emotions overwrite ethics, but I really hope this was just a cyber-squatter lamer. I guess either way, I should wash the ol brewing supplies off and fire up a Thanksgiving batch.
I seek not only to follow in the footsteps of the men of old, I seek the things they sought.
I say, brunettes are for girls, blondes are for beer.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Some people might be interested in reading WIPO's WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center page. I won't go too in depth, because then I'd be reciting their page, but it's worth looking at because it does pertain to Internet Domain Names.
for the record, right from the USPTO.l
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/tac/tmlaw2.htm
(d)(1)(A) A person shall be liable in a civil action by the owner of a mark, including a personal name which is protected as a mark under this section, if, without regard to the goods or services of the parties, that person--
(i) has a bad faith intent to profit from that mark, including a personal name which is protected as a mark under this section; and
(ii) registers, traffics in, or uses a domain name that--
(I) in the case of a mark that is distinctive at the time of registration of the domain name, is identical or confusingly similar to that mark;
(II) in the case of a famous mark that is famous at the time of registration of the domain name, is identical or confusingly similar to or dilutive of that mark; or
(III) is a trademark, word, or name protected by reason of section 706 of title 18, United States Code, or section 220506 of title 36, United States Code.
(B)(i) In determining whether a person has a bad faith intent described under subparagraph (A), a court may consider factors such as, but not limited to--
(I) the trademark or other intellectual property rights of the person, if any, in the domain name;
(II) the extent to which the domain name consists of the legal name of the person or a name that is otherwise commonly used to identify that person;
(III) the person's prior use, if any, of the domain name in connection with the bona fide offering of any goods or services;
(IV) the person's bona fide noncommercial or fair use of the mark in a site accessible under the domain name;
(V) the person's intent to divert consumers from the mark owner's online location to a site accessible under the domain name that could harm the goodwill represented by the mark, either for commercial gain or with the intent to tarnish or disparage the mark, by creating a likelihood of confusion as to the source, sponsorship, affiliation, or endorsement of the site;
(VI) the person's offer to transfer, sell, or otherwise assign the domain name to the mark owner or any third party for financial gain without having used, or having an intent to use, the domain name in the bona fide offering of any goods or services, or the person's prior conduct indicating a pattern of such conduct;
(VII) the person's provision of material and misleading false contact information when applying for the registration of the domain name, the person's intentional failure to maintain accurate contact information, or the person's prior conduct indicating a pattern of such conduct;
(VIII) the person's registration or acquisition of multiple domain names which the person knows are identical or confusingly similar to marks of others that are distinctive at the time of registration of such domain names, or dilutive of famous marks of others that are famous at the time of registration of such domain names, without regard to the goods or services of the parties; and
(IX) the extent to which the mark incorporated in the person's domain name registration is or is not distinctive and famous within the meaning of subsection (c)(1) of section 43.
(ii) Bad faith intent described under subparagraph (A) shall not be found in any case in which the court determines that the person believed and had reasonable grounds to believe that the use of the domain name was a fair use or otherwise lawful.
(C) In any civil action involving the registration, trafficking, or use of a domain name under this paragraph, a court may order the forfeiture or cancellation of the domain name or the transfer of the domain name to the owner of the mark.
(D) A person shall be liable for using a domain name under subparagraph (A) only if that person is the domain name registrant or that registrant's authorized licensee.
(E) As used in this paragraph, the term "traffics in" refers to transactions that include, but are not limited to, sales, purchases, loans, pledges, licenses, exchanges of currency, and any other transfer for consideration or receipt in exchange for consideration.
(2)(A) The owner of a mark may file an in rem civil action against a domain name in the judicial district in which the domain name registrar, domain name registry, or other domain name authority that registered or assigned the domain name is located if--
(i) the domain name violates any right of the owner of a mark registered in the Patent and Trademark Office, or protected under subsection (a) or (c); and
(ii) the court finds that the owner--
(I) is not able to obtain in personam jurisdiction over a person who would have been a defendant in a civil action under paragraph (1); or
(II) through due diligence was not able to find a person who would have been a defendant in a civil action under paragraph (1) by--
(aa) sending a notice of the alleged violation and intent to proceed under this paragraph to the registrant of the domain name at the postal and e-mail address provided by the registrant to the registrar; and
(bb) publishing notice of the action as the court may direct promptly after filing the action.
(B) The actions under subparagraph (A)(ii) shall constitute service of process.
(C) In an in rem action under this paragraph, a domain name shall be deemed to have its situs in the judicial district in which--
(i) the domain name registrar, registry, or other domain name authority that registered or assigned the domain name is located; or
(ii) documents sufficient to establish control and authority regarding the disposition of the registration and use of the domain name are deposited with the court.
(D)(i) The remedies in an in rem action under this paragraph shall be limited to a court order for the forfeiture or cancellation of the domain name or the transfer of the domain name to the owner of the mark. Upon receipt of written notification of a filed, stamped copy of a complaint filed by the owner of a mark in a United States district court under this paragraph, the domain name registrar, domain name registry, or other domain name authority shall--
(I) expeditiously deposit with the court documents sufficient to establish the court's control and authority regarding the disposition of the registration and use of the domain name to the court; and
(II) not transfer, suspend, or otherwise modify the domain name during the pendency of the action, except upon order of the court.
(ii) The domain name registrar or registry or other domain name authority shall not be liable for injunctive or monetary relief under this paragraph except in the case of bad faith or reckless disregard, which includes a willful failure to comply with any such court order.
(3) The civil action established under paragraph (1) and the in rem action established under paragraph (2), and any remedy available under either such action, shall be in addition to any other civil action or remedy otherwise applicable.
(4) The in rem jurisdiction established under paragraph (2) shall be in addition to any other jurisdiction that otherwise exists, whether in rem or in personam.
Free Speech? Due Process? Should I be concerned if my phone number spells out "COKESUX" ?? What if the crap on the bottom of my shoe says "DISNEY=PrON" ??
Argh!!! When did legal precedent not apply to the Internet? Who the hell is educating the legal establishment?
Where is my space capsule?
Why doesn't sucks.com just sell {companyname}.sucks.com for a nominal fee to serious people who want to bitch? Could the WIPO touch that?
For that matter, why aren't there more places that sell single names or sub-namespaces? I don't really need a whole primary domain to myself...
