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California Supremes To Decide If Domains Are Property
Richard W.M. Jones writes "Are domain names property like plots of land? The California
Supreme Court has been
asked to rule in the case of
sex.com which was
transferred using a forged letter to Network
Solutions.
Wired news also has the story."
What exactly are domain registrars selling if not property? If the Supreme Court decides that domain names are not property, it'd be fun to start a class action against ... hmmm... Verisign to recover the millions spent on domain names which are apparently not actually "property" at all.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
Umm... in that case you'd be buying a service from Verisign. I don't think the class action would get anywhere.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Thinking about it, we're only renting domains. We pay for a term of usage for the domain, say 2, 4, 10 or 100 years. I consider myself the 'owner' of my domain though. Its mine, I paid for it, I can do what I want with it.
but what kind of property are domain names? Intellectual property? Trademarks? Or plain old real-estate type of property? This ruling will be an ideal acid test to see how the (U.S.) laws perceived domain names to be.
IMHO, it's interesting because it is very hard to specifically categorize domains as property in the sense of the word. It's intangible and value (or price if you prefer to put it that way) differ for every single domain. In the past the value of domain names are judged by the popularity of the site using the name, catchiness of the name, and whether the name is associated with any popular goods or services.
I'll be keeping a watch on this one.
Welley Corporation - SLM Scammers
So Verisign is selling what service if domain names aren't property of some sort?
Welcome to VeriSign,
Here you may purchase the domain www.snakeoil.com, but this domain name in reality is irrelevant and pointless, but it may work temporarily with name servers and the like. Or at least until we are caught selling fictious ownership of name lookup rights as decided by the supreme court.
~S
First of all, the supreme court has not yet accepted the case. Don't hold your breath:
Attorneys said it typically takes the California Supreme Court about three months to decide whether to hear a case. A ruling could take more than a year.
Second, this is not an issue of whether domain names are property, but whether they're tangible property - the kind to which "traditional property conversion laws should apply".
The appeals court seems to be bouncing this to the CSC because they're afraid of laying down a precedent in this area. Too much of a hot-button issue, I suppose.
It's Slashdot's evil twin... SlashNOT
On the other hand, this could result in more difficulties for owners of domain names that are related to trademarked names. Stronger protection could result in more support for the trademark owner.
As usual, either way, the lawyers win.
Patrick
Ancient Anguish: Free, fun, open-ended.
A reminder to all DNS administrators to enforce the use of certificates to validate who they are before any changes are permitted.
I was puzzled at first at why Network Solutions was a defendant...
IANAL, but it looks like the claim against Network Solutions is that they changed the ownership after recieving a letter from a random third party saying essentially "He sold it to me, give it so me". The letter should have been ignored. Only the OWNER of the domain can tell Network Solutions to transfer the ownership.
The judge commented in a footnote:
It's a bit as if Judge Reinhardt sent a letter to the DMV saying, "Judge Kozinski wants you to transfer title to his Lamborghini to me. He'd write to you himself, but he's out of stamps."
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
really, when we "buy" a domain name, we are paying for a service. specifically for the service of having that domain name point to our IP.
While I do think that it is good that courts are realizing that ownership of things such as domain names needs to be addressed, I think that at the end of the day, there is really now way to say we can "own" the service. Also the fact that it is sex.com does not help matters much. I think that resonably the best ruling that could be hoped for is that the plaintiff incurred financial losses due to fraud.
IANAL btw.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
The only person who can own any kind of "name" is the company or person who trademarked the name.
For instance General Motors owns the name "General Motors" and we cannot use it for any purpose, including as a domain name (at least under US copyright law, which is generally enforced in any industrialized country).
Stanley Feinbaum, professional journalist and master debater! God bless the USA!
There selling the service of linking the domain name to an ip address. (or a DNS server anyhow).
There not really selling a domain name, you can't take it away with you i.e. it's useless without a TLD entry.
I can run slashdot.org on my home inntranet and even provide alternade DNS services if I want, no-one 'owns' slashdot.org.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Any judgement will mean nothing outside Calafornia let alone the USA. what a waste of time
Can someone explain why this case goes the property route at all ?
As I understand it, the domain name was obtained using forgery and other fraudulent methods. Does it even matter whether the domain name is property?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
You could count the users browsing to the website as the property.
By hoaxing a letter to transfer the domain, they aren't really stealing an untangible domain, because that matters very little. He is in fact stealing the people browisng to the site. Almost as if someone faked diversion signs to a shop that led to a different shop in the end.
IMHO: It is theft, and the penalty should be exactly how much it cost to register sex.com in the first place. Which was nothing in 1994, the year it was first registered. (The fee didn't start until 1996 or 1997, when Network Solutions realized they had vastly underbid the government contract...)
Personally, I am surprised that this debate even arose!
