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U.S. Cybersquatting Law Goes Global
typecast writes: "Better bone up on Bulgarian trademark law before you register your next domain name. A U.S. federal court has ruled that laws protecting trademarks in foreign countries apply under the American Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) of 1999. (Note to the U.S. registrants of Quartz.com: watch out!)"
Sorry, but if you register some domains and then hope to extort thousands out of it, you deserve to have it taken from you. I know that the law can and will be twisted by lawyers (remember all lawyers are evil scumbags, they will screw you for their own gain at every chance they get.. no, I'm not biased). The implications of this are designed for good intentions... What if a US moron was trying to extort cash out of a poor company in the country that was formerly known as the USSR for his domain name? Granted anyone with 1/3'd of a brain can come up with a workable replacement..
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
where did freedom go again? isn't this almost like killing capitalism? i have three domains right now, and i'm not ready to launch sites for two of them. does that mean someone with a company name of the same type can just take it?
Shouldn't the correct title of the article be something like "Spanish Law coming to US?". This is most definitely not a case of US law going overseas.
Remember, it might be a shock to some people but to whole world does not revolve around the USA.
It is an EU country, so it's less surprising. While I don't like the laws, we have been making a lot of laws and treaties with other countries, and the EU in paticular that are designed to protect US patents, copyrights and trademarks. Overall, its the result of Microsoft and the others trying to inflict their copyright laws, EULA's and such on the global market, only to have the global laws come back home to us. As a side note, IANAL, but I believe British copyright and trademark claims have always been recognized in the United States, and this is basically an extension to other countries. I think the base law is flawed, as are the laws that allow big corporations to take away valid websites from individuals or small companies, but the extension into the greater world doesn't seem that surprising to me.
I think the judge did the right thing in this case, the term Barcelona is commonly understood to refer to the Spanish city of Barcelona. But this shouldn't be based on possession of a "trademark"... there's really no trade involved. It's the name of a large city, this fact should supersede registered rademarks anyway... "culture supersedes commerce" would be a nice rule :-).
After all, the US is a member of WIPO, and as such, is somewhat required to engage in these IP-law "harmonization" practices. Other countries will also be doing the same thing for our laws (extrateritorial DMCA jurisdiction... what has the world come to!).
"In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe." -- Carl Sagan, Cosmos
God bless, what will happen next?
Understand, this is a novel thought for some USians
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Did the judge just look to Spanish law to help make his point, or did he specifically say that Spain had jurisdiction over the case?
If the former, so what? Judges are guided by all sorts of things in their opinions. It's only in the application of the laws of the judge's jurisdiction that stare decisis applies.
If the latter, why? The precedential effect will be in the choice of law, and why Spanish law was chosen over the ACPA is vitally important. (I get the impression that Spanish law was used merely to determine whether "Barcelona" was protectable by the ACPA.)
I am with Robertson on this one.
The Internet is not a Dewey Decimal System library. The indexing and categorization of information, as it's manifested in the meaning in URLs, is a natural process. It happened due to geeks being funny, people trying to make money, and so on. We have the wonderful histories of sites like www.whitehouse.com, which brings up the question - is it true that people who want information on the web about the White House would not want to see a porno site? I don't think so.
Protection from surprise on the Internet should not be the realm of the government, but the realm of the individual.
Goat sex free since 2001
Quartz.com has nothing to worry about, at least not from this law. Quartz J.S. cannot claim a trademark on "quartz" for its crystal, as it's either generic (if it's made from the mineral) or likely to confuse (if it isn't). On the other hand, quartz.com appears be a U.S. trademark (since adding ".com" to a generic name apparently creates something unique) for the National Scientific Co.
Nevertheless, at the least there are no trademark "rights" available to protect under Spanish law in the mere name "Barcelona," so this decision is based on literally nothing.
< ON-SOAPBOX rant_level=3>
This is the EXACT REASON why I continuously plead, beg, cajole, threaten, etc. all those in the tech community to get involved politically and legally. Lawyers and judges who do not understand technological and/or intellectual property rights (and believe me - those lawyers and judges are in the overkwhelming majority) pose clear and present dangers to the legal framework controlling the tech world because these people do not understand the issues enough to make informed decisions and do not (and cannot) comprehend the consequences of the positions they advocate and decisions they make. Each of us has a responsibility to educate these people to ensure that the law evolves in a way that fairly addresses the interests of not only the techies but society as a whole.
< /ON-SOAPBOX rant_level=0>
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
Funny, I thought the United States had a
I can't say that I don't give a fuck. I've just run out of fuck to give.
I support the rights of corporations to protect their intellectual property, including rights to domain names containing trademarks. However, I don't think they should retain the right to those domains if they don't pursue them within a certain period. How did this retroactive ownership come about, when it doesn't exist anywhere else that I'm aware of in IP law? If company A produces a product called "tradenameA" but doesn't actually go forward with the process to own that trademark, in everything other than domain names they are just out of luck. If company B decides to trademark "tradenameA", company A doesn't get to sue to demand that it be given up, especially not years later. All company A gets to do is seethe.
