Slashdot Mirror
David & Goliath: game.co.uk vs. GAME Group, PLC
srashdotu writes "The Register reports on a recent Nominet UK domain dispute, which ruled against the current owner of the "game.co.uk" domain in favour of the retail chain GAME Group plc. According to the article, 'The battle for Game.co.uk is unusual and highly significant for two reasons. Firstly, it concerns a generic and common word in the English dictionary -- "game." And secondly, Mr Sumpter [the registrant] was using the domain to run a video-game-selling business.' What makes this dispute different is the generic nature of the domain. 'both Nominet's DRS system and the ICANN UDRP approach have tended to recognise that no one has greater rights over generic names, names with a common meaning, than anyone else, so the owner is entitled to keep the domain. Equally, few cases have seen company pitched against company since they tend to see the sense in steering clear of each others' trademarks,' reads the article. Nevertheless, Nominet found against Mr Sumpter's right to the use the name 'game' (based in-part on Google search results!) and stepped firmly in to trademark territory to make the decision. Mr Sumpter has lodged an appeal, but if the ruling is upheld it could set a precedent that could see many legitimate owners of generic domains facing the threat of losing their livelihoods at the hands of corporate bullies."
The guy knows what he's doing, that's for sure, even though the site itself is down he's filled the homepage with ads in anticipation of traffic. He's a real entrepeneur!
There are 2 types of people in the world, those who find that stupid binary joke funny, and those who don't.
I know I haven't RTFA, but still,
How can you trademark a generic english word like "game" and try to enforce it?
It would be like banning the word from being used anywhere else... hell, they are doing it with that domain name... "That word is mine!".
It's a loooong article! ,-)
s 02166Game.html).
.uk registry, has created over 3.8 million .uk domains and yet only heard 2,104 domain disputes since its Dispute Resolution Service was launched in September 2001 - an extremely small number in comparison to other top-level domains such as .com or .org.
.uk domains. Its finance director David Thomas told us that the company feels Mr Sumpter had infringed on its rights by starting to sell video games on his site, which was and has been mistaken for Game plc. and that Game plc's rights with regard to the name "game" online can be sufficiently gauged by referring to a Google search on that name. Domains ending with .pro, .aero and many others all have strict criteria before a domain is handed over. A domain's suffix is in fact just as important as the domain stem itself when it comes to deciding ownership. A wider Google search yields a very different set of results in which domains that include the word "game" and which also sells video games feature higher than Game plc. That Mr Sumpter had changed what the website contained and did (from acting as a front for his consultancy business to selling video games) in order to benefit from Game plc's name. That Mr Sumpter sought to elicit as much money as possible from Game plc for the domain. Also, both parties met several times and discussed the sale by Mr Sumpter of his domain to Game plc. As is usual in such domain dispute cases, Game plc sought to paint Mr Sumpter as someone out to profit from a respectable business by holding the company to ransom over a domain name. This is clearly an enormous sum but Mr Sumpter argues that this was a figure put on it by a salesman who had good reason to overplay the domain's true value. Game plc was not just buying his domain, it was buying his entire business based at Game.co.uk.
Domain dispute puts question mark over UK ecommerce
By Kieren McCarthy (kieren at kmccarthy.eclipse.co.uk)
Published Wednesday 16th February 2005 12:34 GMT
A dispute over ownership of "game.co.uk" could have significant and far-reaching effects on e-commerce in Britain.
The domain, which comes under the control of private company Nominet, was awarded to Game plc in January following a complaint that the owner, Garth Sumpter, was misusing it. Mr Sumpter, a consultant for the games industry, has owned the domain since October 1995 and immediately appealed the decision (http://www.nic.uk/DisputeResolution/Decisions/Dr
Nominet, as controller of the
In many other domains around the world - where cases are decided by ICANN's UDRP rules - the situation is flipped and complainants traditionally have the upper-hand, with the existing owner forced to argue why they should retain the domain. If a big company can shut down an existing online business - and competitor - through financial might, and over a generic name such as "game", it could have dire knock-on effects for the hundreds of thousands of small online businesses running from
However, Game plc draws reference to a previous agreement that it accuses Mr Sumpter of backing out of, where he had agreed to sell the domain for a far lower figure. A letter from the head of the game industry's members body to Game plc about the use of its charts on Game.co.uk
3. A Dow Jones Newswire story regarding Game plc but which gave the company's domain name as Game.co.uk. Also since Mr Sumpter is running his own business, no doubt emails intended for Game plc but wrongly sent to him have inconvenienced him. The key to Mr Lothian's decision is given in one finishing sentence: "The Expert has reached the view that the Respondent has brought the consequences of a transfer of the Domain Name upon himself by effecting the change of use in full knowledge of the Complainant's rights."