I wonder what Guinness would do if someone registered a slew of
"www.guinnessrules.com"
"www.guinnesstastesgreat.com"
"www.guinness-beer-of-champions.com"
websites with no intention of making them actual sites that go aywhere or do anything. Anyone have any comments on how corps react to websites that put their company in a POSITIVE light?
*45*
What is Guinness?
Webster defines* Guinness as
Guinness
Pronunciation: 'gi-nis, -n&s
Function: biographical name
Sir Alec 1914- British actor; played a wide variety of roles on stage and screen; gave especially notable performances in stage Hamlet, film Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957, Academy Award)
* Deffinition derrived from www.webster.com
Sorry, about that. I should have stated that better. Let's try "Guiness is pressurized and dispensed in a manner different from most other beers. It is by far the most widely distributed example of this style, but it is far from being either unique in this process or the best example of a stout with a thick creamy head." Does this make my point clear to you?
_____________
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
My worry is that this case will become a precedent cited in the next xyz-really-sucks.com dispute. The fact that the guy made no response may have been the deciding factor, but I wonder if that detail will be overlooked in the future? That is, I wonder if this guy's failure to defend himself cause the screws to tighten on us all.
It's the best. I think its from the Mendicino Brewing Company
For proper use of a registered mark, there is a requirement for the symbol "®". Why do you think they have (tm) and symbols? On the Internet, there should be Top Level Domain of .REG for same function.
Common sense is needed. WIPO are paid for by big business. In my opinion, they are their bitch.
it runs in my memory that this is not the first time it has happened. Something about a politician running for president or something earlier this year (i think Gore) got upset about antiGore websites and ordered them to be taken down. The owners of the website obliged, and everything went well. (i could be wrong about who it was, but I know something like this happened) this article reminds me of the article from yesterday about typoURLs and such...click here for details. I cannot see how guiness can get upset about this....totally retarded. /me switches to heinekin (only in theory...unfortunately, the law prevents me from consuming alcoholic beverages.)
The anti-salmon
everybody starts running off and registering slashdotsucks.org, slashdotreallysucks.org, etc. Will Slashdot go out of their way to protect their name?
"Respondent in which it has been found that he registered and used domain names ... without a legitimate business purpose"
I think it is important to notice this. obviously WIPO thinks the desire of 'business' is more important than any other purpose. This should be alarming regardless of the details of this one case.
"if consequences dictate my course of action..."
$ whois slashdotsucks.com
.com, .net, and .org domains can now be registered
.COM, .NET, .ORG, .EDU domains and
[whois.internic.net]
Whois Server Version 1.3
Domain names in the
with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net
for detailed information.
No match for "SLASHDOTSUCKS.COM".
>>> Last update of whois database: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 09:24:01 EST
The Registry database contains ONLY
Registrars.
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
And so you fools will protect another corporation with your money and support the destruction of personal freedoms. Me, I'll be tossing my Guinness down the drain tonight.
"If there's hope, it lies in the proles..."
So, does this mean that if I wanted to run guinesskicksass.com that I would be barred from registering the domain, or is this heavy handed tactic reserved for use only against detractors of products and brands?
Will I retire or break 10K?
OpenNIC proudly lists .parody as one of its approved TLDs. Once you add a Tier 2 OpenNIC nameserver to your DNS configuration (in /etc/resolv.conf on Linux), you can access the .parody registration page.
Will I retire or break 10K?
THIS sucks. There is simply no confusion between these domains and one of our proudest exports. To whom it may concern at Guinness: please leave this and other squatter-trolls to their own vacuous affairs and re-focus on making my favorite stout.
This is ludicrous. Absolutely nuts. I fully expect that this WIPO, whoever they really are, will be slapped about by popular consensus once this hits a little more close to home.. for most common folk. I've been a slashdot lurker for about three months. I instantly registered so I could post this. Barbaric naziism such as this is absolutely unacceptable on *MY* internet. I will never endorse such insane legal babbling. Fuck the Police, etc.. This is likely not the first such I-Property incident, but WTF?!, this is insane.. Obviously the DNS names registered do *NOT* have anything to do with the stout in question. Hell - I drink on average more than one pint per day of the dark, wonderful beverage. This is absolutely inexcusable. Perhaps it is time for me to vote with my $$s and give up my daily brew. Guinness marketing has been revolunary and very penetrable within north america for the past 4-5 years, in my opinion. Get the marketing department a head-check and let us happy consumers consume. Stop stuffing it down our throats via the WIPO! Scott.
These thoughts are mine only. Company ain't come up with a mandatory disclamer yet.
I don't shop at Amazon, that's about as close as I get to a boycott. But I buy so few things -- and buy.com's prices are better -- that this isn't really any kind of a statement. Amazon did have good customer support when 2 Xmases ago though, when they sent me a calendar instead of a computer program.
Anyway, I'd be interested to hear from you in like 2 months, if you're a real Guiness fan, to see whether or not you really refrain from drinking it. If it even prevents you from buying a single glass I'll be mightily impressed.
If these boycotts had any kind of real effect, we would not be living in the world we do. However, even if every person who cares about something like this boycotts them, it will not affect their bottom line at all. That's the sad truth. And to make people care enough to break their habit is just short of impossible.
__________________________________________________ ___
rooooar
Is this really that big a thing? And yes, I do agree with WIPO's stance that they created a domain name in bad faith. As they cited, the sites owner published that he created the domain solely as a means of harassment. Some may argue that he has a right to free speech. Unfortunatly, I don't see blatent harassment as something that should be protected. A better method would have been to set up a real website, create a genuine news article about it or other lengthy diatribe, set up a canonoical domain like GUINESS-BITES-MY-ASS.mydomain.com and host a slew of anti-Guiness material to his hearts content. Because then, it would have been tied to a valid entity that served a pupose other than targeted harassment, and would fall squarely under protection as freedom of speech. I see no need to defend the poor sod who registered that domain, nor boycott Guiness for protecting their own interests. I mean, in the real world, if you start harassing a person or legal entity, they have the right to take actions against you (ie: restraining orders, cease and desist orders, etc et al) So what they did here was no different.
wipo-really-sucks.com
wipo-really-really-sucks.com
wipo-can-wipe-my-.com
and so on. I definately think this guy should have had his domain taken away (using it for ads, didn't represent himself, etc etc) but this needs to be decided once and for all. These domains would be registered and web pages would be put up decrying wipo's unfair "arbitration" processes.