IMHO, the most similar item to a domain name in the physical world would be the humble PostOffice Box - you rent it, and it redirects traffic (or at least lets you pick it up in person) to an address (IP address or physical) of your choice.
Why don't they think of domain names like that? It makes things much simpler IMHO!
David
Reading the opinion, the question presented is quite different from the suggestion in the heading. The California Supreme Court is being asked by the 9th Circuit whether, under California law, the tort of conversion applies to intangible personal property.
Conversion is a theft-tort related to the taking and use of personal property of another, even if the property is later returned. An example might be joyriding your car, returning it in perfect condition to the place you were.
It is an old tort, steeped in common law. At common law, it did not apply to anything but physical, tangible personal property. Then came the bank note cases, and the bond cases and the stock cases -- here, where only paper was converted, the argument is that the damages were the value of the paper (the personal property that was tangible) rather than the value of the instrument (the intangible obligation represented by the property).
Under the old rules, conversion didn't give a remedy for the conversion of a contract right or other intangible. Most states have poked holes in that, primarily in negotiable instrument cases. The question is whether California permits an action for conversion for the imposition on the contract rights of another, in this case, a domain name.
The facts entailed the obviously fraudulent taking of a domain name and Varisign's failure to make a single phone call, taking a ridiculous (laughable) forgery instead. The jury found conversion, among other things, and a massive judgment -- and now the case is on appeal.
Of course it is a massive judgment -- the domain is sex.com!
When fraud is already illegal.
When I was involved with settling an estate a couple years ago, I would have been grateful to have some legal answers about what to do with the three domains owned by the deceased. None of the lawyers and tax accountants involved had any idea how to handle that situation, and the service through which they were registered didn't have an answer either. If domain names are governed under some kind of property law, it will greatly help in these situations.
Where's the forest? And what are all these trees doing here?
I would beg to differ. I think domain names fall under the bounds of intellectual property. While two people running rock bands of the same name may not do much harm to anyone but themselves, having more than one internet naming athority could potentially cause quite a bit of havoc as packets streams get split between two physical destinations. Since copyrighting the name you come up with is not structured enough to preserve the integrity of the net, you pay a fee to register YOUR name with a governing body that will theoretically respect your intellectual right to owning that name.
I've dirtied my hands writing poetry, for the sake of seduction; that is, for the sake of a useful cause. --Dostoevsky
If they declare it to be property in California, what them figure out a way to asses it, tax it, ...annually. Ouch
3000 dead over past 2 years, still no free Palestinians, still
I consider using a domain name consists of renting the use of a name from a TLD.
These rents are managed by organisations (companies in some countries though that could be non-profit orgs).
Now, you don't own a name, you just have rented its excusivity for some time.
If it's being hijacked, then your exclusivity has been infringed.
Now, the names are to be used on a first come first served basis which also includes the priority to renew an existing domain...
Finally, if domain names were properties, then they'd be bought forever, until then these rather seem to be licensed... or rented if you prefer.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
I completely agree. However, a leasehold agreement seems to fit better with me - you tend to pay upfront for a 2 year lease which you have first refusal on renewal. You can sell on the remaining term of your lease to 3rd parties at any time.
I would say a domain is a property, and should be considered the same as a highstreet store (a mall shopfront if you prefer). The "owner" of the shop has leased the property, and for all reasonable purposes can treat it as if they own it. With a bricks&mortars lease you know when you've been evicted, but when you lose your domain, the first you know of it may be when people stop coming into your store.
The agreement between you and the registrar is that they will direct people to your web site, and will continue to do so until your agreement ends or you tell them otherwise. Anything else is a breach of the agreement on their part. If a they act on a letter from a 3rd party saying "I now own this site, give it to me" then that's a breach of their agreement with you. Whether the 3rd party committed fraud is between the registrar and the 3rd party - now that's a court case I would like to see, I'm sure even judges like to see a nice farce now and then!
Second, this is not an issue of whether domain names are property, but whether they're tangible property - the kind to which "traditional property conversion laws should apply".
Not quite, the question here is whether the contract rights to the domain name -- which are undoubtedly personal property rights -- are subject to a tort of conversion under California law when interfered with by another person.
the question isn't nearly so interesting -- it isn't so much about domain names and property as it is about how california law treats intangibles.
now here's something we're familiar with, having been under .sIEge for years now.
