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Graduate Student Defends Right To Own Chicago2016.com
An anonymous reader points to a story in the Chicago Tribune about another domain-name battle. Quoting the article: "As Chicago wages its battle to host the 2016 Olympics, it also finds itself scrapping over a valuable piece of cyberspace: the domain name of Chicago2016.com. The bid team along with the U.S. Olympic Committee are trying to wrest that online address from Stephen Frayne Jr., a 29-year-old MBA student. Frayne snagged it back in 2004, about two years before the bid was launched. ... 'We certainly see Chicago2016.com as the logical default domain for our site, and we believe having someone else control it is misleading for people seeking information about Chicago's bid,' said Patrick Sandusky, a spokesman for Chicago 2016, a moniker protected by trademark."
This does not a case of someone trying to make a buck on the name. It looks like someone smart who registered a domain name for the purpose of discussion. The domain is not parked, not defamitory and is in use. Case closed. If this he looses his domain name, then who is next?
It's an under appreciated punctuation mark anyway.
I heard a while ago that ICANN would be more lenient in letting people have new TLD's, so maybe they could have chicago.2016?
He's not getting rich off of that.
I could get a great look an MBA by sticking my head up his ass, but I'd rather take Chicago2016.com word for it.
i forget
Yes, let's start giving out numeric tld's. There's no way that would ever conflict with IP addresses.
I can understand the notion that people who snipe domains associated with trademarks generally can't hold on to them. The idea that one can seize a domain that has been owned longer than a given trademark has existed seems downright dangerous, however.
The notion is awfully close to essentially saying that anybody who can't afford a stable of relevant lawyers can have domain names taken at the whim of those who can, which is rather an ugly idea.
This site is an active site, he's not cybersquatting in anyway shape or form.
The same thing happened with that guy named Nissan. He won the right to keep his domain name since it's his last name.
I think anyone who snatches up a domain name should be entitled to that domain name. Now, registrars are using dirty tricks anyway like early bidding on domains. /me looks at .me
What's next, grant the patent to the large organizations simply because they're large?
They're using their grammar skills there.
...And that's HIS brand on the cattle!
http://www.chicago2016.com/
I know there are people here who have thought through the ramnifications of this longer than I have. Maybe someone can enlighten me.
Why isn't this guy just a smart cookie for jumping on this domain before the city of Chicago or the IOC did?
Makes me wish I had.
"By the time they had diminished from 50 to 8, the other dwarves began to suspect 'Hungry.'" -Gary Larson
a spokesman for Chicago 2016, a moniker protected by trademark.
Awww, isn't it too bad that trademarks don't give you retroactive ownership of whatever you like? Next time, check BEFORE you secure the trademark to see if it's already available. In fact, I bet they did- and just assumed they could take it over, just like how the IOC and USOC shut down everything named "olympic", even stuff that was named because said business was near a (different) Mount Olympus.
Raise your hand if you're completely fed up with the Olympics. Raise your hand if you think it's time that the IOC/USOC-bought legislation "protecting" the Olympic "trademark" was repealed.
Please help metamoderate.
ChicagOlympics.com
Cube On! (http://stores.ebay.com/PuzzleProz)
chicago2016.org already contains an official site, so I cannot understand why they have to have the .com site as well. I am not a fan of domain squatters, but I am only for kicking someone off of their domain when there is blatant demonstrated abuse of the system and when no other alternatives are available. This does not appear to be the case here.
Unless I'm mistaken, and to be honest this has happened once in my lifetime.
Anyone can freely use the city name of Chicago in any way they wish, as well as the year 2016 in any way they wish.
Fucking businesses like the Olympics, and don't try and argue with that they rake in a shit ton of money, need to be put in their place.
You can't take the sky from me.
*raises both hands*
...and the idea of mounting olympus is raising my wood.
-- Sex is the antonym of pringles. Once you pop it's time to stop.
At least the .com discussion site got one thing right: it works! Mosey on over to the official .org site, and get bombarded with a monstrosity of flash and auto playing video! Guess I should be happy it didn't ask my to install silverlight...