I find it interesting that http://wipo-sucks.com hasn't been disputed.
SUWAIN: Slashdot User Without An Interesting Name
SUWAIN: Slashdot User Without An Interesting Name
FYI -- .cx is for Christmas Island, not "the rest of the world" (ISO3166) The reason it's known at all is the country's offer of a free domain name to any non-profit, open-source project
These were the suggestions that the domain registrar gives when you check to see if guinesssucks.com is taken.
I wonder how they would handle a slew of anti-wipo domains......... that'd be fun at the very least
If I were you I would just quit wasting your time. You sound like and are acting like a bitch.
I don't get it. The Internet is an international system, with no concrete regulation system in place. So why is it that people can get away with things like this? Who or what gives them the right to do this? Screw trademarks, if I buy it, I own it. Freedom of speech, expression, etc. Just because Big Corporate Asshole Company has more money and more lawyers doesnt mean they should be able to go stomp on anyone for expressing their rights and opinions. What has this world come to? I am fed up with people getting bent over and screwed just because someone else is afraid they might lose a buck or two. What ever happened to having rights? Assuming that the domain wasnt taken, if I bought coke.com or nike.com before they did, they should have NO CLAIM to my property. Bastards. Be damned!!!
Abuse my rationalization of rhetoric as either metaphor or monotomy.
Sitting Walrus Blog
Just like in real court, it doesn't look good if you don't show up...
Said Notification of Complaint and Commencement of Administrative Proceeding inter alia advised the Respondent that the Administrative Proceeding had commenced on August 25, 2000 and that the Respondent was required to submit a Response to the Center on or before September 13, 2000.
No Response was received by the Center from the Respondent and on September 25, 2000, the Center sent a Notification of Respondent Default to the Respondent by post/courier and by e-mail. A copy of said Notification of Respondent Default was on the same date sent to the authorised representative of the Complainant by e-mail. Said Notification inter alia advised the Respondent that the Respondent was in default and that in accordance with the Rules, and the Supplemental Rules, the Center would proceed to appoint a single member Administrative Panel as designated by the Complainant, that the said Administrative Panel would be informed of the said default, and that the Center would continue to send all case-related communications to the Respondent.
If the guy had bothered to show up, or at least respond to the e-mails, he would have had a better chance. It's the very same as not showing up in court in the US... if you don't show, you're probably going to lose. (This happens in Small Claims Court all the time.)
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
Then get Murphy's support when Guinness complains to WIPO.
Actually I think Guinness just wanted to get at that guy for registering guinnes.
Even so, I don't like this. Do people actually have to bow to WIPO?
Cheerio,
Link
Along a similar line, you'll see that NSI owns all the NSIsucks.* domains. Hmm...funny, apparently their policy against profanities left the f*cknsi domains all open though, much to my happiness.
My Slashdot account is old enough to drink...
Even though the original poster said he wanted something national, with the exception of when you're traveling, all you need is a good local microbrewery.
:(
For example, Wagner Valley Brewery at Wagner Vineyards (www.wagnervineyards.com) is excellent. Sadly, their shipping costs are expensive and they have no deals with stores in the Ithaca area.
Ithaca Beer Co. is pretty good, although AFAIK they don't have any stouts. (Haven't seen them in stores...)
Unfortunately, in New York State, supermarkets are (believe it or not) the best place to find beer. (Sadly, non have that good a selection.) Apparently there's a state law saying that you may not sell hard liquor and beer in the same store, hence the liquor stores with the best selection can't also carry a good selection of beer.
Of course, most of what I said applies only to the Ithaca, NY area. But wherever you are, look to see if you can find a nearby brewery.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
But it isn't now, in the Year Of Our Lord Two-thousand AD. Did I say it never was?
Surely you have better things to do with your time than seek out excuses to nitpick Slashdot posts.
Here I am, I pour myself the first can of Guiness Draught that I've had in quite a while, all ready to settle down and enjoy a halloween. Then I log onto /.
To email, do the obvious.
Was this guy a cybersquatter or did he actually have a dispute with Guiness?
The Complainant submits that the Shields case is analogous to the facts at hand in that the Respondent changed the content of his www sites from commercial uses to purported "protest sites" after being served with a complaint by the owner of the trademark that he was infringing.
Well that seems to say that he was using the perfectly correct argument that a protest site is a valid reason to use a trademark as an excuse. lets keep going.
The Court found that "the vast majority of Zuccarini's many websites are not political fora but are merely vehicles for him to make money. . . .It strains credulity to believe that he uses 99.9% of
his domain names for profit but reserves his Joe Cartoon domains for fair and lawful political speech."
"...the Respondent admitted that he "put up the protest pages . . . just hours after being served with [the plaintiff's] complaint.""
So again it seems like this might actually be a reasonable case unlike some of the shit that we have seen WIPO get away with.
The Court found that the Respondent was a wholesaler of Internet domain names (defined as someone who acquires multiple domain names with the intent to profit from them), who owns approximately 3000 domain names, and that many of his sites featured advertisements for other sites and credit card companies where "visitors were trapped or 'mousetrapped' in the sites, unable to exit without clicking on a succession of ads."
So where does the geek stand? Does [s]he go with the eminently sensible argument proposed by the defendant in this case, or do they listen to the other side and realise that perhaps this is actually reasonable and the possible cybersquatter is just hijacking a reasonable argument for nefarious ends.
Have a look at the whole story before you post, and believe me, I don't think that this is open and shut either way.
-Tom
"The new wave is not value-added; it's garbage-subtracted" - Esther Dyson, Dec 1994
their site seems to be down.
and i really wanted to write them a note to tell them what a few local, loyal (in the past) drinkers thought about this. has it been slashdotted or something?
me.
(C) Kaki Sain, 2011. By reading this, you have illegally copied my property to your brain.
the way I figure it, the registrars are making a fortune. I imagine that Guiness has to pay for that guys domain name, right? So the more domains you register that get taken, the more money the registrars get. So do the registrars have anything to do with these rules?
__________________________
"Oh, you hate your job? There's a support group for that, it's called everyone, they meet at the bar."
I just changed my post view to "Flat" and suddenly my beer lost all of it's appeal... (sigh!)
My God, you poor bastards. You feel that Tetleys is good, proper beer. I feel for you, I really do. But then I live in a town where the pub* opposite my house has four different beers on pump (not tap) (although they're not that great), and there's the highest density of pubs in Europe, or so I am led to believe.
