Bad Call For Referee Dispute

mcwop writes: "What can be said? One can only hope that this case gets appealed and eReferee wins. People assume that you are safe if a site, which has its name registered first, is in operation. Not only does this decision squash that notion, the name in dispute is not exactly the same. Referee magazine compared to eReferee.com. When will common sense prevail?" Here's the arbitration decision - I don't know of a copy of the court ruling. In many cases, individuals have been the victim of poor decisions rendered by ICANN arbitration panels. This is a case where the arbitration panel appears to have made the right decision, but a Federal judge stepped in and reversed it. Update: 02/16 03:15 PM by J : A quick comment on the nature of arbitration...

I'm frankly surprised we haven't seen more of these cases, and I'll expect to see more in the future. Because arbitration under the UDRP is not binding in the U.S. court system, or any court system that I know of, the loser can always sue the winner. And, in any case of any importance, will.

If GM and Ford have a disagreement about a domain name, do you think the results of an arbitration ruling mean jack to them? Will they meekly accept the results of some international panel and go home?

No, of course not. The loser will file the court case the same day. To them, an arbitration decision means nothing except maybe a rhetorical point for their lawyer to bring up.

Large corporations can never lose an arbitration, they can only win it. It's individuals and small corporations, who don't have the resources for an extended court battle, who stand to lose under the UDRP.

Comments

Seems fair enough

[Yoshi Have Big Tail]

I have studied intellectual property law, and there is protection for this.

It's called passing off - where a product or company is confusingly similar to another company, such that consumers might be misled, the tort of passing off is committed.

In this case, there is certainly such a risk of confusion - many companies simply prepend e to their names to form their electronic division - and so ereferee would seem to be referee's electronic division.

It is not, as is claimed a ban on the use of the word. This is a very restrictive action in law, designed to protect the goodwill of companies trading from ripoff merchants.

If this happened in the physical world, there would be no complaint, so why should the internet be any difference?

It's just the natural evolution of the internet - as it comes under the same regulation as the rest of human endeavor, companies will be protected at last.

I really can't see any problem here.

Re:Seems fair enough

[hey!]

If this happened in the physical world, there would be no complaint, so why should the internet be any difference?

Well, I can possibly see revoking the domain name, but the complete banning of the word "referee" from URLs is way over the top. The physical world equivalent is that you not only cannot use the word "Referee" in your magazine title, you can't use it in article titles or indices.

It's perilously close to giving trademark holders absolute right to the use of a common word in their sphere of business.

Re:Seems fair enough

[jayhawk88]

I don't agree, but you may have a point on the eReferee part. The problem, however, is that this lawsuit is applying to all domains with referee in the name. From the new eReferee (Officiating.com) web site:

A preliminary injunction has been issued which prevents RightSports from using its eReferee.com domain name and logo. The injunction also prevents RightSports from developing websites using other domain names that it owns. In short, RightSports is prohibited from any domain containing the word "Referee."

They also list about 40 other domain names that their partent company, RightSports, owns, that they are now forbidden to use, such as referee101.org, refereebooks.com, vollyballreferee.com, etc.

Now please tell me you honestly believe that each and every one of these sites is, "likely to cause confusion or mistakes or to deceive the public" concerning Referee Magazine. It's a load of BS. And here we have main reason why domain name lawsuits like this are bad. Basically, because of some short-sighted judge, Referee Magazine now owns the word referee, at least as it pertains to the internet.

Think this sort of thing would have been allowed to happen in the magazine publishing world? "Oh, gee, sorry, you can't publish any magazine with 'Referee' in the title in any form, we own that word." Or the television industry? "Nope, sorry, you can't create a TV show called The X-Files, The Rockford Files already owns the word 'Files'."

It's one thing if a company is protecting a brand name in this manner, i.e. Coca Cola or Disney. But referee is a common, public domain word. Referee Magazine didn't invent the word, they don't have any more right to the word then anyone else.

Re:Seems fair enough

[KahunaBurger]

Think this sort of thing would have been allowed to happen in the magazine publishing world? "Oh, gee, sorry, you can't publish any magazine with 'Referee' in the title in any form, we own that word."

yes. Sometime (?late last year?) there was a suit filed by the publishers of Entrepenuer magazine to shut down new magazines with names like Black Entrepenuer and Women Entrepenuers. Big companies step on little companies all the time, but /. only notices it with web addresses.

Kahuna Burger

Strong medecine needed for lawyers. Like arsenic.

[crovira]

The problem stems from the use of words to name things. Referee, eReferee, iReferee, eReferee, iReferee, oReferee.

Naming things is a HARD and expensive problem (see: Coca-Cola Co. & "Ttab," shortened to "Tab.")

However its made almost impossible by lawyers who, lacking common sense and speaking in gibberish, (did you know that the legal definition of "better" is "as good as"?) utterly throw the notion of language as a consually derived means of communication into a cocked hat and have turned it into a revenue producing source of obfustation.

That's why Prince went with TAFKSP and that logo as symbolically representing him. The lawyers couldn't get a handle on it.

That's also why the Canadian government gives all Amerindians band and individual numbers. Their names change according to the lives they have lived and what one may call him or her self may not be what others call him or her.