Are we looking at a non-problem? Although it involves business to get funding and build infrastructure, could the NPO official site take a .org or .info name?
Since when can someone snatch a trade name (which is basically what a domain name is), just because it "fits"??
The old rules basically were: if you registered a name first, it was yours, unless it could be construed as misleading or confusing to consumers (i.e., confusing one product for another), based on someone else's EXISTING name.
This might not be the best example, but a rocket and a tennis shoe could both be called "Nike", even though they were otherwise unrelated, because there was little possibility of confusion.
Chicago did not have the name first. If the goddamned business people would have some foresight, they would have grabbed such names when they started thinking about bidding for the Olympics... not years later after someone beat them to it. I do not see where there is any legal principle that says, "We didn't think of it then, but it obviously should be ours, so we want to take it now!"
I call "sour grapes". They fucked up, and now want to take advantage of someone who was smarter than they were. That does not a legal case make. If they want to make money on the name, then grab the name first! Why should they take precedence over someone with more business-savvy then they have?
.. Would be to give him the .org and they take the .com
.org *should* go to the organisation I think a .org that is a forum for discussion on the bid is actually quite in line with what you often get on a .org.
.com atall and I am in agreement with you, however, I think we all know that he's going to get the shaft and I'm just pointing out a genuine solution whereby he gets to keep a legit domain for his forum).
Whilst it is true that
(I realise some will say he doesn't deserve to lose the
I record my sleeptalking
If he beat them to "using the domain in commerce" shouldn't the student own the trademark instead of them?
I thought trademarks went to the first person to "use the mark in commerce" but IANAL so I might be wrong.
What's "logical" about that domain?
What's more logical about that address than, say, "olympics.cityofchicago.org"?
Best,
Andrew
When I lose a domain I paid for because Register.com sent emails to the wrong email address, and sells my domain to a spammer, no one cared. My complaint to ICANN was dismissed. I see no reason why this valid domain should be removed from this non spammer.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
IANAL, but I fail to see how the Olympics have been financially damaged (financially being a key word) by this guy having a piece of prime cyber real estate. How can they prove that they made less money without that domain? In property lawsuits, often objective proof of damage is required. Anything less is not proof. And on the side, if they want this prime real estate so bad, they should stop being cheapskates and cough up, just like in the physical world.
a spokesman for Chicago 2016, a moniker protected by trademark.
Awww, isn't it too bad that trademarks don't give you retroactive ownership of whatever you like?
Also, trademarks ONLY give your mark (in this case the name Chicago and year 2016) protection in a particular category (I guess sporting events).
That DOES NOT give you any protection against someone using the same mark in another category.
Now this guy may be sailing a little close to the wind by hosting a discussion about the Chicago 2016 olympic bid, but I *thought* there was some ability to use others trademarks in discussion etc as long as they were properly attributed.
Raise your hand if you're completely fed up with the Olympics. Raise your hand if you think it's time that the IOC/USOC-bought legislation "protecting" the Olympic "trademark" was repealed.
BTW in Australia there is a brand of tyres named Olympic (now part of / or was originally Olympic Tyre and Rubber before becoming Beaurepairs). It was founded in 1933, see http://www.beaurepaires.com.au/centric/about/history.jsp for more info. I'd like to see them try to take that name from them.
Ever stop to think
Next time, check BEFORE you secure the trademark to see if it's already available.
Even if they did check it wasn't like they could change what they were trying to trademark. I mean, their trademark had two parts: "Chicago" and "2016". They can't really change either (unless you think they could warp time and/or rename Chicago just for the Olympics).
Derive Politics
...screw that. Why should he settle for the .org? If he wanted it to begin with he would have registered it. If they want the .com badly enough they have enough resources on hand to purchase it from him. They get their coveted domain, and he pockets a wad of cash. Middle-ground enough?
Chicago 2016 protected by trademark? Big deal!
As we all know, from Apple Computers, Inc. vs. Apple Records, trademark infringment does not apply here because Stephen Frayne Jr. is not operating in the same line of business.
if some Mc started selling caines? he has a right to register his domain, Mccain.com. he cant wind it up cos there is a presidential candiadate.but i support SolarStorm (991940)' s argument.
