JRR Tolkien: Return Of The Domain Name

Malfourmed writes "Reuters reports that the estate of J.R.R. Tolkien won a cybersquatting case against Alberta Hot Rods, a Canadian-based operator which registered jrrtolkien.com and linked it to its commercial celebrity Web site. The group - which has already lost domain name cases brought by actors Pierce Brosnan and Pamela Anderson, and author Michael Crichton - was found to have no legitimate rights, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) said in a ruling."

Comments

First bad joke post

[Anonymous Coward]

So now he'll have "one webring to rule them all --" oh forget it.

Re:First bad joke post

[Patik]

There needs to be an "unfunny" mod choice.

they got what they wanted

[Anonymous Coward]

you know everyone just clicked onto jrrtolkien.com and saw all their ads. the company is making their money back.

all is well

Re:they got what they wanted

[cgranade]

Unless we are so evil as to not click the ads, in which case we just /.ed not only jrrtolkien.com, but also their crummy adservers.

The gold rush is over

[ObviousGuy]

Imagine if homesteaders had their land taken away back in the 1800's by corporations who claimed that they actually had rights to the land, even though the corps never set foot on the land and had no interest in it until they saw how profitable the land was.

Re:The gold rush is over

[LouisZepher]

Well, the original homesteaders had it taken away by people who eventually became said corporations. This is just Manifest Destiny in web form.

Re:The gold rush is over

[CosmeticLobotamy]

Imagine if someone was renting all the land on the planet for twenty bucks for two years and porn companies rented all the usable farmland and then linked it all to one spot in Arizona with nothing on it but advertisements for porn that no matter how many sites you click through, you never find any any actual naked chicks, dammit.

Re:The gold rush is over

[Chess_the_cat]

Tolkien is dead. His estate is in charge now and they're very much a company. Regardless, I say if you registered the domain it belongs to you. What about that guy who was able to pick up hotmail.co.uk because Microsoft forgot to renew it? I say he should be under no obligation to return it. Same with guys who register celebrity names as domains. If it was important to the celebrity they should have something in place to protect the domains. Unless you think that companies and celebrities should be able to jump the queue and be able to take domains away from people at the time of their choosing. As an interesting aside, I remember an article in Wired years ago about how people were registering trademarks as domain names. Wired called McDonald's and told them that a guy registered mcdonalds.com and their response was "So?" Back then no one understood the Internet. Of course, some time later McDonald's strongarmed the guy into giving it back. No fair.

Re:The gold rush is over

[deathcloset]

I always wondered, why can't someone older than, but with the same name as, johnny depp claim intellectual property rights to www.johnnydepp.com ?

After all, older johnny had the name before younger famous johhny...right?

I mean, couldn't these sued-squatters at least have bought a fish, named him j.r.r and claimed the website was about their sea creature? would that have been all they needed to retain rights? or would they have needed a dog? perhaps a little boy?

I ask, because I know for a fact that there is another celine dion out there, and in my opinion she has just as much right to celinedion.com as the famous one who successfully sued for it (but has not the money as the vegas-diva name-counterpart).

heck, isn't there another j.r.r tolkien out there with rights to this domain? are any of the hiers even named j.r.r or John Ronald Reuel Tolkien for that matter ?....well, actually probably not...actually, there is probably never going to be anyone named that again (considering the google search of ""John Ronald Reuel" -tolkien -tolkin -tolkein"" still yielded hobbit-rich results)..... ......but you see my point!

ah, the shackles of the internet are starting to leave marks.....

Re:The gold rush is over

[cweagle]

"Why should I change my name - he's the one that sucks!" - Michael Bolton

Re:The gold rush is over

[Chromodromic]

The law recognizes certain individuals as "public figures" with a set of rights that are separate from normal individuals.

And before you go all, "that's not fair!", just remember that the differences in rights of public figures aren't *always* (although frequently they are, I will grant you) in their favor.

For instance, in most states if I photograph or videotape you I can't use your image for personal financial gain (like, say, showing you on my reality TV show) without your permission, in most cases. But in the case of public figures, such as celebrities, sports figures, politicians, I most certainly can, as long as I'm telling the truth and as long as I'm being fair. Their image is recognized as having a symbolic value to the public over and above the value it has to that individual. This is why paparazzi can do what they do.

However, because these individuals are public figures, they own a piece of property that has value to them as well: their name. You can't call something Celine Dion Ice Cream, not unless the Celine Dion whose name is most likely meant to be used as a selling point gives her permission. It doesn't matter that there's another Celine Dion out there. Unless your other Celine Dion has established that her name has equal value in advertising or commerce, well, then the famous Celine trumps her because it's the famous Celine's name that is logically being used to pump the value of the ice cream, or what have you.

