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JRR Tolkien: Return Of The Domain Name

Posted by timothy on from the there-never-was-much-hope dept.

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."

15 of 321 comments (clear)

  1. First bad joke post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    1. Re:First bad joke post by Patik · · Score: 5, Funny

      There needs to be an "unfunny" mod choice.

  2. they got what they wanted by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    all is well

  3. The gold rush is over by ObviousGuy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    --
    I have been pwned because my /. password was too easy to guess.
    1. Re:The gold rush is over by LouisZepher · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    2. Re:The gold rush is over by CosmeticLobotamy · · Score: 5, Funny

      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.

    3. Re:The gold rush is over by Chess_the_cat · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --
      Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
    4. Re:The gold rush is over by deathcloset · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.....

    5. Re:The gold rush is over by cweagle · · Score: 5, Funny

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

      --
      -- "They say that time changes things. The truth is, you have to change them yourself." (Andy Warhol, adapted)
    6. Re:The gold rush is over by stwrtpj · · Score: 5, Insightful
      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.

      --
      Karma: Frotzed (mostly due to the Frobozz Magic Karma Company)
  4. Not famous yet by rm+-rf+$HOME · · Score: 5, Funny

    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!

    1. Re:Not famous yet by MrFreshly · · Score: 5, Funny

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

      Regards,
      Mike Rowsoft

  5. Hold on a tic... by sillypixie · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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

    --
    don't mess with those geekgrrls
  6. it's what you do with the domain that counts by mabu · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  7. How is this different? by caffeineHacker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.