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
Proving once again that America is a playground for massive corporations, and has no real respects for the rights of the little guy the way we do here in Europe. What you colonials really need to do is learn to hold your government accountable for...
Oh, wait...
Bugger.
Never mind.
That's how it looks now.
I had a quick look at the archived site and it looks like it was a perfectly legitimate online store.
How can you trademark a generic english word like "game" and try to enforce it?
You'll actually see what has happened here - over the course of some 4 years, the guy who owned game.co.uk (and had done so since 1995) was in correspondence with GAME, who approached him wishing to buy the domain. He then kept on agreeing on a sale price, and then upping his price, until he started demanind in excess of £1,000,000 for the domain, and then came up with some spiel about GAME being in competition with a fictitious company for the domain. He should have accepted their offer of £1,000,000 and ran - his perjury has cost him all.
Didn't gateway do this same thing years ago with gateway.com?
I wonder how much Game group paid the judge. Is there anyone left on the planet who is sufficiently naive or insane as to believe that there is any validity whatsoever in the claim of equal treatment/representation under the law? The legal system is one of the main reasons why I hardly ever leave my bedroom...in my mind having virtually anything to do with offline society these days is suicidal.
Wow, next thing you know, they'll be fighting over sex.com. Oh, wait...
Who doesn't love a good Davey and Goliath story
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
> How can you trademark a generic english word like "game" and try to enforce it?
Apple.
But, I've learned a lot by reading the complaint and the verdict.
1) If you have the money, you can try to buy a domain that exists from someone who may already have it.
2) If you can't buy that domain, and you have the money for it, you can sue for the domain.
3) If you have an extraordinarily large amount of money, you can win the rights to a generic noun in the dictionary (as used in a domain name), even when someone else clearly owns said domain name and you've completely branded the noun.
4) If you own a domain called "GAME.co.uk" do not use it to sell GAMES. That would be COMPLETELY inappropriate, and in bad taste, and you will become the taget of a large company that will sue your *** and cry about the injustice of the world until somebody hands them the domain on a gold platter.
By the way, after reading the Expert's opinion, I'm almost agreeable with the result, however, and let me make that clear, this really IS a David -vs- Goliath story. GAME is clearly branded, and for all the talk about how so "many" contacts they received pertained to game.co.uk's business, I want to know just how many mistakes were committed in reverse. Namely, how many calls or contacts game.co.uk got that were intended for GAME.
I bet is was disproportional to the amount GAME was getting, indicating that in fact the stronger of the two companies was in fact branded much better. The transfer of the game.co.uk domain to the Claimant is an injustice. If the facts say that the Respondent was in error, and was using the domain... um... in poor taste?... That still does not win GAME the right to the domain name. It never did belong to GAME, and they had unsuccessfully tried to bargain for it for years, simply because that portion of the company sucks, I'm sure.
So, instead of paying a decent price for THE best *.co.uk names POSSIBLE for GAME in the very beginning from someone who obviously knew it's value, instead of making the purchase-of-such a priority and keeping the peace, they wait until the competition starts nipping at their profit margins and then squashes them... oh, and they get the domain name flat-out given to them!?!
People... Can't you see, it is specifically BECAUSE GAME didn't come up with a good price in the beginning, and since the gaming industry HAS become so large that the owner of SUCH a lucrative domain "game.co.uk" TURNED TO selling games. What a stroke of genius! I mean to actually use the domain for a purpose that it is highly suited for? OMG, and he actually PROVIDED for himself in the process? Completely unacceptable!
IMHO, GAME truly has no right to the domain at all, much less deserving of it.
This whole suit sickens me and contains absolutely no justice other than the corporate justice of killing off compentition.
Oh, bravo, GAME... Jolly good show.
I have read the ENTIRE thing.
I started reading slashdot comments.
Funnily enough the second doesn't match what the article says. Or maybe it's usual
The court judgement says that basically the guy had all the rights to register game.co.uk, the use he made of it consisted an abusive use of a domain name, since he started a game reselling business after being informed of GAME's plans to rebrand and go on the web.
And for the english-challenged: GAME did NOT offer 1 million pounds to buy the name. The guy did and they refused the offer
As much as I'd like it be the other way around, the guy did a bad attempt at taking advantage of an honest issue brought by GAME. They offered him a lot of cash and all he did he start a business to fool people in thinking it was related to GAME somehow. I hate big corporations against Davids, but this time, Goliath is probably right.
But seriously I this could affect me as I own a few real words.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
It's his domain, and it's a generic term. Just because he played some nasty hardball with it, doesn't mean it's not his. Yeah, he blew it, but not because he's a jerk. He blew it 'cause the Big Guys realized it'd be cheaper to corrupt the system than pay him off. It's still fucked up is that the Big Guys even had that option.
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