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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.
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.
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
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?
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