.***'s, although responsive to the need, the other .'s, fail to provide J. with "main street" exposure, to a public whois interested in/craving for, quality products/services, provided by non-corepirate folks. so IT's a stalemate, for now, unless you couNT the billyuns we've "contributed" (buying phony stock markup payper) to our own demise, as far as net commerce is concerned. the wall street of deceit debacle (sponsored buy you know who) has given the 'net, all of US, a trust/integrity "problem", all over the wwworld.
truth is, buy registering a domain, you "own", the "right" to use the "name", until you let the registration expire, notwithstanding attempts by megaslothians to steal your "right", right out from under you. kind of like leasing "land" from the native americans; it's all good until the cavalry arrives.
there is some gray area there, re: holding someone's moniker for ransom, but note that old sloth is also busy trying to monikize (buy/steal) most of the shortword.'s in the language, as they note that folks "brand loyalty" is vapourious, in these times, & that folks tend to search for objects/quality/price, rather than individual brands.
it looks (to us) as though the ?effort? to provide more
but we don't care about that kind of stuff, right robbIE? we already got ours early on, right robbIE? you tell 'em about the payper.
Doesn't that count as rape?
I wouldn't mind this topic going through the court system, but the California's 9th District Court gives me that queezy feeling in my gut. They've had several rulings overturned which means this issue could get mired down as it propogates upwards towards the U.S. Supreme Court.
That not being a lawyer, I'm wondering if we're not opening up a whole new can of whoop-you-know-what on ourselves by bringing property law, and lawyers into this game. You know, the whole pandora's box scenario only more expensive without any payout us tech types other than grief.
--- have you healed your church website?
If the court decides that domains aren't property, then every registrar out there can be done for false advertising, as they are stating that you are buying property, then everyone that has a domain registered can claim that they did not get what was advertised. Sounds like a nice big class action suit.
If on the other hand the court decides that the domains are property, then we get into an interesting grey area of trespass etc.
IANAL, but I would guess that the reason the court was asked to sort out this distinction is that the original owner needs to be able to work out whether they are arguing about theft of property by deception, or something else if it is a service. It's like the distinction if someone steals your cable box vs someone hooks into your service.
The letter was ludicrous -- it purported to be from an internet services vendor explaining that they wanted the third party to tell NSI, since they didn't have internet access. Hmmmmmm....
Yet NSI, through their unreaonable conduct, transferred the domain name anyway. Breach of contract? Sure. Conversion? That's the issue.
the reason why NSI was a defendant is that they were there. The plaintiff will NEVER collect a cent against the judgment proof individual, who is a big sleaze. NSI, or varisign, on the other hand is quite collectible.
What happens, say, when the domain name isn't stolen, but is being held by someone, when another company wants it?
In the UK, I believe there was a case where someone had legitimately bought www.marks-and-spencer.co.uk (Marks & Spencer is a department store chain, for those who don't know). However, Marks & Spencer decided that they wanted the name, filed legal action and got the name.
The question is, though, was this legitimate? Arguably, if the initial owner of the site was attempting to profit from the name, or pass off as the real thing, then M&S should inherit the name. However, if they aren't doing such actions which are illegal under current law, there is no reason why the name should be transferred to M&S.
Slightly off-topic perhaps, but it raises a lot more interesting questions. In my opinion, standard law should cover this kind of situation - what would happen if someone managed to steal a profitable company's telephone number?
Like car accidents, most hardware problems are due to driver error.
Actually, I don't know. Why dont you spell it out for me, If I'm assumed to know what anyway?
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Put an entry in your hosts file and then tell me the domain is property.
Me an a group of friends could setup our own domain registiry, it would only work for people who pointed to it.
I beleive that there are several free 'underground' domain name registries about. All you have to do is point to them.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Since when did they started selling property? Last time I checked it looked mre like renting domains on a permanent first-refusal basis. If you miss one payment you don't own anything at all, and there is an infinite stream of payments that the registrar will want to (and will :) charge you.
unfinished: (adj.)
IANAL, but the type of property (i.e., tangible, intangible, or intellectual) has some impact on the way the original owner can recover his loses. It also affects how third parties should treat the transaction. For example, certain types of property can be transferred by oral contract, other types require a written contract. I believe most, if not all, states require a written contract for real estate transactions. In contrast, movies deals involving intellectual property are routinely based upon oral contracts and handshakes. Therefore, the degree to which Verisign is responsible, the due diligence that Verisign should have taken, and thus how much they are legally responsible for the original owner's loses are at stake.
I assume money is some sort of property. Regular ol' "stuff" kind of property. Like my computer or my car, or even this chair I'm sitting on.
But last time I checked, about 98% of money exists only as bits in a computer somewhere. Not paper currency or anything, just bits.
Which is basically what domain names are. Bits in a computer. So it seems to stand to reason that domain names are regular ol' property.
--
#include <malloc.h>
free(your.mind);
It's intangible and value (or price if you prefer to put it that way) differ for every single domain
This is the same for _real_ property too. An acre in Manhatten and an acre in the middle of Arizona will not have the same price. The value of the element and its variability of value is not a reason to not classify it as property.
It isn't intellectual property as it represents an artefact.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Do people have a right to their phone number ? As long as they pay the bills can another organisation grab hold of their phone number and start taking orders ?
