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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.
I think it's time for...
vivendiuniversalreallysucks.com
and maybe even
wiposucks.com
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stating that the addition of the terms "sucks" and ".com" to the Bloomberg mark does not have the effect of escaping confusing similarity
"Microsoft sucks"
"Why do you like MS?"
"Huh??? I hate MS?"
"Oh... It's all so confusingly similar."
Wasn't the last 'sucks' domain (I think it was wallmartsucks.com or something to the effect) awarded to the guy who registered it and not Walmart? I forget how that one ended, but I do seem to remember him also requesting that Walmart hand over walmartsucks.org and walmartsucks.net since they were obviously registered in bad faith as Walmart wasn't planning on using them.
sic transit gloria mundi
You know ICANN took all this time to mull over new top-level domains, why don't they add ".sucks"? They could stipulate that no one owning a copyright for a name could buy the .sucks domain, and then all of the webmasters with grudges would have their own little playground to make fun of companies. Because all of the domains end in .sucks, they could not be "confusingly similar" to the original since everyone would know what the purpose of the .sucks domain is.
then this guy could buy vivendiuniversal.sucks, and everyone would be happy.
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Organization:
Secaucus Group Inc
Secaucus Group Inc
295 Greenwich Street (Suite 184)
New York, NY 10007
US
Phone: (973) 503 1785
Email: dparisi@garden.net
Registrar Name....: Register.com
Registrar Whois...: whois.register.com
Registrar Homepage: http://www.register.com
Domain Name: WIPOSUCKS.COM
Created on..............: Mon, Apr 19, 1999
Expires on..............: Fri, Apr 19, 2002
Record last updated on..: Fri, Feb 23, 2001
Administrative Contact:
Secaucus Group Inc
Secaucus Group Inc
295 Greenwich Street (Suite 184)
New York, NY 10007
US
Phone: (973) 503 1785
Email: dparisi@garden.net
Technical Contact:
Dan Parisi
Dan Parisi
295 Greenwich Street (Suite 184)
New York, NY 10007
US
Phone: (973) 503 1785
Email: dparisi@garden.net
Zone Contact:
Dan Parisi
Dan Parisi
295 Greenwich Street (Suite 184)
New York, NY 10007
US
Phone: (973) 503 1785
Email: dparisi@garden.net
I'm going to vote them all out in the next election! Oh... Wait...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
If Disney hold on to this domain to prevent it's use for "fair comment" criticism, can we take it from them citing "bad faith"?
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bug.gd: error search engine. Humanity working together to solve all errors.
I know this will piss some (many) people off, but I often find these domain name spats touchingly irrelevant.
...sucks... on a domain doesn't offer much in the way of real criticism. Effective activism isn't as easy as calling people names. If it's just a prank, then isn't all the hoopla a bit overblown?
o ly.html
In the long term, will domain name shortage be a real and continuing problem?
Just putting
Corporate dominance of public discourse is not a new problem. All the free access to domain names in the world will not overcome the fact that most of what most people see/read/hear is controlled by a relatively small group of greedy people. The world is poorer for it, but this is old news.
Try reading some pulped tree products for a great discussion of these problems. I'd start with Ben Bagdikian's classic, The Media Monopoly-- http://www.commoncouragepress.com/bagdikian_monop
You'll find some more pressing media control issues than "...sucks.com".
Sig?
Sigue Sigue Sputnik!!!
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.
...non-english speaking people would be going to the VivendiUniversal.com site in the first place. Since the whole site is English, I highly doubt that.
the Panel has found that non-English speaking Internet users would be likely to attach no significance to the appended word 'sucks' and would therefore regard the disputed domain name as conveying an association with the Complainant.
Hmm, the VivendiUniversialSucks.com site starts with: .....
Why Does Vivendi/Universal Suck?
Vivendi is a large, behemoth corporation that exists merely
It's in English. So non-English speakers could actually have some problems reading the site and it is therefore irrelevant if they know what 'sucks' mean. The site also does not feature any VU logos but rants about conglomerates like Vivendi. Surely any reader will immediatly think that it is an official VU site.
I guess that WIPO would like to have an Orwellian version of English with domain names like "VivendiUniversialDoublePlusUngood.com"
To avoid customer confusion, the owner of a domain name should be required to put up a page at that domain that is appropriate to the domain name. Someone putting up a pro-Vivendi site at a "Sucks" domain is obviously attempting to trick customers into thinking that Vivendi does not suck.