Raise your hand if you're completely fed up with the Olympics. Raise your hand if you think it's time that the IOC/USOC-bought legislation "protecting" the Olympic "trademark" was repealed.
Uhh, I know how us slashdotters are supposed to hate big-corp buying laws and whatnot, but if anything deserves an exception I think it would be the olympics. I mean, because it's such a massive international event there has to be some leeway between nations to make it all work, otherwise each olympics would be tied up in litigation across the globe. . .yeesh.
If you are about to mod me down, keep in mind that this post was most likely sarcastic.
a) We move the Olympics year!
b) Chicago gets a new name!
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
"...about two years before the bid was launched..."
Case closed. Everyone go home.
Well, that's how it would work in my fantasy universe at least.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
2016Chicago.com is free.....
This would make more logical sense for me, every olympics should get preference on their Country's TLD, so instead of chicago2018.com, they should opt for chicago2018.us. and London for its 2012 games should have London2012.co.uk and so on.
Is there any particular reason they can't use .gov and be done with it?
Dear Marketing Wonks:
The next time you come up with some brilliant idea or name the FIRST thing you should do is perform a domain name lookup to see if your name is already taken. If it isn't then you should register it immediately! Do not wait until you make the presentation. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. Trying to retroactively take a domain name from some guy who snatched it up because you were too lazy to register it makes no sense. If you have some brilliant idea then chance are there are about 2,000 people out there with the same idea. Cover your ass and do your homework. That is all.
Signed,
The Internet
why not use chicago.olympics.com or chicago2016.us or chicago-olympics.com or even better twoweeksofnothingbutcraponTV.com... Ummm, that is besides the fact that someone probably registered them 30 seconds after i posted this.
of course if there not brain dead they registered every possible alternative domain they could think of before starting this spectacle and gaining the attention of every domain squatter in the world!!!
The IOC or Chicago 2016 should hire this kid. He's clearly quicker than their people, and if he's getting an MBA he's probably qualified to do _something_ in their organization (like "supervise" a project completely outside his realm of competence). Make one of the conditions of his ludicrously high contract payments that he surrenders the domain, everybody wins (except for people who want the Olympics to be about something other than corruption and greed, but that's already a lost cause).
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
stop comparing this to McDonalds I dont want them reading this and finding out I have a domain with Big Mac in the title. Ahhh .... ohhh crap!
Dear City of Chicago,
We regret to inform you that we have voted our 2016 Olympic Games be held at the fine city of Amsterdam, and not Chicago, IL.
Our decision was based on many factors, and your city scored quite well on all criteria of the selection process.
But when it came down to it, Amsterdam2016.com was actually registered to the right people.
Sincereley,
The Olympic Planning Task Force
-David
Since when do we call MBAs "graduate students"? Real graduate students should take offense.
Actually, Obama needs that domain name for one of his future campaign efforts.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If he were using the word "Olympics", they would have a case, but other than that, it's going to cost them quite dearly to purchase those domains.
. . . . is what will kill America.
Meh... it's 2008. Who manually types in domain names anymore?
I'll admit, it took me a while to start omitting the "http://www..." part, but as soon as I switched to Firefox, I very quickly gave up on typing out full or even partial domain names. I fully abuse Firefox's "awesome bar" to get me where I want without having to remember whether the site I need used a .org, .cc, .com, or .net, whether there were deliberate misspellings or additional words in the domain name, or other such arbitrary designations.
Here's my point. If you type "Chicago 2016" into a search bar (Firefox uses Google by default), you will find relevant Olympic information *in context*, if not an official website! There is a much lower chance of stumbling onto a misleading page, designed by someone who managed to snag an arbitrary domain name first, because a search will show you a community consensus of what the "real" sites are ("Google bombs" and the like notwithstanding, though they remain an important counter-argument to my case).
Hopefully you already know this stuff, but show it to a non-techie friend or a family member sometime. It'll blow their minds ("Are you hungry? Why don't you type 'Pizza hut' into this bar here...). Plus it'll save you from having to clean all the adware and pornware they would have otherwise got by wandering onto onto the wrong page and clicking one too many false links (try pizzahut.net).