Re:The gold rush is over

[stwrtpj]

Tolkien is dead. His estate is in charge now and they're very much a company.

And naturally, as a Big Evil Company now, they're not entitled to the same rights as everyone else. Now, if we were talking about a domain that had a generic name, like onering.com, I might buy the argument. But jrrtolkien.com is extremely specific.

What about that guy who was able to pick up hotmail.co.uk because Microsoft forgot to renew it? I say he should be under no obligation to return it.

Explain your logic to me. What other use would someone want with a domain called hotmail except to screw MS? Or is this one of those "anything that screws MS is good" things? Note this is NOT the same as creating a domain called hotmailsucks.com or screw.this.hotmail.crap.com. Those are very obvious alternate uses of the hotmail name and I would agree in that case that they should not be taken away. To use a more relevant example, if the domain we're talking about was jrrtolkiensucks.com, then I'd lean towards the owner of the domain. But there is no reason to hold jrrtolkien.com except to 1) screw over the Tolkien estate and/or 2) lure people to your site making them think they were going someplace that actually had something to do with the author.

Same with guys who register celebrity names as domains. If it was important to the celebrity they should have something in place to protect the domains.

I would agree if the site was not EXACTLY the same name as the celebrity. If it were, for example, fansof[celebrity-name].org, then I'd say okay.

I don't care for frivilous cases of strong-arming domain names from people. At the same time, however, the rules, whether they be actual laws or just plain ettiquete, should be equal for all. Registering other people's trademarks and names as domain names (and I do mean names that are clearly distinctive trademarks and not common names that just happen to be parts of trademarks), in my mind, is breaking the rules.

Not famous yet

[rm -rf $HOME]

I have a relatively uncommon first-name, but one of the few people who shares it registered it as a domain name relatively early in the history of the web. If I were to become famous, I'd almost certainly be known by first-name alone, as there are only a small handful of entertainers with this name, and none of them are "stars".

So all I need to do now is become famous, and that domain is mine!

Re:Not famous yet

[marko123]

If you became famous, you would probably change your first name from "hugetits" anyway.

Re:Not famous yet

[MrFreshly]

The bastards took my site...said it was too close to some corporate name thing...whatever...

Regards,
Mike Rowsoft

Choo Choo

[puppet10]

You mean the railroad is coming to town?

Neat.

[CosmeticLobotamy]

Wow. The law actually worked and wasn't evil or nothing for once. Good on them.

Hold on a tic...

[sillypixie]

I hate to be unpopular, but the guy is dead, right? Does he really have the same rights to his name as somebody who is alive?

Can anyone who's making money off their dead relatives make a case for the name? Seems to me that neither of the parties actually suing for or using the name actually *wrote* LoTR...

Just an alternative opinion...

Pixie

Re:Hold on a tic...

[Drakon]

People who are looking for porn know where to look. Porn sites who buy domains that have nothing to do with porn should be outlawed. If not because they make it harder to find things that should be on those domains, then because they make it harder to find porn. ;-)

Too restrictive?

[Call Me Black Cloud]

I can write a book about Tolkien and title it "The Life of Tolkien". Why shouldn't I be able to get a domain name with his name, as long as I state I'm not he (or his heirs)? Businesses I understand - trademarks, etc. Maybe there should be a top level domain for "unofficial", so you'd have jrrtolkien.official and jrrtolkien.unofficial. A litter cumbersome but you get the point.

Internet Papparazzi

[SUJovian]

This company brands itself "Celebrity 1000" and sadly, they and many others like them are cybersquatting on at least that many celebrity named domains. just try a few of your favorite celebrities. I'm not sure how this was ever legal to start with, and can't believe that to date this is only the 4th case brought against these fools. They're the papparazzi of the internet, making free money off the endeavors of others.

If said homesteaders

[KalvinB]

bought the land with the intent to profit off of the name of the corporation then yes, I'd expect as much.

People need to get it through their thick skulls that trying to profit off of other people's names is not acceptible.

If the guy's name was Tolkien then he might have a case. As it is, he's just typical low life internet scum trying to profit off of other people's name.

Ben

Re:If said homesteaders

[Hamstaus]

The brewers sewed,

No no, you have it all wrong. Brewers brew... it's tailors that sew. In rare cases of sewing involving wool and people's eyes, you will find that lawyers might be involved as well.

