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Latest UDRP Stupidity: Unix.org, Canadian.biz
The Uniform Dispute Resolution Procedure, an expedited process for allowing corporations to steal domain names, continues to be abused as arbitrators stretch the definitions of "cyber-squatting" to any length in order to find for the corporate complainants. Lunenburg writes "Unix.Org, a site that was apparently used for noncommercial discussion of Unix(tm) operating systems, has been ruled a "cybersquatter" by a WIPO panel and given to the X/Open group. In spite of not actually matching any cybersquatting criteria, a WIPO panelist felt that by providing links to commercial sites, Unix.ORG was acting in "bad faith" and thus should be given over to the Open group." And WEFUNK writes "Exploiting an obvious technical error to help build their case, Molson Inc. has been awarded the seemingly generic canadian.biz domain from the original owner who "registered this name because I am Canadian and want to develop a Canadian business directory" and is now appealing to the courts." John Gilmore has a bit of commentary.
What rights they have to it....wel I could name a few. One they are in Canada. That is a stretch though. They Make a beer call Molson Canadian. Personally, I don't think that means they get the right to the domain name unless they got it first. I guess money wins.
Great Linux Site
It seems that microsoft.org is owned by a very large company (Microsoft) and isn't even being used. Could they be holding out to sell it to the highest bidder? Or, is this just another example of Cybersquatting?
Well, I suppose the argument would be that when you copy music over the internet, the original still remains in place, while if Molson owns Canadian.biz, the original owner no longer has it.
Well, I was all set to rant and rave about how evil the WIPO and ICANN['t] and everyone else is. But after reading all of the links above (be honest: did you?), I have to say I'm reconsidering my stance.
I don't know if many of you remember the cybersquatting "name rush," so let me provide some background. Basically, when the web started exploding, there was a small but significant minority that would purchase tons of domain names of major corporations, betting that just a few would bring in a bunch of money when the trademarked domain name was sold back to its rightful owner.
Needless to say, these greedy bastards were ruining it for the rest of us. A few bright spots (Guy Kawasaki's holding mcdonalds.com hostage in exchange for donations to public schools) didn't make up for what was largely the profitting of a few at the expense at anyone else.
The rules put into effect against cybersquatting were necessary to save the web from anarchy and plutocracy. And if those rules were to disappear, or cease to be enforced, then we would be plunged back into that corporate-sponsored hell. These rulings seem terrible to us now, but if we want to save the 'Net, we need to be firm in our application of the rules. Those found in violation need to be held responsible for their actions, or we will find ourselves back in the web of 1996.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
It should be completely obvious at this point that the system of domain name dispute resolution is nothing more than a method for those with money to take domains from those with less money. Since it wouldn't be politically feasible to actually state this, a set of rules that appear to have some other purpose but which easily allow the true purpose are necessary. The actual content of those rules is irrelevant so long as it meets that criterion.
So you really shouldn't be sick that something that isn't cybersquating is declared so, and that something that is cybersquating is not declared so. The term "cybersquatting" is irrelevant to the matter at hand, since it is nothing more than window dressing to the real matter -- who is declared to be economically more important. That's what should make you sick.
The enemies of Democracy are
You, sir, are making a common mistake. There is a clear difference between stealing someone's domain name (there is only one Unix.org) and 'stealing' someone's song for your own listening purposes, which does not diminish its value unless you would have otherwise paid for it.
See, taking the domain name away from someone destroys the value to you, as you no longer have it. But copying a song may actually raise the value of the song, and thus the artist, by increasing exposure. This can be true even for mainstream, payola-based artists.
Pay attention, son.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The complainant argues that the domain name is indistinguishable from their trademark. Respondent asserts that the trademark has become diluted to a generic, and is therefore not enforcable. According to the ruling:
Basically WIPO is saying that you can not defend a domain name by asserting that a trademark has become a generic. If you wish to challenge a trademark, you must do it in the jurisdiction where the trademark originates. As long as the trademark is considered valid in its original jurisdiction, it is accepted as valid in WIPO proceedings.
Nope, no sig
Your comment highlights the absurdity of arguing over domain names in the age of bookmarks... I mean does anyone really care if it only takes 6 key strokes or 12 to go to a site?
Ditto. However, I hate to bring this up, but the real key is not going to be supporting this in Linux, but in making Mac OS X and Windows support it. Given that ICANN is going to be much more friendly to Microsoft than, say, the GNU Directory, I'm not sure that it's going to be easy either to convince them to support this or even to make it realtively easy to be added by a third party unless you figure out some way to convince businesses that it's in their best interest to have such a scheme. Further, you're still going to run into problems with copyright, even if it's not run by such an insane agency but instead decided on a per-case basis by the courts. Instead of simply complaining to ICANN that jaguarenthusiastsclub.com violates the Jaguar trademark, you'll get complains to ICANN, GNU Directory, Free Directory, Apple .Mac directory, and so forth, and if those complaints aren't resolved, you'll simply have a whole spate of lawsuits. Unless at least these two problems can be resolved in some relatively simple way, I think we still need yet another solution.
Michael, you guys are so two-faced, it's unbelievable. You people will go on and on about you guys aren't stealing music and other IP, but go apeshit when the evil, nasty corporations are stealing domain names (another form of IP).