- Tom
[*] The Panton Arms if you are in Cambridge. The Alma has Pirahna and so is better though.
"The new wave is not value-added; it's garbage-subtracted" - Esther Dyson, Dec 1994
Local gov't are state.*state*.us and ci.*city*.*state*.us where *city* is the city name, and *state* is the state postal code or it is localagency.com and localagency.org. .com-ism is popular even with Fed's though, see www.goarmy.com. www.army.mil exists, but many of their target audience are more likely to go to a .com than a .mil. (.com sounds cooler, people don't know about .mil, people remember .com and forget other extensions, people are afraid to go to .mil sites, etc)
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
This is what happened here.
You may or may not agree with the rights of Guiness to the domain name, but this person did not want to be heard on the facts.
WIPO had actually looked beyond the complaint, and did at least a minimal analysis. In court, the judge would just issue a default and then just look at damages.
Fight Spammers!
This just in from Wired- Typo-Loving Squatter Squashed . It looks as is Mr Zuccarini has been kicked in the 'nads, in a legal manner, under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection act by Electronics Boutique. It seems he mouse-traps on his typo-pages and gets a cut for each click. Which is quite handy, because he has to pay $500,000 in damages.
Here's a grab from the page - he's not one of the little guys.
Zuccarini could not be reached for comment. In proceedings before the court, however, the ruling said he admitted that he earned between $800,000 and $1 million annually from the thousands of domain names he has registered.
...is someone to register something like reallysucks.com and make a hosting service giving people virtual domain names. Then you'd end up with microsoft.reallysucks.com or guinness.reallysucks.com and so on, and the whole thing can't be broken up by WIPO (at least in theory). After all, reallysucks.com is used as a hosting service, potentially to generate money (adds/hosting fees/etc) and not for being malicious (or angry, or whatever upsets the lawmakers). As to the users' choice of handles, well, there are no laws against that yet. It's not perfect, but it's a suitable workaround. Now all we need is a sucker who'll do it...
----------
Even as you read this, your pants are strangling your loins! Aaa!
So www.guiness-has-balls.com would be acceptable by them I take it?
The only fool bigger than the person who knows it all, is the person who argues with him.
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
Boddingtons
My point is, if we can make thoughtcrime illegal in one area, it doesn't take much to make it illegal in other areas too. (This isn't to equate the severity of losing a domain name to violent crime, however.)
They didn't acquire URLs. The fact that you would confuse domain names and URLs indicates that you have a wierd way of thinking about this issue.
> all I have so far is that some guy is pissed
> and trying to harm the image of a company.
> Whatever happened to innocent until proven
> guilty, eh?
A) He was giving his opinion - which is that guiness sucks. If his opinion harms them - then that is their problem. He has every righ to tell the world his opinion.
B) "Innocent until proven guilty" is for government actions. It is the right of an individual to be considered innocent until their guilt can be proved (unless its a civil matter - like uncle sam wants to take your house away because some paid informant said he saw drugs there - in the US anyway)
When it comes to public opinion - there is no "right" to anything (no matter what some PR people and lawyers will tell you). I have the right to pass personal judgement on any person for any reason. I have the right to not buy a drink from your store because you are Irish, or because the moon is full if I please.
In this case however - we have a company that took away a persons domain names because that person was voicing the opinion that their product sucks.
He was using their trademark to refer to their product. No ambiguity at all. I mean whats he suposed to do...have the domain "some-irish-beer-that-I-cant-name-sucks.com"?
It comes down to simple "Image control". They want to sweep away anything negative. Its bad enough that companies will spin information so that everything comes out about them as positive - but actively going out and removing "dissent" is just plain wrong.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
WIPO=Thought Police?
When travelling, it's ok if the airlines lose your emotional baggage.
(Apologies if this has already been posted)
__________________________________________________ ___
rooooar
Although Guiness does have some pretty crazy and annoying ideas of how to enhance shareholder value, they're not entirely to blame. I'd suggest that you boycott the WIPO's domain dispute policy. Move your web sites to your friendly neighbourhood non-WIPO-regulated country domain! Support the alternative DNS networks (e.g. AlterNic, OpenNIC, Pacific Root, etc.)!
And I will help the protest and drink it down
Oh and I promise to belch curses at them after consuming the sweet sweet brew.
P.S. Widget cans preferred
I'd be the last one to take the side of a big corporation on an issue like this, I don't even drink beer, but if you read the text of the decision, in the link above you will note the following:
The 'respondant' (legalese for the person who registered the sites in question) do not bother to respond to the complaint. Here's the quote:
It seems to me like they went to a reasonable effect to contact this guy and get his side of the story. When he didn't bother, they even appointed someone to act for him. Later in the text, after the beer company finished their arguments, they tried to get his response:
Another thing that comes out in the text is that this guy seems to own a lot of domain names.
I realize we don't want to jump to conclusions, but it seems to me this guy justs registers a lot of domains trying to make a quick buck. I guess he has the right, but I think this fact diminishes the argument that this person is some small guy who's free speech rights are being trampled on. I mean, to register 3000 domain names costs how much? This is not some boy scout, this guy must be trying to make a living off of domain names.
In addition, I think there is some merit to the idea that the domain name may be confusing to people who don't speak english natively. I've been around the world, and met a lot of english as a second language people, and I can tell you, slang is the hardest thing to learn. It comes last, if at all. This problem could be addressed with a domain name that is more clear, and does not use slang. Here's the actual text:
You can disagree, but you can't say it's an unreasonable argument. It is also one that can be addressed, by registering a domain name that uses simpler language.
Personally, I think it would help if we all took a look at a cached version of the sites in question, and decided if the site was truly a complaint site that is being crushed.
In the end, I think they made the wrong decision, but I don't think it deserved the diatribe of corporate conspiracy theory we all read above. Even they think they may be wrong. Read the following, from the end of the text:
Well, I'm sure to get flamed to pieces, but this is what I think. I know fighting these big corporations is an everyday battle, but I think we should be careful in picking those battles, and being sure of the honesty and authenticity of the person being challenged. Else we risk being judged by the poor friends we choose.
Peace, or Not?
I wonder has any has yet to challange the WIPO a decision in a court of law?
I think it is about time we start registering WIPO sucks domains!!!!