This for me is a direct link with domain names. If previous cases have covered phone number theft or transfer then surely they will be taken into consideration. After all a phone number is associated with a person or company rather than a physical location, you move house and you can often take your number with you, move out of the same TLA or sub-domain (area code) and you have to get a new number.
As ever with the internet, this isn't actually new, but the lawyers will make money arguing that it is.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
In response to Kingdavra "It's a rental...Thinking about it, we're only renting domains"
Saying it is a rental rather than property isn't even begging the question. When you rent something, you are buying a temporary property right. You rent the possessory right to be in or use the property and that right generally means that you can exclude all others. For example, if you rent an apartment and your landlord decides to sleep over, you can call the police and have him arrested for trespassing even though he 'owns' the property.
To a lawyer, property is not land and houses. It is a bundle of rights that include the right to possess now, the right to possess in the future, the right to give it away, the right to exclude others, etc. An owner's ability to rent, sell or give away or otherwise divide up those rights is limited only by her lawyer's imagination and, sometimes, local law. One example of a limit is the law's prohibition (outside of Nevada) on renting out one's property right in one's own bodily orifices for someone else's sexual gratification. I can see a policy reason for banning that kind of property transaction but there is no good reason not to treat sex.com and any other domain name as traditional property.
can you tax it then? I don't own any domains so I wouldn't know if they're already taxable or not.
When Mr. Bush weeps is the oil coming out of his eyes leaded or unleaded?
Umm, it isn't the 9th District Court or even the 9th Circuit Court. It is California's Supreme Court. If you get your news from Faux or some of the other far right lunatics, they will slander the 9th as being ultra liberal but it isn't true and their reversal rate is not much different than any other court on the Federal Circuit.
In this case, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals kicked the question to the California Supreme Court. If the California Supreme Court decides to answer it, then the answer goes back to the 9th Circuit which will give then kick it back to the Federal District Court with what amounts to instructions to 'do what the California Supremes said.'
Since this is a state law question, the California Supreme Court is the final arbiter. The US Supreme Court cannot overrule the California Supreme Court on a question of California state law. Unless of course they are willing to commit a constitional coup like when they told the Florida Supreme Court what Florida law on elections should be.
Offtopic indeed, but when WW3 breaks out, where were you to complain about it before it began? talking about patents?
How is this a property rights case and not a mail fraud case?
It was transferred using a forged letter.
I can't wait. World War I led to Russian revolution and the creation of the Soviet Union.
Another World War will only help destabilize the current ruling classes throughout the world.
The fact that the war will center around the largest oil producing countries will make it even more devastating.
A huge war in the middle east will be fun enough. Just wait till good ol'Stalinist North Korea decides to join the rumble with one of the worlds largest armies plus nukes.
This is gonna be exciting.
After the smoke settles the entire concept of patents could only exist on charred peices of paper blowing about in a radioactive breeze.
This is an extremely interesting case because afaik, domain names are currently held to be much like phone numbers -- you don't own one, you more or less rent it.
But while reading the pdf, I noticed that the name of the guy who is the plaintif in this sex.com lawsuit is "Gary Kremen."
Oh, the jokes...
My
Limekiller
Domains are not property, however the hardware and service or running this software can be property.
Ultimately domains are not ownable, but if you pay to have exclusive use of a domain for a certain amount of time, while you dont own the domain you should be able to own commercial use over it.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
In the UK, I believe there was a case where someone had legitimately bought www.marks-and-spencer.co.uk (Marks & Spencer is a department store chain, for those who don't know). However, Marks & Spencer decided that they wanted the name, filed legal action and got the name.
Almost totally wrong. They - a company called "One in a Million" - did register marksandspencer.co.uk. They also registered buckinghampalace.org, burgerking.co.uk, thetimes.co.uk, mcdonalds.co.uk, and assorted others. They then tried to extort money from these organisations for sell them the names, which is when the scam became illegal. See The BBC website for further details.
I'd say, if Cohen loses (which he should), he would find his product un-bare-able.
The pdf of the request for review by the Supreme Court makes many references to "certification." Viz:
"The decisions of the California appellate courts provide no controlling precedent regarding the certified question, the answer to which may be determinative of this appeal. We respectfully request that the California Supreme Court answer the certified question presented below. We acknowledge that your Court may decide to reformulate the question, and our phrasing of the issue is not intended to restrict your Court's consideration of the case. We agree to follow the answer provided by the California Supreme Court. We invoke the certification process only after careful consideration and do not do so lightly. The certification procedure is reserved for state law questions that present significant issues, including those with important public policy ramifications, and that have not yet been resolved by the state courts."
The impression I get is that this reference to "certified" can be understood as "answering the question specifically and directly so that it may be settled once and for all," but that is just a guess because (you guessed it) IANAL. Can a Slashdotter who is a lawyer provide a bit of detail on this concept of "certified?"