Nonsense. When someone violates copyright they are not stealing anything. Neither the original creator, nor those who comply with the creator's copyrights, nor those others who do not, are being deprived of anything. Hence, by the very defintion of the word 'stealing,' no theft is taking place. This is why the law clearly differentiates between theft and copyright violation, and a remedial understanding of this should be required before idiots like yourself start banging away on their keyboards.
As to domanin names, the original holder of the domain name is most definitely being deprived of that name, i.e. the name is being taken away from them.
Does this make it theft? Arguably so, since this is being done in an extralegal fashion (not via a court of law). It is arguable that it isn't, since virtually every registrar has a clause in the contract you sign basically saying "you're paying for this, but we can deprive you of it anytime we like, for any reason we like, and you agree to this." However, it remains to be seen whether or not such contract clauses are in fact enforcable (in any other industry they would clearly not be enforcable). If it turns out that this notion of 'we can deprive you of the service you've paid for anytime we like' is in fact an illegal stipulation, then that portion of the contract is void, and depriving a party of the domain name for which they paid would in fact arguably be "theft" of a sort. Certainly more so than most of the things people around here like to label "theft."
Either way, it is in no way analogous to copyright violation, bandwidth misuse, or any number of other things which are constantly, and erroneously, being called theft around here.
Slashdot hypocrisy 101.
Idiocy 101, more like it.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
A lot of (heavily tech impaired) users have trouble understanding that there are TLD's besides ".com"
/dev/null \;
Yes.
It is absurd for us to hold ourselves to the least common denominator. A degree of literacy is required to make use of the internet and the web. Claiming otherwise, or even claiming that pandering to illiteracy would be a good thing, is akin to arguing for the replacement of text in all the books in all our libraries with color pictures because the "reading-impaired" can't understand all those big words.
The sooner we divest ourselves of these sorts of idiotic fallacies and begin educating people so that they can make sensible use of technology, the sooner people will begin to have a positive, useful computing experience (rather than the constant frustration most people are confronted with today).
Note that this doesn't mean everyone needs to understand what
find / -type f -exec grep blah {}
means, nor does it mean that so-called "user friendly" interfaces are a bad thing (when properly implimented to facilitate knowledge and understanding, not obscure it) but basic concepts such as IP addresses, domain names, registrars, root authorities, filesystems, network connections, system memory, system storage, are something anyone wishing to use a computer should be required and expected to understand.
A modern computer connected to the internet has a lot more in common with a library than it does a toaster, and it is time we started treating it as such.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Or we could just forget ICANN et. al. and start using OpenNIC - wouldn't we all like to use the .geek TLD anyway?
They have rights to the site because they own the Canadian trademark on the word "Canadian". I'm more pissed off at the Canadian trademark board then anyone else.
They have rights to the word "Canadian" as it pertains to beer..... nothing else.
I am not Canadian(TM), I am CANADIAN.
However, Molson beer is Canadian(TM)
God save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!
domain names are not "intellectual property". they are much more akin to "actual property". a domain name has much more in common with a walking stick than a patent.
that being said, your brain probably has more in common with a walking stick
go back to community college english 101. read some books. learn some ideas, such as: hate to be so harsh, but did you even think through your argument? or just click submit? if you and i each have a domain name, and we exchange them, we each still have a domain name. that is not IP, that is actual physical property.
MORTAR COMBAT!
Need to go to ICANN's unix.org? Fine, click a pulldown tab in your Mozilla 2.0 browser and select ICANN, or better yet, type http://icann//unix.org/ . Otherwise, stick with http://freenic//unix.org/ or (if opennic ever decides to dump ICANN peering) http://opennic//unix.org/
Aside from the fact that this would fundamentally break nearly every application that already does DNS through the definitive/de facto root servers (and has for the past 25+ years), I still can't see this working.
Think of this: your long distance carrier is MCI [(333)333-3333]. You want to call your brother, who happens to be on Sprint [(444)444-4444]. Imagine having to call the MIC->Sprint Gateway, before calling him? Or having to dial the "Sprint Prefix" (//freenic). If you forget to do that, you'd get MCI's (444)444-4444 instead of Sprint's (444)444-4444 (which is what you REALLY want).
Not to mention, a third root system catching on, and having to purchase many instances of the same domains within many roots.
OR a resolution system for the various prefixes (how would your machine figure out which root servers to use for the various prefixes?)
These analogies aren't perfect, of course, but I can see how multi-roots would get very annoying and cause even MORE problems.
S
As a proud Canadian (in the original, true, and untrademarked sense) I find Molson's exclusive claim to the word "Canadian" especially ironic when they don't even seem to own the rights to canadian.com or canadian.ca.
Of course, the fact that the apparent technical error (Hex garbage like %2%2 showing up in the registrar's file) played such an important part of this case makes the decision extend beyond IP ownership issues by holding registrants liable for mistakes by their registrars while also raising concern about ICANN's lack of technical competence. Molson deliberately played up this angle to the "judge" by doing a business name search for %2%2 and proposing that since any such business (obviously) doesn't exist, the original owner must be a cybersquatter - even though the registrar seems to admit to the mistake with their database.
I will be actively protesting this decision by drinking my share of some real (although sadly, no longer Canadian owned) Canadian beer along with some pints from our many fine Canadian microbreweries.
My next sig will be ready soon, but friends can beat the rush!