Slashdot Mirror
The Neverending Sex.com Story
fwc writes "This has to be the story which will never end. Back in 1996, Steven Cohen "stole" sex.com from its original owner (Gary Kremen) by forging a letter to Network Solutions asking for the domain to be transferred to him. Subsequently Kremen sued to get the domain name returned. Through what seemed to be a neverending parade of lawsuits and judgements (Documented on slashdot here, here, here and here, and also in several other places), Kremen finally got his domain back and Cohen was ordered to pay $65 million in damages. In the latest twist, Cohen is asking the US Supreme Court to overturn the verdict of the lower courts by claiming that he owned the sex.com trademark prior to Kremen registering the domain. This should prove interesting since it looks like the filing at the USPTO occured two years after the domain was originally registered."
he still FORGED a signature in order to get the domain back. Right or wrong that's still breaking the law, isn't it?
Fuzzy Knights: New RPG Strips Tuesday and Friday!:
http://www.fuzzyknights.com
Talk about taking site squatting to the max.
I'm going to tell my children stories of Steven Cohen and his values of perseverence.
I also wonder if someone (other than the courts) can evaluate the sex.com websites value ($65 million is what the courts ruled, don't know if that includes any other charges with it). But I can only imagine the money sex.com could bring in.
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Mike
I'm going to kick the next person that I see with their karma rating in their sig.
I don't know if his trademark application was successful (and, frankly, in this particular case, I almost don't care) but it's pretty damning of the USPTO if it did award a trademark for to someone for a domain name that belonged to a third party.
Maybe the paperwork that was filed with the application was fraudulent - it wouldn't surprise me, given the rest of the sordid history surrounding this domain name custody case - but I would hope that the USPTO would check just who owned a domain name before recognising someone's right to own a trademark based upon that name.
Because, if domain name ownership isn't a legal or moral requirement when applying for the relevant trademark, this will open the floodgates to a slew of tenuous and unfounded applications. Anyone could file for a trademark for business.com, shop.com, maps.com, tickets.com, or any other generic (non-company specific) domain name in the hope of fleecing the legitimate domain name owners in a civil courtroom.
Every way you look at it, this trademark application stinks. It should never be granted. Hopefully, the USPTO will see sense and learn something from this sad story.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
You might not feel it's a waste of time if it could mean that $65 million in damages would be wiped off of your list of bills to pay.
Just FYI - there are admins that blacklist whole countries as a spam filter - there was a lkml posting about that.
Being in the online adult business myself and having advertised on sex.com, I can tell you that it is a very profitable business. Contrary to what the press/government tries to get the public to believe (I guess it worked on you), operators of adult websites do not target, or even want children on their sites for the simple reason that kids do not spend money. Adult sites generate money from people paying to access content. Kids do not pay to access content and will only eat up bandwidth. I know a lot slashdotters make fun of the online adult industry, but you don't hear us complaining about being out of work, or losing our gig to a shop in India. Get a clue dork.