WIPO Awards 'Sucks' Domain to Vivendi

Sarcasmo writes: "A WIPO Panel has decided in favor of Vivendi Universal in the dispute over VivendiUniversalSucks.com. The arguments made on Vivendi's behalf are strange, to say the least." It's so unjust as to be farcical. When the domain name holder makes a sarcastic comment that he wasn't making any money off the domain (in contrast to the lawyer who was billing a few hundred dollars per hour to handle the dispute), the esteemed Panel takes that as evidence that he wants to sell the domain (which in itself was already a flimsy plank to call "bad faith"). Kangaroo court is too kind a description. ICANN is currently asking for input on the domain dispute resolution process, so if you've been a victim of the UDRP, now would be a good time to speak up.

Comments

Porn stars and blackholes

[NoInfo]

My favorite quote from the dissenting panel member statement:

As the majority suggests, there may well be some narrow categories of trademarks for which the word "sucks" does not clearly disassociate a domain name from the trademark, and therefore it may be unwise to adopt a per se rule holding that "sucks" domain names can never be found confusingly similar to the trademarks they contain. But the Complainant in this proceeding does not claim to be known as a manufacturer of vacuum cleaners or suction pumps, or as a self-deprecating alternative rock band, or a test laboratory for beverage straws, or a porn star, a black hole, or any other sort of entity that people are likely to associate with sucking.

The record of your favorite arbiter:

[Bobzibub]

http://www.udrpinfo.com/

Use the top right hand drop box.

Alan L. Limbury, Presiding Panelist
Sir Ian Barker, Panelist
David E. Sorkin, Panelist, (Dissenting in this case)
Note that Sorkin doesn't get to arbitrate many cases on his own.

Things that make you go hmmmm.

The similarity part is how the laws are worded

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a business owner and when I formed my business I issued an article of organization to my state that includes an article of name reservation. As part of that I'm not allowed to start a company with a name similar enough to confuse or damage another business. It's pretty simple really, if I call my business Yoyodyne Corp. somebody cannot create Xoyodyne or a Yoyodyne or 1 Yoyodyne or Yoyodyne balls or anything designed to hurt my business. (like show up in phone book deceptively before my business or sound insulting to my business) It's open and shut just about every time.

This is simple. The owner of the domain was clearly within that definition of deceptively similar. I don't even see why this is being discussed, some guy disliked a business, he didn't say that one his web page, he in essence organized a public entity which defaces them by its existence and he lost when they defended their image. If somebody puts up slashdotsucks.org and slashdot of va chooses to fight it, they'd win too.

Did ANYONE read the decision?

[Rev.LoveJoy]

Did anyone read the WIPO decision? The whole thing? Down to the part that says ...

It is common ground that no use was made of the disputed domain name between the date of registration, February 27, 2001, and the date when notice of the dispute was given to the Respondents by way of "cease and desist" letter on July 26, 2001.

That's right, it was dead space. The whole redirect to geektivism is ex post fact, folks. Capitolizing on /. eyeballs, if you will.

While I think the WIPO decision is a laughable miscarriage of Justice*, I do find it a bit difficult to feel really high and mighty and start saying, "oh, how terribly awful." Even the fellow who registered the thing seems to have a good sense of humor about this whole joke.

Personally, I would wager that he's feeling the same way I am about the whole charade. Vivendi's response and the fact they actually convinced WIPO to give them the domain name is really just prooving this guy's point.

Cheers,
- RLJ

* Justice? These guys are lawyers, come on now...

Re:Primus??

[reidconti]

Apparently WIPO is unfamiliar with the fact that Primus is a special case. "Primus Sucks!" is considered the appropriate way of expressing your approval for the band. Nobody who likes Primus says "Primus Rules," it's always "Primus Sucks!" It's a quirk. Not an arguement in favor of handing -sucks domains over to the owner of the copyright that is being criticized.

Re:There are merits here...

[Todd Knarr]

Because what you suggest isn't protecting trademarks. No, you can't start a store called "McDonald's Sucks". Yes, you can put up a sign saying "McDonald's Sucks" and tell people why you think they suck. You can't spread falsehoods, but if you stick to the truth McDonald's can't legally touch you.

This is the fallacy that the UDRP falls into: the assumption that only trademark gives a valid claim to a name. It's what leads to decisions that a person doesn't have the right to use their own name for a Web site about themselves.

ICANN -- Just say "No, thanks"

[Dr. Zowie]

So stop whining already and point your name client at OpenNIC, the non-ICANN name space. (Of course, OpenNIC includes the ICANN name space as a subdomain).

The DNS /IS/ the phone directory

[i_am_nitrogen]

The Internet already has a phone directory called the DNS. It translates a so-called easy-to-remember name into a difficult IP address. Adding another layer will not help. Besides, there is an additional flaw with one of your ponts. Domain names cannot exceed 23 characters, which would force people to have either 20, 21, 22, or 23 character domain names, and that could be considered discrimination against slow typists(somehow). Plus, we have search engines and web crawlers and web indices like Google, Altavista, Lycos, Yahoo, etc to help you find what you're looking for. The real problem is not that people are getting confused, but that companies are either overly protective of their "ever important" brand name (I'd never heard of Vigundy Unifarcical before this article), or are afraid that their products really do suck and therefore would lose business because of various suckage sites.

The only true solution would be to eliminate money in the world and move to a non-magic-fish-based economy. Ideally, we'd all be practicing Utopian Socialism, but unfortunately people are inherently greedy and can't practice such a system without trying to take advantage of each other.

That ruling was worth reading...

[softsign]

... just to find this from dissenting panelist David Sorkin:

"As the majority suggests, there may well be some narrow categories of trademarks for which the word "sucks" does not clearly disassociate a domain name from the trademark, and therefore it may be unwise to adopt a per se rule holding that "sucks" domain names can never be found confusingly similar to the trademarks they contain. But the Complainant in this proceeding does not claim to be known as a manufacturer of vacuum cleaners or suction pumps, or as a self-deprecating alternative rock band, or a test laboratory for beverage straws, or a porn star, a black hole, or any other sort of entity that people are likely to associate with sucking. And even if the Complainant did fall within one of these categories, it would still bear the burden of proving a likelihood of confusion."

Bravo!

geektivism needs to put it's hat out for law fees

[sam_handelman]

As a matter of civic.. er... communal pride, this cannot be tolerated.

To quote ICANN's own website:
Decisions under the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy are subject to challenge by court action. The long list of their outrageous abuses of power can, still, be found here although the text of this particular decision isn't on that page yet, it's back, as I'm sure someone else has posted and I just missed it here.

So, we collect some money and make some phone calls to the ACLU and bring ICANN to court. This is a surrealistic violation of ICANN's own charter, not to mention of our sensibilities, and even if we lose (which we probably will) we should take it to court to generate bad press for them.