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."
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.
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.
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.
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.