IANAL... But I play one on
"naive people making mistakes typing in URL's"
Oops, I slipped and pressed the "sucks" key accidentally.
Get real, people. =)
That's John Stuart Mill, the same guy who supported the Marketplace of Ideas -- everyone has the right to promote their own "propaganda" (whether it's guinness-rules.com or guinness-sucks.com), because the only way to decide which opinions are correct is to allow all opinions to be expressed, and then decide on the most reasonable ones. I'm sure that no one at Guinness was severely traumatized by any anti-Guinness comments; therefore, there's no reason to censor anti-Guinness speech.
Domain names might be a little more complicated -- domain names are not just forms of expression, they're also navigation tools and site identifiers. Although I vehemently oppose rejecting domain names based on supposed intent, I do think that Guinness might have a valid point when it complains about language-based confusion. Though "sucks," to me, seems to be one of the core words of the English language ;), maybe it would be confusing to foreign visitors -- I really don't know.
But just how valuable is the free speech embodied in a domain name? Domain names are powerful, but not supremely so. If you've got a massive site proving Guinness to be of inferior quality, it doesn't really matter if your site is at http://www.guinness-sucks.com/ or http://members.nbci.com/guinness-sucks/ -- as long as you have an audience, your message gets across.
We definitely shouldn't allow domain names to be rejected for silly reasons like intent for their creation, but at the same time, we shouldn't attach too much importance to the minimal amount of free expression embodied in a URL.
webpagesthatsuck might be a different matter, though :)
- Illya
So pissing off a corporation makes it OK for them to effectively remove one's right to speak about them?
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
I don't get it. He's talking about how much Guinness rocks. And it is good beer; in his opinion (and mine) the best of beers.
we should blow up the bloody WIPO!!! raaaa fuck nad s iog7 mthey suck blow em kill em slice em fuck em up
fuck 'em all and then some!!
-- The WIPO Troll: just getting started
WIPO: -137 karma
Ok, my initial gut reaction was to stop drinking Guiness in protest, and to complain as such to Guiness LLC. But then my second reaction was to follow Jamie's hyperlink to the WIPO ruling and actually read it.
My conclusion?
Jamie sucks.
He's made a snap decision without very much regard to the facts of this individual case. Ok, maybe there are cases where the WIPO is doing bad things that we wouldn't agree with. But in this case some SOB domain squatter with a rap sheet five miles long got his bluff called by Guinness LLC, didn't respond to the WIPO's notification nor submit a defence. AKA "he didn't show up" in 'court' to respond to the accusations.
Even after all that, the WIPO apponited someone who had to look through all the evidence and decide whether or not this SOB was squatting.
Now go read the ruling for yourself. Especially the last half of section 5 and section 6.
AFAIK John Zuccarini is a hoser and he deserved to have is domains siezed.
It tastes good on my ass - yummmmm
Mod me down you scumsuckas!!
-- WIPO, trolling again!!
WIPO: -137 karma
www.bear-review.com
Which would serve no purpose other than critizing Guiness beer, which sucks (not just my experience. Most of my friends don't like guiness)
Yes it is such a standard that they can't get it right anywhere I go. Few places serve decent Guiness, mainly in Europe. The rest is shait, yes it is. I am against Guiness, since they are even more retarted then I thought.
GUINESS DRINKERS VISIT MY SUPER PUB
You could always register hoover.sucks Couldn't get in trouble with that. |||
When Microsoft trademarks .NET this will be the least of your worries. How many people have .net domains egh? we will soon find out :)
We substituted the coffee Slashdot normally drinks with "Sandoz Crystals", Lets see if they notice the difference
Well, folks, I hear a lot of you belly-aching about how painful it would be to boycott Guinness. Many people will be upset by this, but Guinness is not the best beer in the world. It's not even close. Budweiser can make a Guinness, but it's not their market. If you like a good stout, Beamish is much better (especially on tap). It's also cheaper. Paulaner makes lots of good beers, and so does Fullers. In fact, Fullers wipes the floor with Guinness. And don't even talk about Bass. Bass sucks. Boddington's is a great replacement for sucky Bass. Fullers has a great porters, and great classic varieties of beers (screw lagers). People who swear by Guinness need to expand their horizons. Moderators need to moderate this up so that the unwashed masses are informed of the truth. Guinness is also not a friendly business. Their whole "Guinness toast" bullcrap is just that, especially when they tell you what you need to serve Guinness in to make the perfect pint. A perfect pint of stout or porter is an Imperial Pint (22 or 23 oz. compared w/ American 16 oz.) glass filled with your favorite stout. Guinness wants to play like they're the best so that other people think they're the best. They're not.
Vidar
The brains of a chicken, coupled with the claws of two eagles, may well hatch the eggs of our destruction.
registering:
s .com
It-Is-my-fucking-right-to-say-Guinness-sucks-as
The current Slashdot moderation system is made by gay communists!
Elsewhere in this topic is a post about what this guy really does. His wasn't a protest against Guinness. He squats on names and traps people into clicking on ad banners.
BTW I was referring to Guinness being innocent until its demonstrated they have actually done something wrong. In light of information availible under this topic, I see their position and agree with it, further agreeing with the action taken on their behalf by WIPO.
--
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
..of course it's a matter of opinion but at least i like it - but maybe this will bring up same kind of movement as "unix-haters handbook" ;) (well hopefully noot!)
ound the message used repetitively over and over still nothing grows silen
POC
do only top level domain's count, or does guiness.really.fuckingsucks.net count as well?
- daniel
- daniel
Turn off your computer and go outside
Bush did the same thing.
Remember Bush buying up domains like:
Bushsucks.com
???
I sure do.
To anyone who thinks they have a right to do anything that the underlying technology will allow (like register the "guinness.net" domain), bear in mind that Aurthur Guinness was brewing and selling beer 17 years before the Colonies' Declaration of Independence. Guiness was operating before the First Amendement was even conceived. That leaves a long history of use under common law. If you haven't figured it out yet, WIPO is building upon that precedent. Common law is case law. You may not like the fact that no freely elected legislature scripted a law that a court enforces. In that case, file a lawsuit and take it to the Supreme Court.
To anyone who thinks the "Diaego plc v. John Zuccarini" is the archtype of "The Bad Corporation v. The Soverign Individual", I say you should find better examples. The case description says that Zuccarini:
To jamie, I say you could find a better case in "The Bad Franchise vs. The Individual's Right to Free Speech" if you studied the ongoing saga of corinthians.com. One man uses that domain to promote the Book of Corinthians (as in "The Bible"). But the "Corinthians Futball Team" is taking it through arbitration. Please get to the bottom of this matter and enlighten us.