As a Tolkien fan I believe...

[Anonymous Coward]

As a Tolkien fan I believe that the domain name should be cast into the fiery pit at Mt. Doom, so that it may never again be used to trouble the world.

it's what you do with the domain that counts

[mabu]

The key here is how you use the domain name. IF your use is non-exploitive of the entity, specifically if it's someone famous, you can potentially hold it. I.e. If someone named James Hendrix had his personal web page on jimihendrix.com, he'd have a good case to fend off the Hendrix estate, as opposed to pointing the domain to some site clearly attempting to capitalize on the famous Jimi Hendrix.

A friend of mine actually had the domain AMERICAONLINE.COM for many years. He offered to sell it to AOL and they blew him off and expressed no interest. His problem was the domain was not in use and when he decided to put up a web page, it said, "This domain for sale". Within days of the site going up, he received a threatening letter from AOL's lawyers. I am not sure, but I think they scared him into giving them the domain. He screwed up by not having a legitimate web site that wasn't exploitive of AOL then he might have had a case to fight. But in this circumstance the guy basically snatched the name because it was available, so he was trying to take advantage of AOL's famous name. If he had a web site on that domain for example, that was a messageboard for "American's online" or something not exploitive of AOL's identity, he probably could have fought off AOL, or at least forced them to settle with him.

Generally speaking, the law has been pretty reasonable in dealing with these cases. There are probably exceptions though.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

...and Rob & Jeff invented the slash and the d

[Muddie]

I don't agree with the whining people who moan because of cybersquatters. Those that put into common use the // in a hyperlink and the . before the domain extension could, in theory, say that slashdot is unfairly using their property to prosper. I, personally, think it's a 'first-come, first-serve' situation.

If someone yanked 'mcdonalds.com' and was using it to slander mcdonalds, sue them for libel, but they have the right to rent that domain for as long as they pay for it. This babysitting by the courts for corporate welfare is just over the line. I don't know why I'm so outraged by the very idea of this, but I am.

/opinion

How is this different?

[caffeineHacker]

SCO: We own all you source code!

Slashdotters: How so? We wrote it!

SCO: We just do!

Compared to:

JRR Tolkien Estates: We own that domain!

Sqautter: How so? I bought it!

Estates: We just do!

Although squatting is sleazy, I don't see why it's illegal. If there are magic reserved names that the general public can't buy then don't sell them in the first place. The guy bought it before JRR Tolkien estates, and made no reference to JRR Tolkien or LoTR so no trademark infringement occured. For all they know he could have thought it sounded like a l337 name for a porn site. So the lesson learned is that corporations have control over you no matter where you live, thanks to the U.N. and WIPO. It's just another example of a company saying they own something that they don't.

"Alberta Hot Rods" still available

[IvyMike]

Ironically, as far as I can tell, www.albertahotrods.com is still open.

whois -h magic albertahotrods.com

Crsnic.net hasn't heard of albertahotrods.com

Whois Server Version 1.3

Domain names in the .com and .net domains can now be registered
with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net
for detailed information.

No match for "ALBERTAHOTRODS.COM".

(Not sure if that's the best way to check, but register.com and a few other domain registrars agree.)

Rather than upsetting the applecart

[FreeUser]

I think .com should have this rule put into effect (like on so many other registries), then have some major cleaning up done and those who didn't have a registered name (i.e. free-viagra-now.com) be moved to the .info registry.

While I agree that such a rule would have been nice from day one, it does have its problems.

1) trademarks are not unique
a) they are limited by "domain" (e.g. Macintosh(tm) for apples can exist in parallel with Macintosh(tm) for computers)
b) they are limited by geography (e.g. in the US, I can own "SourceMagic"(tm) in Illinois, while in Wisconsin someone else may have the same trademark for the same "domain", and national trademarks for x in Germany can be owned by one company, and a completely different company may have the same exact trademark registered in Canada or the United States).

This works for national domains, such as co.uk, where (a) there aren't state or local trademarks, only national trademarks (or they only allow national trademarks to use the domain), but it won't work for most trademarks in an international domain such as .com regardless.

Now, if one wanted to make a .tm domain, e.g. uk.tm, us.tm, etc. then it would work pretty well, but that assumes (a) .tm isn't already a TLD for some country (I haven't checked), (b) each country administers its .tm according to its own trademark laws, and (c) it won't matter unless we can get the f*cking lawyers out of the other domains and into the .tm domain where they belong (good luck getting parasites out of anything).