My
Limekiller
I run my own DNS server, so they aren't selling me that.
I can take it to another provider.
A good analogy is that they are selling me an easy to remember phone number, or perhaps a listing in a very popular business directory.
If someone writes to the telephone company, forging a letter saying that I want to give up my 800-sex-com number, I have a good right to be annoyed if the telephone company believes the letter and doesn't even bother to make a follow-up call to me.
Rich.
libguestfs - tools for accessing and modifying virtual machine disk images
From the Wired article:
Kremen said he wasn't looking forward to the prospect of more legal bills if the case winds up in the California Supreme Court but was pleased with Friday's decision.
"They clearly think this is a really important issue for Californians, and I think they're just trying to highlight that to make sure they get it absolutely right," he said.
But as Alex Kozinski, the lone dissenting judge in the case pointed out, there's no guarantee the state's high court will take the case. In his dissent, Kozinski noted that the state's high court has turned down a third of such requests submitted by the federal appeals court, a record he attributed to the California judges' already formidable caseload.
I'm hesitant to second-guess a federal judge in his assessment here, but perhaps the reason he cites for them not taking this case is precisely why they will. If they have a significant caseload and they keep getting this request, perhaps their attitude is "oh lets just get this over with."
My
Limekiller
What did the OP say that was wrong? The domains were bought legitimately (as opposed to the current case with sex.com). What they then did with the domains is another matter entirely.
Buying domains in order to sell to a company that could rightfully own them (note careful wording) is wrong, and that was the point in this case, however if there is a legitimate purpose to owning the domain, there is no reason why the big company should win out.
If domains are declared property, then what about other DNS roots. Would it only be Network Solutions domain names that are considered property, or also e.g. OpenNic domain names? What about my local domain names?
The important thing for ordinary mortals in this case was that the original registrant got his domain back after the forgery. Done and dusted, and should now be history.
The utterly unimportant, dangerous, and despicable thing for ordinary mortals in this case is that because of the subsequent litigation for damages, the case goes on and on forever to the benefit of lawyers' pockets and judges' careers, while the original party is enticed to keep feeding the legal system by the carrot of millions in damages for doing nothing productive at all.
It's this issue of damages that so utterly distorts the fabric of modern life in countless ways, away from productive endeavours that actually create things and into litigation for profit.
Open your eyes people to the motivating forces behind patents, trademarks and other restraints on progress in the modern world, and see beyond the dollar signs. Beneath a shallow surface veneer in which it delivers useful and commonsense justice, there lurks a legal monster that creates and carefully encourages most of our daily problems in the first world.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Now they're going to tax domain ownership!
you run you own DNS and yet, you don't know how DNS works?
.com TLD and a NS lookup is performed on you.com .com peeps (verisign).
Right, simple version assuming no cache.
I look up you.com
a request is sent to
it returns the NS you registered with
I use this NS record (which should point to your DNS server) to lookup the A or MX or watever record for the you.com domain.
Verisign (.com) hold a record on there name server for you.com that points to you name server.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
A "Hell Yeah" they're property. You pay money for the domain and the domain is registered in your name. It should be treated no differently than any other property. The physical property associated with the domain name is that little SERVER that's the actual target in the DNS records. While the owner of the domain doesn't actually OWN the server, this shouldn't matter. When you RENT a P.O. Box, its your property (the contents, at least and it cannot be opened without a court order) until you either turn over the keys or stop paying for it.
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
Can the thing in question only belong to one person at a time?
If yes, then it's property.
If no, then it's not property. (unless you make up some kind of stupid "phantasmolectual property" nonsense or something)
Once you plunk down your cash for that domain name you absolutely own it unless you abandon it. This needs to be clarified in the rules of the internet (Notice I didn't say law of the land, I think national law should get its nose out of the internet). The real question is what is abandonment, and what is a proper term to wait to see if the owner repays his/her registration fee to keep that name in the registry?
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
This is the logical way to go, because people are building entire companies - on which the welfare and custom of many thousands of people depend (i.e. the employees and the customers).
Without legal recognition of your ownership of that domain name, you may as well build your business on quicksand.
There must be much more to this case than meets the eye because the lawyers et al have taken something that seems to be incredibly simple and turned it into an almost philosophical discussion.
Based on the information in the Article, Verisign and Cohen obviously did something (transferring the domain name erroneously and committing fraud, respectively) that may have caused Kremen damages.
To resolve the issue, California should charge Cohen criminally for fraud. If Kremen can show damages, he could take Verisign to civil court for not fulfilling their contractual obligation to point the domain name at his specified IP address.
I am sure Judge Judy could knock this one out in 30 minutes with commercials.
I agree, there would be havoc, but I have no problem with alternate DNS systems existing. If the advantages are great enough, the competing system will win and the lesser will die out.