Remember the WTO riots in Seattle? I read a first-hand account describing how looters and rioters caused damage while using the protestors as cover. Don't let Zuccarini hide behind legitimate free speech issues. (Unless you are an anarchist. In that case, feel free to create a little entropy by spilling bong water in the keyboard! [woo hoo!])
Has anyone registered " john-zuccarini-sucks.com" yet? Or maybe that would not be fair use...
- boli
P.S. Yea, I know. "boli-sucks.com" blah blah blah
P.P.S. One more thing: If you want liberty, vote libertarian next Tuesday.
The thing is, technically, the "sucks" suffix can be confused for a legitimate domain registration. Look at www.primussucks.com - the OFFICAL website for the band Primus. What if guinness ran a campaign, about..i dunno...how their beer sucks. say if it was cool to suck or something. I dunno. But you get my point. I'm not saying they're right to do what they did, after all, a man's domain is his own business (pun or something else).
-"I still believe in revolution; I just don't capitalize it anymore." - srini!
Wasn't that why we all got so pissed at Microsoft? Bill Gates' vision of his ubercompany solving all your computing needs?
I wish there was a choice that said "Factually Wrong -1" when I mod.
The real problem is that these people, who most likely should not have got their domains taken away from them, do not respond to the WIPO domain disputes.
I feel that just buying a shirt that says "MS sucks" and never wearing it has the same effect and is just as legal as buying microsoftsucks.com and not putting up a page and not using it for an email address. But obviously, none of these people decide they need to defend themselves in any way, which I think is completely stupid. Doing that is a sure fire way to not only set terrible precidents, but to also get your case lost.
I am a bad speler. Please ignore speling meestakes in me poast.
Here's a suggestion: Talk to whoever owns the domain sucks.com and get them to do DNS for subdomains like www.guiness.sucks.com. Who knows, you may not even have to pay to register your domain name.
Convert RSS to HTML - integrate webfeeds into your website
So if Guinness doesn't use them, does he get them back? I think if Guinness now has them they should be forced to use them.
--
Hmmmm...
I suppose www.jamie_mccarthy_suck.com couldn't be confused with the author of this article, but I'm sure he wouldn't like it. And it's not as if this case is setting a precedent or anything. It's been happening in the real world for ages (product names, for example). I'm sure a brewery couldn't make a stout named "Guinness Sucks" either.
- Jas.
I suppose alec-guinness-the-actor-not-the-beer-really-sucks. com
would be Ok then :-)
"Guiness Sucks!" Well, guess all the people Guiness says will be confused by the word sucks will think it's a ringing endorsement. Ok Guiness, you should pay me for spreading the good word!
Yes I agree that everyone is entitled to voice their opinion but this guy has obviously far too much spare time on his hands. Points. 1. If he does not like the product, why not drink something else. 2. What is a (a)"STUPID ASS LETTER" (b)"GOOFBALL JACKASS LAWYER" 3. To say that 'his' "domain name was unfairly taken away" is pure bullshit!!! The domain name was registered before his "STUPID ASS" thought of it. 4. He should buy a beer and chill out!!!
Sure you have, their argument is posted right in the link in the original blurb. Here, you can have it again.
"IMHO WIPO should work to discourage the creation of stupid names like those."
You believe that there should be an international body that determines when my 1st Amendment right to ridicule a corproation goes too far? I'm all ears, tell me what guidelines you'd like to see set, what you'd consider acceptable and not. I'm dying to see your reply.
My .02,
My .02,
zencode
iactivist.org/jason
They were just annoyed that he called it beer.
If he'd have registered guinness-stout-sucks.com then they probably wouldn't have minded so much.
--
"I do not speak for my employers, though they are controlled from my Teddy's huge pulsating brain."
I do feel sorry for you. My local [pub] serves very little but real ale.
It's the Palmerston Arms, Peterborough.
They serve ale straight from the keg.
Never visited the Panton Arms when I used to live in Cambridge..
-- And let there be light... so he fluffed the light spell
There's another story about this particular Internet-parasite here.
Which Ireland do you speak of? Where? Where is this "Apartheid" you refer to?
I'm sitting here in Dublin, (Republic of) Ireland (the economy of which is one of Europe's fastest, if not the fastest growing), and for the life of me I cannot find this "Apartheid" anywhere.
"Jobs are hard to come by"The beauty of this country at the moment is that jobs are ridiculously easy to come by, especialy if you work in IT
As for the Guinness, well apparently it doesn't travel very well (I had a pint in London and almost wretched). Something to do with being brewed with liffey water...
Protest away, as an Irish man you have my blessing. The employment Guinness brings to this country is negligible. Serves them right for producing such an unpalatable drink, and letting their obvious feelings of "harassment" get the better of them in such an invidious manner
I grant you that this is a sensitive case pitting freedom of speech against commercial interest (which is not always the bogie man). But c'mon...the respondent didn't even answer. He just wanted to throw a tantrum and get us all shouting epithets against the Big Bad Corporation. It would have been a far more difficult case, in my opinion, had he actually used a single "sucks" site to detail all of the failings and problems of Guinness, then fought it out on the grounds of freedom of thought and speech. But as it is, he just registered sites, made a few snide comments, then didn't bother to write anything for the record. Bad case, bad law. It's just too bad that this tar-covered case will be precedent now.
And guinness is stout.
kmj
The only reason I keep my ms-dos partition is so I can mount it like the b*tch it is.
kmj
The only reason I keep my ms-dos partition is so I can mount it like the b*tch it is.
Including my special Exploding Ale! :)
http://www.slaveway.com
Nope, Old Rasputin is a brew by the North Coast Brewing Company. It's an Russian Imperial Stout, though, and nothing like Guinness. I love the beer, but less stoutwise friends state that (and I quote) "it tastes like coffee strained through dirty gym socks." Beware of freaking your friends out, it's a strong, thick stout. Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout Not that I'd have an overwhelming interest in it or anything...it's my nickname after all. ;)
--
If only we could have an entry for the World's Suckiest Beer in the Guiness Book of World Records.
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
But WIPO should have simply said that they were an expression of free speech, a parody, or whatever. There is NO WAY those sites could be "confused" with being official Guinness sites.