Re:They sort of have a point

[Roofus]

But their original point does stand. Having two sites Referee.com and eReferee.com is confusing, especially when it comes to things like search engines and so on

Do you ever confuse www.bay.com and www.ebay.com?

Apt name

[horza]

Does anyone else find it ironic that eReferee sounds a pretty good name for an online arbitration site?

Phillip.

Other sites under the gun...

[tenzig_112]

People who prefer to misspell a particular form of lumbardial back injury are suing us over the name "ridiculopathy.com."

It's a made-up word. We haven't had a chance to tell them that. They believe that rAdiculopathy is so common a misspelling that we have no right to do business under our proper name.

Our only hope is to get the word ridiculopathy entered into Websters next edition.

Ridiculopathy n : 1. A phenomenon brought about by ridiculous circumstances; 2. A field of science studying ridiculous phenomena. Ridiculopath a practitioner of the science of Ridiculopathy.

Help us convince Merriam-Webster

Jurisdiction

[Nidhogg]

Is it me or did this judge just pull all of ICANN's teeth with a crowbar?

What do we have here. ICANN came to a decision in arbitration in favor of the Respondent Planet Ref Inc. Referee Enterprises Inc. didn't like the outcome of arbitration so they went whining to a judge who overturned ICANN's decision.

So what kind of precedence does this set? This, in effect, tells anyone who doesn't like ICANN's decisions regarding domain disputes to go ahead and take it to court anyway.

I thought one of the purposes of ICANN was to keep this kind of stuff out of the courts.

Re:Jurisdiction

[Sloppy]

If ICANN's arbitration is going to have any teeth, then they are going to have to add a step to domain registration, where the domain holder signs an agreement that they will abide by arbitrators' decisions.

Whether this is a good idea or not, depends on who you trust more: ICANN's arbitration process, or the legal system.

---

Since when did Wisconsin own the Internet?

[Simon Brooke]

This sort of stupid arrogance makes everyone outside the United States of America extremely irritated. Wisconsin does not have jurisdiction over the Internet. The United States of America does not have jurisdiction over the Internet. All eReferee need do is move to Europe, Asia, or anywhere remotely sensible, and continue trading under their own domain name.

Re:Since when did Wisconsin own the Internet?

[PhilHibbs]

The Wisconsin judiciary have jurisdiction over the inhabitants of Wisconsin, though. If set up a web sire selling beverage recipies through cocacola.tv, then I have broken UK trademark law, and can be forced to stop by the UK courts. Fair enough. The problem is in the USPTO (yes, them again) allowing "referee" as a trademark.

Re:Strong medecine needed for lawyers. Like arseni

[Tyriphobe]

That's also why the Canadian government gives all Amerindians band and individual numbers

You mean like banding birds? Do Mounties really set up big nets to catch Native Americans, put a metal band around their ankle, and then let them go free again? And I thought Canadians were liberal... ;)

Sorry, I've been awake for too long.

Re:They sort of have a point

[baptiste]

And when you realized the mistake, you reentered the URL (or horrors actually used a bookmark ;) ) and went to the right site - big deal!

As long as eReferee.com has a prominent message saying "We are in no way affiliated with Referee Magazine, etc, etc" all is good. Seems like most companies come up with solutions like this.

Heck - I used to work for NORTEL when it was Northern Telecom and remember when they switched names. Some small outfit named Ortel in CA sued saying it was confusing. The result? NORTEL was forced to put "Nortel Networks" under the NORTEL name in small print on all sings, publications, etc.

Not a huge deal - simple enough and it avoids confusion. I wish others could do the smart thing istead of the 'sue for profit' thing :)

--

Read the article - scary stuff

[nanojath]

Usually if I dig in these slashdot world gone mad rights articles tends to be a bit more grayscale and ambiguous in the unabridged version. This one gets scarier when you read more. The magazine wants to sue if customers who disagree with the decision boycott the magazine? They want to prevent eReferree from publishing response to the court case? Good God. We're gonna sue you, you're going to take it, and like it, and if your customers (or OUR customers) complain, why, we'll sue you again! Boycott this magazine.

Re:Referee.com in corporate bed w/ Sports Illustra

[FrandGunk]

This is probably the most effective way to put pressure on this corporation to recind it's ridiculous posistion.

Here is the contact info:

Amy Stober, Publicist
CNN/Sports Illustrated & CNNSI.com Public/Media Relations
Phone: (404) 827-5538
Fax: (404) 588-2057
amy.stober@turner.com

Amy Sasser, Publicist
CNN/Sports Illustrated & CNNSI.com Public/Media Relations
Phone: (404) 827-5021
Fax: (404) 588-2057
amy.sasser@turner.com

letters@si.timeinc.com

cnnsi@cnnsi.com

Re:I can go to dictionary.com too...

[B14ckH013Sur4]

I'm going to interject here by saying you've both proven yourselves wrong by way of your dictionary blocks...
periodical (pr-d-kl) adj.
1. Periodic.
2. a. Published at regular intervals of more than one day.
Did you understand that phrase "more than one day?"
and secondly...
publish (pub' lish) v.
1. To prepare and issue (printed material) for public distribution or sale.
2. To bring to the public attention; announce.
So now that you've both used words to completely unprove your point, can we just say that wasting energy over your differences in rhetoric is just plain stupid? Considering this is a story about the dangers and consequences of misappropriated words, would you both consider ending this pathetic thread?