I may not agree that Alternic and the other "alternative DNS" systems out there are the better ones, but by their existence they are not depriving anyone of anything.
You answered your own question. If domain names aren't property, Verisign is still selling a service.
For example, imagine if you pay me $10 to stand on a street corner for an hour and tell anyone who asks about Soporific that his Slashdot uid is 595477. 5 people come up and ask about you, and I answer them all. There's no property I've sold there (and I certainly have no control over your Slashdot handle or its uid), but I've still performed a service.
Now imagine you pay $70 to Verisign so that during the next two years, when anyone asks about soporific.com, they tell those people what the IP addresses for some DNS servers that happen to answer questions about soporific.com.
Two fairly similar services, which don't require the notion of property to work. Of course all that being said, I do believe that domain names are a sort of property. It's just that Verisign's legitimacy isn't predicated on them having to be property.
Court Punts Sex.com Domain Case ...
... names and decide whether the nation's largest domain registry must face a multimillion-dollar
... true ownerâ(TM)s registration. The request is the latest turn in the ...
... SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A federal appeals court has asked California's top
... A federal appeals court asked California's high court to resolve questions about ...
... Although Kremen has since moved on to one of the Net's other profitable niches, and ...
4 Jan 2003
A dispute over the transfer of the domain name Sex.com may be heading
to California's highest court. In a decision published Friday
Tussle over sex.com
4 Jan 2003
damage claim from the owner of the pornographic Web site sex.com....
Supreme Court Asked to Decide Domain Name Conversion Issue
7 Jan 2003
long legal battle over âoesex.com.â. The name was registered
News briefs from around California
4 Jan 2003
court to rule on the alleged theft of the domain name sex.com.....
TECH TICKER
4 Jan 2003
the sex.com domain name in a dispute over whether VeriSign's Network Solutions
Putting a Price on Cyber Love
20 Dec 2002
is running the website Sex.com, he still views personals as one of the most
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
It's nice to know that punk will never step foot on American soil again. Good riddance. Someone deserves a beatdown. Porn site creators/admins have some striking similarities to spammers. Anyone else ever notice that?
Labor dispute to be settled by the California Raisins.
-Peter
PS: The Supremes are a Motown group AFAIR.
-P
you could just set your slaves free, or better yet trade em in at the dealership
If judges say that domain names are not property - then people (even the lawful) can copy electronic medium of music with impunity.
:-)
In fact domain names are more unique property.
You can take a MP3 copy from music tracks without taking original from the owner or degrading quality.
Many copies of music may exist - but only one domain name (e.g. my own ) may exist.
It is unique property that may be transfered or sold - like a car number plate.
Should anybody take my property away from me, I will beat them with a stick
Think my name would be James Smith. There are thousands, of James Smiths out there, how to find me ? The name is not everything, it doesn't define or even identifiy something, especially domain names. People google to get where they want !
It's the same with phone numbers one doesn't go and try combinations until to find the right one, you take the phone book and look for it, using name, adress, etc.
So I don't think domain should be cnsidered as properties, they are a part of information useful or not, to get or find a company or whatever is behind that name.
The trial is about falsification. Network Solution s shouldn't be on th defendant side, they whole thing is because of their lack of awerness and negligence.
n-e
In other news..... Domain Name Property Tax is up another 8%. The clean air act is now being imposed on website who "pollute" the neighbooring dns zones with filth. A fire today destroyed the DNS entries and the surrounding area was inaccessable while clean crews contained the mess.. There were 7 casulties that were carried off in the bit-bucket.
An analogy: if I lease a car for 3 years (off course I would not be that stupid :-) and it is stolen, I would call the police and complain that my car was stolen. I paid for the exclusive rights to use the car and someone stole/took away those rights.
-Mark
--there are two issues here, one is fraud with the letter, the other one is "what is a domain?".
There's been several good analogies in the thread, here's mine: Domains are "more similar" to a government allowed frequency monopoly that the FCC grants to a broadcaster. Broadcaster pays x amount of money per year for this license, and also must follow a set of rules. In this case switch FCC as a governmental agency to a private company that has similar powers "subcontracted" to them. We do this now in a big way inside the US in the prison system, a lot of them are privately owned and run (wackenhut for instance). I don't like that, but it's current reality,a very important public governmental *thing* being subbed out to a private definetly for-profit concern can lead to a lot abuses, IMO.
Where it is different is that there isn't any total exclusivity to this particular subcontractor,although they are *very big and very known and quite well used*, all they have going for them is inertia and size, as other forms of registration exist-albeit small and not used much-and it's international in scope, just not within a single state or nation.