It's ironic that guinnessstout.com isn't back in the hands of Guinness LLC. I guess they don't mind if people register pro-Guinness sites.
And there's no way in hell I'd boycott Guinness. A lot of things, yes. But Guinness? I don't care what they do. I have to draw the line somewhere, and Guinness is it.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
Well, first off, I do think Guiness is wrong: they've no right to take these domains away. HOWEVER. The guy never filed a response. This is equivelent, in my mind, to failing to show up for court - if you're not there, you don't get to argue your case. If he really cared, he could have written in explaining his side. Maybe he still would have lost, but he never even tried.
Secondly, this is hardly the first time he's done this. According to the paper, he's been involved in what, six or seven cases like this? If he hasn't learned by now, I have no sympathy for him.
Who can blame anyone for using any tool available to try to silence someone who is bad mouthing them? I'm boycotting domain names.
If you leave in the Mid-Atlantic region of the US, one word:
Yuengling.
mmm... Beer.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Given the number of posts on any given topic on slashdot - I no longer find it possible to read them all. Hell - I barely find time to read all the stories.
If this is what he was doing - then he was doing nothing more than using their trademark to try and make money for himself.
However - that was NOT part of the WPIO decision (if it was, then I must have missed it - it was a large and rather boreing document - why don't such organizations require people who write their decisions and documents to be interesting and fun writters?) the decision was based more on the fact that their trademark was in the name.
I felt it safe to assume that if he was doing that, then it would have been listed as reasoning in the complaint part of the decision - afterall that is definitly a major reason to ask for it to be taken away.
Course - I still wont drink their beer - but now it is just because it does, indeed, suck. (where oh where can a person find a beer in Boston? A good beer. I have found them only once or twice - good dark rich beers - stuff served at a proper temperature - not freezing cold but just a little cool)
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
In some cases, I think a person *could* conceivably confuse a domain-name like this with an actual company's website. Particularly if the company manufactures vacuum cleaners.
What if, on all of the Domains he registered, he put a link to the "Guinness" web site? Would that still pose a problem. I know he was mad at them, but I think that would be really funny. IMO
Meddle not in the afffairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with catsup.
I think everyone should stop and read the WIPO doc. Because:
1) Mr. Zuccarini never bothered to even respond, so he was not concerned with losing these domain names.
2) After reading this, it seems he is not using these sites out of moral outrage, but as income. The Court found that the Respondent was a wholesaler of Internet domain names (defined as someone who acquires multiple domain names with the intent to profit from them), who owns approximately 3000 domain names, and that many of his sites featured advertisements for other sites and credit card companies where "visitors were trapped or 'mousetrapped' in the sites, unable to exit without clicking on a succession of ads. Zuccarini received between ten and twenty-five cents from the advertisers for every click." Id. at 635, 641. The Respondent's "click-based revenue now approaches $1 million per year." Id. at 640 n.7.
3) He seems to have A LOT of problems with companies, like:
Hewlett-Packard Company, Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc, Bama Rags, Inc., and Guinness plus
The Complainant has stated that the Respondent is no stranger to ICANN administrative proceedings and that there have been at least five ICANN decisions against the Respondent in which it has been found that he registered and used domain names that are identical or confusingly similar to famous trademarks in bad faith and without a legitimate business purpose.
This guy seems to be trying to cover his income scheme with free speech.
I believe in free speech and if he had anything useful to say that would be one thing, but he is in it to make money.
Lastly, the reason Guinness got the domains back also has to do with the fact that if Mr. Zuccarini hadn't used the GUINNESS name, his domains would be www.really-sucks.com, www.really-really-sucks.com, www.reallysucks.com, www.reallyreallysucks.com. I'll save my support for those truly oppressed by ICANN and WIPO.
I've currently spent almost $10,000 negotiating with Ohio State University over my SlashSite, http://www.ReadingRecovery.com. I can attest that, no matter how silly all of this is, it can be extremely costly. Although all lawyers are jackasses, not all of them give you the courtesy of a cease and desist notice-- sometimes they file suit right away. You can read the details of my little drama on my site and in the Ohio Dispatch. It hasn't been fun and could still bankrupt me. :-(
eMails of support are welcome!
No! Whatever the lawyers do, the guinness is the best in the world!
I will never boycott then even if they patent one-click (or one-drink)!
In fact, what we drink in America is a Guinness, seriously damaged by conservation. In Ireland, can you imaging? - Guinness is even 10 times (10 times!!!) better. Hands off from guinness!
Andrew
I just registered this domain name, and created a one-page (for now) site devoted to alternatives to Guinness beer, and documenting the ongoing thoughtcrime war Guinness is waging against domain holders.
Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma
...to "Your Lack of Rights Online" or "The Continuing Erosion of Your Few Remaining Rights Online" or something that more accurately reflects reality.
any suggestion of what is to be done about this would be welcomed. meantime i won't be buying any more GuinessReallySucks products or using my priceless mastercard.
This issue originally evolved around the Respondent having registered Guinness.com (can the class say "cybersquatting"?) and losing that domain to Guinness. Respondent then registers GuinnessSucks.com and variations in retaliation. Guinness learns of the GuinnessSucks.com and variations and files a complaint with the WIPO. August 25, 2000 the Respondent is sent (e-mail, fax and snail-mail) a "Notification of Complaint and Commencement of Administrative Proceedings" and that "the Respondent was required to submit a Response to the Center on or before September 13, 2000." No response was received and on September 25, 2000 the Respondent was sent Notification of Respondent Default.
To summerize: If you don't even bother to field a team on game day, you are assured only one outcome. Bemoan the fact that the "Respondent" couldn't be troubled to not even contest the complaint, not that Guinness won.
To summerize further: Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
How about registering that domain name?
;)
(assuming its not registered yet)
Instead of the standard 'www' have so all someone needs to type in:
guinness.beer-really-sucks.com
Can WIPO look at the domain name and suggest that there is a strong and confusing similarity between guinness.com and beer-really-sucks.com?
If the answer is 'yes,' what does that imply about Guinness beer?
-Vel
Taste? TASTE?! It has no taste. Even gnat's piss has more taste!
:->
I haven't heard of "gnat's piss" before. Is that some new-fangled microbrewery beer or something?