__
Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
Well, kinda. Back in the late 80s/early 90s, Primus fans used the term "sucks" in an ironic fashion. It was kind of an inside joke -- ie, Primus fans would have bumper stickers that said "PRIMUS SUCKS", t-shirts etc. It was a heavily sarcastic way of showing your fanness, typical of the early 90's rejection of corporate culture (grunge, etc.-- Ah, take a moment to remember the glory days before all TV and advertising was wry and tongue-in-cheek and corporate marketers didn't know how to handle "Generation X".)
Seeing as it was originally a joke slogan meant to confuse non-"true" Primus fans, it makes no sense to use it as an example of how the general public might get confused-- that was the whole point!
W
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
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...
Let's think about things for a second. If I opened up a fast food restaurant called "McDonald's Sucks" should I be forced to change my name? Yes.
If I decided to call my bookstore "Barnes and Noble Bites" should I be forced to pick a new name? Yes.
If I decided to starta phone company called "AT&T Blows" should I be forced to use something else? Yes.
Then why shouldn't the same standard be applied to websites? Why shouldn't trademarks be protected? I'm not a fan of being hampered in life by the law, being oppressed by monopolistic behavior, or having commercialism shoved down my throat. However, I believe in the right to have my own name and not have someone slander said name.
Of course we torture people, we need the information --Gen. Pinochet
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.
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 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.
A solution to the problem with music today
Look we're all on the same internet, and most of us that visit .com and not just .ru,.is, etc speak English at some level. And having grown up in another country I can tell you we learned American curse words long before we learned English in school.
...sucks.com if I'm about to buy a big ticket item from someone, or if I've already been screewed. Often it goes to that sucky sucks500 site, but it still works enough of the time to be useful.
.mil & .gov ghetto. Yeah, Yeah, fracture the internet.. just cc the old database, set up rules dissallowing anyone from owning a sucks.com for a company they do not actively critizise, review all icann domain decisions awarding the domain to the deserving party instead of the monied party. Have the complaintant pay the defendants legal bills up to some multiple of the complaintants cost, say 1.5x if they lose, 0.5x if the compaintant wins.
;)
I always try visiting the
BTW Is there anything but tradition keeping us attached to the ICANN? Couldn't any group set up alternative root servers and ask everyone to point to them? If the group had consistent rules and an effective feedback process we might all join it and leave the icann to serve the
You could donate fairnamessucks.com to icann
Bravo!
I'll offer a delegation from my 2nd level domain, so for example, the domain that was taken from "j d sallen" can be replaced with the one I am offering: vivendiuniversalsucks.thekindbud.com.
Someone who is more enterprising than myself could set up some more 3rd level delegations, like vivendiuniversalsucks.mydick.com, vivendiuniversalsucks.greencanalwater.com, vivendiuniversalsucks.theyjustsuckperiod.com, and so on...
WIPO and ICANN have no authority over 3rd level delegations, as far as I know. But that might be an interesting battle if they were to try to take away a domain that was used in this way.
Edith Keeler Must Die
vivendisucksuniversal.com
Or, for the more creative types:
vivendisucksuniversally.com
Would non-English speakers be confused and think this is a Vivendi Universal site? And if some would be confused, would it just be really stupid non-English speakers who automatically assume that any domain containing the strings "vivendi" and "universal" must be official Vivendi Universal sites? At what point does individual stupidity become the responsibility of the individual and not the domain owner?
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.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
So are you suggesting that the guy who registered vivendiuniversalsucks.com was planning to start a multi-national media conglomerate?
No, the person to whome you replied is merely shilling for WIPO and/or Vivendi Universal (who does suck, greatly). Perhaps they have even been paid to, as well known Microsoft astroturfers here and on K5 have been observed doing, or perhaps this person (or a close friend) have a vested interest in either this case in particular or the corrupt process in general.
Or perhaps that person really is as stupid as they appear, as your sarcastic response amply demonstrates their argument to be.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
http://vivendi.isverybad.com
.net and .org TLDs) just for cases like that.
http://vivendiuniversal.isverybad.com
Kindly provided by yours truly. Let Vivendi claim they have a trademark on "is", "very" or "bad".