The FCC can "grant" a license to someone to broadcast on such and such freq, outside their jurisdiction in another nation that doesn't mean a thing, and two signals can and frequently are on the same freq, or pointing at a similar place to follow the analogy. Happens all the time in radio. There's various international *almost-rules* but in fact there is no absolute enforcement short of warfare.
here's another way to look at it
The basic reality is, although it *appears* to be a property rights issue as to the word address represented as the domain "name", the "rights" involved don't actually exist because the REAL property itself doesn't exist, only the temporarily placed digital SIGN that POINTS TO where a temporarily installed digitial numeric address exists, and it's quite possible to have any number of signs, all saying different things, that will point to the same address.
If it was REAL property you could own it forever if you chose to, like a trademark, car, or house. It would be unique, and "yours".
The IP number and actual computer where the content is hosted, and any copyrighted content served therein and from is the real "property" in the classic sense of property, the sign giving directions to it is just an advertising and direction finding convenience and a separate thing, although still a "sort-of" property,it isn't absolute in any sense, it can never be "owned" forever, therefore isn't property in any other sense compared to any other sort of property in past historical common law.
These signs-pointing-to the real property have varying levels of advertising effectiveness in attracting "travelers" on the road that are looking for addresses to stop at. In that case the signs themselves are a separate piece of "sort of property" from the IP address and content served, and the people who build and set out the signs-the domain registrars-own all of them as if you don't pay them off you lose it, so you never "own" them as property, you temporarily lease them with limited rights. And you can still put your own signs out and use other sign companies if you want to, just one has currently more advertising impact.
So there's two pieces of property-so now you have to ask which is more valuable and who actually owns each piece of property. The website creator and host sort out with themselves who owns what over there, but any "word" domain name you can't ever, ever "own" unless you "do it yourself" with your own domain server, and it still can't stop anyone from doing it themselves and copying the same wording and pointing at their property, so it gets down to who has a better advertising company and who will use your advertising directions over some other fellow's constructs. Both are legal in other words, no one over the other in toto is possible, although currently it is more highly probable that one will get used a lot more than the other.
Now how you contract that with another sign pointing company because you realise doing it yourself isn't real effective and you want to go with the current entrenched "bigdog" in the sign pointing business is a variable, if you choose to keep renting their advertising signs that give directions to your 'real' property that you can own forever that's an easier issue. In that case you have a tort action if they fail to fulfill their side of the contract, so that part to me seems like a slam dunk for the website originator and whomever paid the loot first to the sign pointing company that stuck the signs out. That's really easy to see. In this particular case the sign pointing company screwed up because they were lamers and didn't verify who was who effectively,so they should lose in the first case, BUT, they themselves have a civil tort-potential against the letter sender, who also may suffer an additional criminal action if the state (and feds actually) chooses to prosecute.
Law gets easier to understand if you first sort out the differences between dealing in "real property" and "commerce" and tangibles you can own forever and temporary intangibles.
I wouldn't put much stock into rulings made by the most overturned court in the United States.
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
having more than one internet naming athority could potentially cause quite a bit of havoc as packets streams get split between two physical destinations.
The internet doesn't work that way. Your packet won't be 'split' because your machine replaces the name with an IP address before its sent it one final destination. The IP address that your computer uses would depend on the nameserver you're using.
Registrars exist to authenticate who owns/runs a particular domain, and to provide pointers to their DNS servers from the TLDs' records.
Occam's razor is the blind faith in the natural selection of least resistance and in universal oversimplification. -- EF
Common law on conversion originally only applied to tangible property - not just real estate, but horses and cooking pots and later cars and computers - but not to intangibles. As Werdna says, in most states that's changed. Kozinski argues, and IANAL but it looked convincing to me, that California law has really settled the issue solidly that conversion can apply to intangibles, or at least to intangibles that have some connection to tangibles like paper, so there's no issue here.
The big deal for Verisign is that conversion is a tort, and since they lost, they have to pay up, and since Cohen, who actually ripped off the domain name, has skipped out of the country and hidden or spent most of the money, they may have to pay the whole $65 million to Kremen and try to get it back from Cohen if they can. They already lost the part about giving back the domain name, but that didn't bother them so much.
The amount of money actually is a bit surprising - this case started in 1995, before the Boom, before business.com sold for $150K in 1997, and before Altavista.com sold for $3M in 1998. The plaintiff Kremen had registered the name, but hadn't actually used it for anything yet and didn't know it was gone for about 8 months. Meanwhile, Cohen, who had ripped it off, had figured out how to turn it into a highly profitable business, and after several years of litigation, he'd made a big enough pile of money on it that the court awarded the plaintiff $65M as well as giving him the name back (that was either ~$20M in actual damages and ~$40M in punitive damages, or maybe the other way around.) He and Verisign appealed, in Cohen's case partly because he said the judgement was way out of line for an asset was only worth so much because he'd built it up himself, and in September 2002, the court handed him his ass for even trying to appeal because he'd fled and hidden the money, and they told Verisign to give Kremen the name back, but the conversion issue is still not decided, so Verisign doesn't know how much of it they'll have to pay.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
now I can pay "property tax" on my websites :)
Ave Molech Setting
In the Marks-and-Spencer.co.uk case, that was a clear attempt at ripping off somebody's name, and there was no legitimacy about it. But there are lots of cases where Example Industries in New York and Example Pizza Shoppe in California both want to be example.com, or where two different unrelated Example Pizza Shoppes in different countries want to be example.com, or where Fred Example has been using example.com for his home website since 1992 and Example MegaConglomerate wants to take the name, and one of their arguments for why it should belong to them was that Fred's web page has a picture of his dog on it and They Sell Dogfood so he's obviously trying to infringe their trademark.