--
You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
A man who wants nothing is invincible
-- H. Wilker
I'm not lawyer but the "complainant's" arguement seems to hold up when put against the standard of legal precedent, which sucks. Just becuase some fatty in some court somewhere who has never heard of a domain name before nor has no concept of what the Internet is or what is represents decides that Walsucks is confusingly similar to Walmart, every domain name with a trademark or partial trademark in it can be seized by the Trademark holder. This is the issue with the Legal Precedent system, there is no rating of the quality of the legal precedent which would be simple by ranking the number of times it has been upheld (which I think is also used to support the legal precident) and by what types of judges in which juristictions. Basically the whole thing rests on the fact that the legal system believes that people are naturally retarded and when using a search engine made to be easy for the lowest common denominator already people can not differentiate between Guinesses site and the guinness-sucks site. Shows what our Judicial system thinks of us. The case also rested on the fact as to whether the "Respondant" -- Cupcake Patrol was "harassing" the "Complainant" -- Guinness. I would think that the the decision of the panel in some ways impinges on the freedoms of speech granted in the US 1st Ammendment, but it appears as if the case was mediated under British laws. How do we differentiate harassment from voicing one's own opinion on the quality of a beer or the shadyness of a corporation. Basically the courts will uphold the fattest argument regardless of it's merrit. In this case the Cupcake patrol did not have the resources to produce a really long and unnecessarily wordy legal defense and therefor they were at a significant disadvantage in the current system.
A company which has been activlely building a brand name and image for over 100 years, and spent billions in the process, chooses to defend a brand name that they OWN!
Besides, nowhere in the article does anyone say what pissed the guy off. I can think of afew possibilties:--
1. (and most likely) the beer isn't to his taste. Well DRINK ANOTHER BRAND! I dislike B*dwisser intensely but would never interfere with your rigth to drink thier urine like fizz.
2. The guy had a bad hangover. Now I have experienced hangovers after a nights of heroic Guiness drinking, which, are way above and beyond the normal suffering endured by dipsomaniacs, so I do have some sympathy here. But then again it is largly a matter of degree, and, although it doesn't carry a health warning the stuff is black and you cannot actually see through it which probably consitutes a warning in itself!
3. Various members of the family that used to own the company. The Arthur Guiness has many descendents, and, as in all large families, some of these turn out to be unpleasent and/or completely insane (sorry they are rich I mean forthright and eccentric!). These people have nothing to do with the dark nectur that is Guiness.
Old COBOL programmers never die. They just code in C.
The notion that the strength of a trademark can somehow lead to brand confusion is ridiculous.
Quite the opposite.
Because of their advertising machine, Wal*Mart is an extremely well-known brand. It is impossible for someone to expect that typing in "www.walfart.com" will take them to the site of the world's largest retailer. Why hasn't Wal*Mart sued Walman Optical for their domain, www.walman.com? Does not walman sound similar to walmart? Would not someoneone unfamiliar with Wal*Mart's marketing machine possible confuse walman with walmart?
How can something as ridiculous sounding as "guiness-beer-sucks-manure-fly-toes.com" be confused with "guiness.com" ?
P.S.-- Sorry, Mr. LaPerriere, I guess you can be expecting a call from Wal*Mart's Legal Team.
Give me my freedom, and I'll take care of my own security, thank you.
In short, the guy basically handed the sites to Guinness by not bothering to defend himself. It's called a default judgement.
Slashdot moderation doesn't cease to surprise me. The jms guy got +4 Informative for stating what is stated at least three times in the previous posts, and does stupid mistake even in those 2 lines, and the he gets +3 Informative for correcting that stupid mistake. D'oh.
-- Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.
I've only had it once, a very tiny drugstore had some in Estes Park, Colorado when I was on vacation there, and let me tell you, in addition to the Old Curmudgeon Barleywine style I had from local brewer Odell's, that Old Rasputin was f*ckin perfect for hanging out on a mountain on a chilly October evening. Man, I wish I could get more. (I seem to recall it being very potent at around 9.5% alc. by vol. as well, always a plus.)
Palaces, barricades, threats, meet promises
Heck, just buy really-sucks.com and sell 3LD's, such as guinness-beer. If you can do it before Nader pushes through his .sux proposal, you can probably make alot of money at it. (Nader wants to take that away, too.)
Constitutionally Correct
There's little doubt about that (read the decision.) Yeah, maybe he had a legit beef with Guinness. But they challenged him, he didn't respond, and WIPO ruled against him.
Life goes on.
If he really wants to have fun, he should incorporate a business as Guiness Beer Sucks and then sue them for the domain. He'd lose, but I'd find it more entertaining.
--
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
So, for the clarity, let's register "this-url-does-not-belong-to-guinness.com".
Privacy is terrorism.
There's really no answer to the debate about what is and is not free speach on the internet. If you think the abuses (and yes, I DO think they had no right to strip the domains he registered) are bad now, can you imagine what would happen if someone set down laws on what is and is not free speach on the internet? And who would set those laws, for a global community...the UN? God help us if they do!
Does this mean that JarJarBinksDieDieDie.com has got to go?
"Chatty Bitch should get on IRC if he wants to talk."
IANABD (I am not a beer drinker) but perhaps guiness-really-sucks can really be used to describe guiness?
erik
...all excited, don't know why...
Fat Tire. eh? I find it pretty in-offensive. In some places, it was (is?) often available as the only alternative to lesser beers such as Coors, Budweiser and Miller. These were the times I drank it. Personally I don't think that it has that much taste and I couldn't understand the fuss surrounding it. Perhaps it was one of the first of the new micro-brews. It's acheived quite a high level of commercialisation and brand recognition (that doesn't bother me: I drink Guinness!). I think that a lot of people who aren't big beer drinkers, or haven't developed the taste for stronger flavours, like to drink it thinking that they're being cool and trendy, and drinking a real beer.
"What I meant to say is that when otherwise great German or Canadian beer makes it to the U.S., it's nothing like the stuff you get in its native country -- bitter"
I think we have a different taste for things. I actually quite like bitter drinks... I steep my tea for a long time to make it more bitter too! It used to make me chuckle when I was living in CO. They used to have adverts on the TV for Keystone Light: "America's never bitter beer". The beer that brought on the "bitter beer face" actually looked quite tastey to me! Talk about advertising having a negative affect on some people!
Thanks for the redhook lead...I live about a mile away from the Redhook Brewery, so I can go and get a keg :)
I only post twice a year, who needs a sig?