Filing a Domain Name Dispute?

0backlash0 writes "I work for a not-for-profit that's involved in community media especially radio, television, and increasingly, the internet. We exist by and for the community, which is to say that we're not a large organization. Someone has registered a domain name that we used to own: kdhxfm88.org The name appears to be registered in "bad faith". Because of our size, we can't exactly afford to hire a team of lawyers to take care of this for us. What can we do and how do we do it?"

Comments

It's theirs now

[Wee]

You said it all: "Someone has registered a domain name that we used to own." You used to own it, didn't renew your registration for whatever reason, and it went back up for "sale". It has new owners now. Unless you have some legal claim to the name, I don't think there's much hope for you getting it back.

Back when I worked at Qualcomm, I was going to register eudora.org when it's renewal came and went unnoticed and unpaid. But I was told that I'd likely have to give it back at the drop of an even semi-legal hat (or not even: "Give it up or pack your office" would have worked just as well). I was going to use the domain for all the tech support junk, plugins, etc that didn't make it on eudora.com for whatever reason. It was going to be a community-type site, not for profit or anything. As far from "bad faith" as you can get. I was told that the intent of the site wouldn't matter and that they would almost certainly get it from me.

IANAL, but I think unless you can show that you had a claim or that your business will be hurt or whatever (think Coke registering pepsi.biz) then you probably won't be able to get it back. You could try the nice guy route, though. Ask them if they would sell it to you (throw in a 50% "finder's fee" for them) and offer to host whatever email accounts hey have for a year while they transition (careful of spamming, though). Probably won't work, but it never hurts to be nice anyway. Sadly, I think you're S.O.L.

-B

Community Radio 88-92 MHz

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

An interesting note: Any radio station at that frequency would have to be non-profit. The FCC has reserved frequencies below 92 MHZ (88-92) for non-profits only.

88.1 is the first FM broadcast band frequency (even though I have seen radios go as low as 87.5), and 107.9 is the last frequency (I haven't seen a radio that tunes above that).

Here in Las Vegas, we have radio stations at both extreme ends of the dial, and they both rule.