And then of course there was EToys trying to steal EToy.com's web site, claiming it was trademark dilution and was a mean nasty offensive art-project site that might upset people who were looking for etoys.com, when in fact EToy.com had existed for several years before EToys was even founded as a company.
In the sex.com case, standard law has mostly covered the situation, but two of the Federal Appeals Court judges think that there may be some issues in Califonia law that affect whether Verisign is liable for damages in this case or whether they only have to give the original owner the name back and only the guy who ripped it off is liable.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Isn't that the same group also known as the California Raisins?
Most people believe only propery is taxable - but service is also taxable.
Why would you do trade them in?
Look at the cost of fertilizer these days... Just mulch your slaves after they are all "done" or tired-out and you can have a green patch of grass next year with "Ne-grow human fertilizer."
Ok first of all you need to read a bit more about intellectual property is something that is created but does not exist physically. The DNS system is a service that is given to you and payed for by the registrants. Think of DNS like this; your computer asks a DNS server how to find "slashdot.org", the server checks to find the actuall address of the web server and gives it to you, your computer then communicates to the web server using its address. Its like those "find someone online" websites. They simply tell you what the address to "John Doe" is. If you wanted to not use one service you could choose another.
It is very easy to have multiple DNS servers. Packets would not get lost of fragment because of another server out there. Once your computer found one em the DNS servers it would use that address... no mulitple data streams.
If you want to change your DNS server go for it. If you have a modem your computer probably gets the address automatically in which case you need to find the setting for your DNS server and put your own in there. If you have a broadband connection you may have already put in whatever your ISP told you for your DNS server or like a dialup modem it is done automatically. Either way you can change the setting very easily even under windows.
In my opinion you have no right to own and domain. A company is simply providing a service to those who ask for it to find a web server connected to a certain phrase. The problem with this is that there is basically one choice for your DNS server. The monopoly that has grown has killed anything fair. Because most people think that there is only one domain of a certain phrase available many people get in trouble when a company assumes that they are falsly claiming to be them or related to them. Of course a company like Microsoft is really going to want to obtain the microsoft.com domain from the server most people will use. If someone else got it then many people looking for Microsoft would find something else. This wouldn't be a problem if there was some competition or fair standards out there but instead we have many problems from people not understanding the system. Its not that hard but most people never have a chance to learn how the internet REALLY works.
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
If the guy sent a letter wouldnt this then be a mail issue, dosent teh post office handle that kind of fraud--thus making it a national issue, maybe i have it wrong, but ti would be nice to know either way
sig is broken try again tomorrow
So the service they are selling is that they will authenticate the name to 'you'.
You can own the servers....... you can rent the domain names... or but im not sure about this be a DNS host
I mean hay nobody cares that a bunch of people died Sept 11 2001
Naa it's always about oil keeping crazed fanatics from killing americas like they say they want to do. Not at all.
It couldn't be the US is on the cusp of breaking oil dependency?
I know we piss off just about everyone.
If I were Japanise and had to contend with McDonalds garbage everywhere or French having to tolerate Disney Lands BS I'd be pritty anti America.
But this simply isn't an issue in the middle east.
At works they have Microsoft. Big deal.
It's politics. Yeah we kinda interfeared in a war and tried to get peace (admittedly lopsided but then look keeps killing in the name of god)
Frankly the middle east is kinda like how America would be if the Christan Colution had things the way they want.
It also has great impact if it is a property asset... a Virginia court held that domains were not property subject to an asset attachment which was a bad decsion. here's why.
If you sue Fax.com, Inc. for sending junk faxes under 47 USC 227, and you win and get a big judgment against them, they may have no money or bank accounts you can find. But that domain name ("fax.com") could be valuable. If it is a property asset, you can have the court force the registair to turn it over to you as partial satisfaction of the court judgment (just like you could take their car, house or other "property."
The Virginia court said you couldn't take someone's domain name as an asset to satisfy a court judgment. With domain names being sold for over a million bucks, that was an insane decision. Of COURSE it is a property asset - it can be sold to someone (or ordered sold to satisfy a debt.)