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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."
Who would want that domain?
You won't be able to send spam (I don't accept any email that contains the word sex, espescially in the address)
You'll be blocked by every single netnanny on the planet.
Your only visitors will be minors, who don't know how to search for porn, besides typing "sex" into the address bar.
Doesn't sound like the best audience to me.
0110100100100000011000010110110100100000011000100
Given the amount of comments thusfar, nobody?
Karma? What's that again?
I could try to make some joke about there having to be some prior art concerning sex, but I think this subject has been "beaten" to death... as it were.
All this suing countersuing and appealing just makes lawers richers and everyone else more pissed off! Network solutions should have been able to handle this on their own and stopped this whole mess.
There is no god
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
My god...this just never ends, he stole the domain...i dont know what ever possesed him to think he would get away with it...he got canned (big suprised) and hit with a lawsuit (wich he deserved) I hope the judge rules that he has to pay....and they both have to shut up about the whole thing. This has been going on far to long now
From day one Network Solutions has been horrible. Their customer service sucks. Because of their f-ck ups in the early days it is now nearly impossible to get information changed on an older domain. Compared to other companies, their prices are shit. And because of all this they ended up causing lawsuits. I'm just happy that now(or for the past few years) there is more than one choice for registering a domain name.
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.
---
Mike
I'm going to kick the next person that I see with their karma rating in their sig.
...the first thing to do is to create http://goatse.sex.com ! Then, he'll be RICH!!
i thought the dot com bubble already burst? didn't we figure out that a specific generic name does not = lots of visitors? are these guys arguing over who owns it for their ego's sake? what a waste of time.
moox. for a new generation.
Any relation to the Steve Cohen that is suing George Bush, Tommy Franks, etc for war crimes in Iraq? Or just someone else who is similarly sue-happy?
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
Who I share a name with, why, oh why, did it have to be this jerk?
"This is not a company that appears to be bothered by ethical boundaries."
Attorney General Mike Hatch on Microsoft
That there is no such thing as "bad" publicity, esp. in the adult industry...this is nothing more than a bunch of white noise to generate free advertisement for the guy.
/.!
Wise up,
never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
...Network Solutions is wonderful now. I'll agree with you on the pricing issue, they charge what's basically a ridiculous amount given the number of other registrars out there who are happy to register for $10/year and provide good service. I would never recommend them to anyone now.
;))
However, compared to several years ago, Network Solutions' security policies are very good at this point. Perhaps too good - I've heard horror stories about people having to go get documents notarized and snailmail them in just to make changes on WHOIS information. If anything, their security policies are overly strict and pre-assuming of wrongdoing at this point.
Step back several years, when NSI was the only registrar around, and all domain updates were handled via email to hostmaster@internic.net. Those were the days. I hijacked hundreds of domains back then, with nothing more than an anonymously sent email. All you had to do was fill out the domain modification template and forge an email from the person currently listed as the administrative contact - the changes requested via email would go through by default unless the true owner caught it and wrote in. Even if the legit domain owner figured out what was going on, the changes would often take place before they were able to contact NSI (and prove that they didn't send the update email).
Hijacking a domain was such a piece of cake back then. I'd just make a fake account with a service like mydomain.com, transfer the target domain's name servers to mydomain.com via an untraceable anonymous email, and set up the mydomain.com account to redirect the domain in question to the site of my choosing.
It was too fucking easy. These days you need a customer ID and password, what a pain in the ass
At least they finally got the security thing worked out.
I wish /. had a full-time lawyer to read over this stuff and offer her opinion, that would be cool.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Actually, all he had to do was show that he had used the mark in commerce or had a bona fide intent to use the mark in commerce to file the app. In the latter case, he could have filed up to three year's worth of extensions for time to show use of the mark in commerce.
The USPTO is not the "trademark police". It is the trademark holder's responsibility to police the mark. So when he filed his app, other potentially valid owners should file notices of opposition (to the registration of the mark). While filing for a "domain name" may seem like the more important thing to do... afterall, you have the domain, you own it, right?... a trademark owner can trump your domain name registration with prior use of the mark.
Now, they may have a battle in trying to get the domain name transferred (obviosuly, this case is a battle). The USPTO doesn't "compare notes" with NetSol. In fact, I doubt they all that much give a hoot about NetSol.
The key point is that, even though the guy who forged the letter may have had "bad faith" in acquiring the domain name, if he actually used the trademark first AND filed for the USPTO application first, he is the "senior user" and would theoretically win the "trademark battle".
Domain names are pretty irrelevant to trademark rights. The fact that you reserve one doesn't mean jack to the USPTO nor the courts in determining who owns a trademark (especially if all you do is reserve it and park it!). If anything, you are better off spending that money filing with the USPTO, because the key thing an USPTO application gets you is "constructive notice" (i.e., anybody who uses your mark after you should have known you owned it) and that is more powerful than registering a domain name (which, by itself, is not use in commerce anyway).
My favourite wierd place name is Wetwangin yorkshire, UK.
Then you have to pay a royalty everytime you do sex?
That doesn't make any sense. You might want to click here
I've never looked at a trademark patent before, but what does it mean near the bottom, First use date, and First commerce use? Was this guy telling them in 1996 when he filed, that he had first used 'sex.com' in 1979? What?? Or am I missing something?
yet even if he does prove that does it make any difference. Surely (IANAL), that would only show that he had a reason to want that domain, not that it was his by any right. Unless, of course, he can show that the name was being used to pretend to be his business...
i.e. There is a sports company called "Wilsons" and my name is Wilson. If I register wilsons.com for my family's use (I know that it is not available) I would not be contravening the sports company's trademark unless I try to imply that I am them.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
A case only goes to the Supreme Court if four justices agree to hear the case. Why should they?
Shouldn't "sex" be an .org? Or, perhaps multiple .orgs
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Man, because of the title of this article, "The Neverending Sex.com Story," I was expecting some kind of eternaly-updating fictional erotica on Sex.com.
Instead, I just get some boring old dissertation on who owns the domain.
Oh well, back to work I go.
"Sometimes you have fun, and sometimes the fun has you"