I registered those domains (along with "are" instead of "is", plus the
What's incredibly disturbing about this opinion is that there was a perfectly legitimate, NON-COMMERCIAL gripe site up at VIVENDIUNIVERSALSUCKS.COM, which aired the opinions of both myself and David Sallen, the owner of the domain. Rather than recognizing this, and David Sallen's and my free speach rights, the UDRP panel took it upon itself to decide that our critical free speech just wasn't good enough in it's opinion. This is absolute garbage, plain and simple.
In any event, if anyone wants to take a look at David's response to the complaint in this matter, I've posted it at Geektivism. Feel free to drop by and leave comments about this case. I will be updating my site regularly to reflect ongoing news in this atrocity of a UDRP decision.
MD
Dan Parisi owns a ton of "sucks" websites with no content on them. His name turns up time and again in these UDRP stories because of that.
Is he a squatter? Of course he is. But he's not registering these domains in bad faith to shake down the entities which purportedly "suck", he's doing it to shake down the pissed-off people who get burned by Corporation X and want to put up a "sucks" site.
Learn to spell: nickel, missile, lose, solely, amendment, speech, kernel, probably, ridiculous, deity, hierarchy, versus
Registering a domain name costs $10-$20. Add the cost of some low end hosting for a year and you're looking at $50-$100.
Filing a complaint with ICANN costs $1000 or more. Add to this the cost of lawyers required to draw up the complaint and a company like Vivendi Universal is probably looking at $5000 to take the domain name.
Why not simply register a new name and wait for Vivendi Universal to get around to taking that one as well. Then repeat the process until you get bored or Vivendi runs out of money. Remember it costs a company about 100 times more to take a domain from someone as it does to initially register it. Under a system like this a few geeks could easily wage a guerrilla war against any opponent and either make them stop taking domain names, or drive them into bankruptcy.
So if Vivendi Universal now owns vivendiuniversalsucks.com here are a very short list of a few similar domains might still be available. With a little imagination I'm sure there are hundreds if not thousands of possible domains that embody the basic idea that "Vivendi Universal Sucks".
vivendiuniversalreallysucks.com
vivendiuniversalreallyreallysucks.com
vivendiuniversalsucksbad.com
vivendiuniversalreallysucksbad.com
vivendi-universal-really-sucks-bad.com
vivendi-universal-really-really-sucks-bad.com
vivendiuniversal-reallyreally-sucksbad.com
etc...
Today, representatives of VivendiUniversal won a victory against the holder of www.gostickyourheadinapig.com because "Vivendi Universal" translated as "Go Stick Your Head in a Pig" in an obscure pidgin dialect used by 12 islanders living on a Melanesian atoll. Vivendi are now pursuing the islanders for inadvertently defaming their organisation, "VivendiUniversal really do care about our porcine customers, and we think their conduct is appalling and in bad taste".
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
IANAL... blah blah
This is a good idea. Courts have upheld the "unauthorized" use of trademarks for parody and criticizm. However, each former domain holder would need to sue ICANN, unless a court granted class-action status to such a case. Either way, you're looking at mucho denerio required for such a case.
Most trademarks share its name or initials with many others. When authorities could put trademark identity beyond shadow of doubt, they are either devoid of intelligence or corrupt.
The United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO.org) and the United States Department of Commerce (DOC.gov) are hiding the simple solution to trademark and domain name problem.
The US Patent and Trademark Office virtually admitted this, on August 22, 2000: "The questions you raised with respect to trademark conflicts, as well as the proposed solutions, have their basis in good common-sense. As such, they have been debated and discussed quite exhaustively within the USPTO, the Administration, and internationally."
Yet the authorities refuse to admit the ESSENTIAL REQUIREMENTS. To deny this, is to be without honour.
The solution was ratified by honest attorneys - including the honourable G. Gervaise Davis III, UN WIPO panelist judge.
Please visit WIPO.org.uk to see the answer.
> Nice try, but at the core of UCANT's rulings is the principle that Jane Surfer is a dribbling AOL-Time-Warner-Microserf who is too stupid to figure anything out and needs to be protected from her own idiocy.
I was Christmas shopping this weekend when I saw a toy Harry Potter broom. It had a fairly prominent notice on the box, repeated, saying "broom does not really fly".
rant