Why can companies with established trademarks wait for years and years without registering a domain - which they were free to do at any time until someone else grabbed it - and then successfully sue to get the domain only after a third party got the ignored name? I'd give a company six months to a year after registering the trademark to have first option on all unused domains with that trademark, but after that their inaction would leave affected domains forever out of their legal grasp. Throw in a similar grandfather period for every other company starting from a fixed date, to cover all old trademarks that haven't yet been pursued. Past that date, their rights to that name are the same as anyone else, first-come first-served.
Especially now that large corporations can be their own registrar, there is just no possible excuse for them not pre-emptively registering any possible desired, unused domain name. For ($30/month? IIRC), any company can register every possible variant of a trademark they like, from common spelling errors to "-sucks" &etc. But if they don't take action, they give up their rights to future action. Simple as that.
ps - anyone want to help the process along with a GPL home registrar solution? Just download, compile, pay your monthlies, and you're ready to register vanity domains for all of your friends, co-workers, pets, to your hearts content. I'm sure there are some other requirements, but I'd suspect a large number of ISPs and decent sized companies and non-profits would qualify.
-reemul
You're just jealous 'cuz the voices talk to *me*
The are numerous examples of cities in different countries with the same names. Particularly between the UK and USA. Two obvious examples are London and Birmingham. Who gets the birmingham.com domain? The one in England, or the one in Alabama?
.US is reserved for the U.S:. .com is for world wide generic purpose commercial (or should be), or trade mark, or protected name (cultural name for example?).
In no way it is reserved for U.S. resident or firms.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Now evey two bit retardo government that has some grief with the US can control our domain names. France, for example, could pass laws giving the domain names of Anti-nazi violaters to the state or whatever and end thier whole case against Yahoo.com quick as can be.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
Well, thats what you get for looking for a free lunch :P If you have some sort of other trademark claim on your domain, you can probably get the rights back, but, as I understand oprations like namezero, they essentially view applications as ideas. They then register the name you suggest, and graciously let you use it for a while. Unlike with a real registrar, there's no contract or anything, and you aren't the registered owner. Bad faith buisness, surely, but not really within any bounds of legislation. Buyer beware and all that.
Perhaps Barcelona (the city) would be better served with barcelona.sp, barcelona.city.sp, or barcelona.(spanish for city).sp., or perhaps even barcelona.gov (admittedly, most .gov addresses are referring to US-centric governmental entities). .com domains are (ostensibly) for commercial entities; hence, a travel portal would, in fact, be appropriate. In this case, the intended naming structure should (IMHO) be used as a guide.
The big problem with this approach is that most of the internet user base doesn't know about this naming structure. Most users think of .com as the only TLD, and append .com automatically; indeed, I have done so myself several times, knowing full well what I meant. Look at the popularity of www.whitehouse.com, www.nasa.com, and other such domains as evidence of this. The case for ruling in favor of the city of Barcelona is best made with an argument about the {customs, expectations, ignorance, stupidity} of the users.
Just my two cents.
"Make it ten--I am only a poor corrupt official."
--Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains), Casablanca
Does this lawsuit set a precendent that someone could be fined $100K under the ACPA for foreign trademark violations, or does the precendent only extend to loss of one's domain name?
If someone can get fined $100K (instant bankruptcy for most people - by the way, this HAS actually been levied in some US cases!) for violating another country's trademark - the Internet has become a very dangerous place to be. Having to worry about every jurisdiction in the world and holding yourself to the standards of the most restrictive one is untenable.
Well I guess it's only fair US citizens get subject to foreign laws, since we seem to make people from outside the US (Sklyarov) responsible for obeying US law even while in Russia.
Best way to kill the Internet - make all of it subject to every countries laws (including Taliban controlled Afghanistan - lets be "inclusive").
Then everyone will be forced to go back to watching TV instead of using the "subversive" Internet.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
So basically, you messed up .us, so you want .com and that lot for yourselves?
Why should the usa have any more right to the generic tld's than anyone else?
Fact 1: Virtually every word is trademarked, be it Alpha to Omega or Aardvark to Zulu, most many times over. MOST share the same words or initials with MANY others in a different business and/or country. For example, the World Trade Organization (WTO) shares its initials with six trademarks - in the U.S. alone (please check). Conflict is IMPOSSIBLE to avoid.
Fact 2: The authorities steal words that belong to everybody and give them to Big Business - because domain names were not designed to be trademarks. Ask Paul Mockapetris, creator of Domain Name System. He was asked, what do you wish you had invented? His reply, "A directory system for the Internet that wouldn't be controlled by the politicians, lawyers and bureaucrats."
Fact 3: The UN World Intellectual Property Organization and the US Department of Commerce are hiding the simple solution to trademark and domain name problem. Please see at WIPO.org.uk - nothing to do with the United Nations WIPO.org.