There's no reason to randomly try domain names when half the Internet is already indexed for you. Cybersquatting should be obsolete.
There's a bunch of Olympic named stuff in western Washington that hasn't been sued out of existence by the USOC yet. Thankfully we have the Olympic mountain range and Olympic National Park on the Olympic Peninsula. I'm waiting for them to sue to make us change the name of the whole area because some idiot might confuse Mount Olympus with some random olympic event.
Mod abuse!
Mod Parent down. -1 Troublemaker.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
You bring the tango and foxtrot.
A fair middle ground solution... Would be to give him the .org and they take the .com
No, because "chicago2016" is not a ".com" in any useful sense. They aren't a company. At best, they have some claim to ".org" or ".net" or ".bid". They have no defensible right to *.com at all. I hate the fact that ".com" has come to represent "the internet."
I dislike cybersquatting as much as the next guy, but I don't feel sorry for non-companies who can't get their preferred .com. I liked the old Australian method, you could register a .com.au by sending your "registration of company" information off to the registrar, and it had to show that your company name was sensibly linked to the domain you wanted.
Here's another option: things like "chicago2016.com" which cannot meaningfully be owned, there should be a standard way of negotiating a way of sharing the domain. These olympics people could be "olympics.chicago2016.com" if they must to have a .com in the URL. And if Hillary wants to be Mayor of Chicago, she might ask for "clinton.chicago2016.com"
If that doesn't fit their planned marketing campaign, tough. Hire better and smarter marketers if you can't think past "chicago2016.com." Domain-names should be useful and descriptive as a first priority.
P.S. these guys might well be an incorporated company called something generic like "Chicago2016" and plan to make a lot of money from having the olympics in Chicago in 2016. Doesn't matter. If you call your company something generic, then you don't get the benefit of hiding your money-making ambitions behind a domain-name that doesn't clearly reflect it.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The IOC controls olympics.com and currently redirects this to the Beijing site. If I wanted to know more about the games and needed to guess an URL, olympics.com comes to me easier than .
In other words, they don't need Chicago2016.com for any purpose other than to control all domain names possibly associated with the Olympic Games.
Interesting, but irrelevant. In this case, the "CityYEAR" family does not belong to a single entity. Each one is associated with an entity in each city. I doubt they are associated in any legal sense, since many are or were bitter rivals. So there is a "family" of names, but who they are presumed to belong to is not obvious.
when you're talking about famous marks.
Again irrelvant, as these are certainly not "famous". I never knew that Chicago was contending for the 2016 Olympics till today, for instance.
Bizarrely (and I'm sure no one will believe this), my friend is working for this particular grad student doing translation for one of his other sites. He does seem to be legitimately trying to build them into actual discussion forums on the pros and cons of the Olympic bid cities.
I believe that. I work in internet marketing company and know MFA (Made For Adsense) along with other kinds of ad-sites pretty well. I expected to see that site coated with AdSense, iSell or something that most people (even most slashdotters, from what I've seen) don't recognize as ads. Pay-Per-Post articles, Tradedoubler text links, etc...
I know that if I had that domain, I could propably have earned some 30k just from this slashdot link alone, no problem. And then all other news sources that must have linked to it? This domain could be used to make A LOT of money. After everything, it could be sold for tens of thousands of more just because it would have massive pagerank.
But what? The site is actually active and has none of these. He can't be just "Waiting and missing 100k profits for some good PR...". If earning money was his main goal, he would either not be waiting or he would be really stupid.
Trademark law is designed so that people who take part in it have to be somewhat prick-ish. It's not their fault, they have no choice.
One of the requirements of trademarks is that, once granted, it's only yours so long as it doesn't become a generic term. If you start a company called "globat" that sells pencils, and people start referring to all pencils as "Globats", you have to stop people from using "Globat" in a generic sense when referring to pencils, by legal means if necessary, or lose the rights to the name "Globat".
This is why, when you go to a restaurant, and say: "and gimme a Coke with that" the waiter might ask: "Is Pepsi OK?" - they are required to, by requirements stemming from trademark law.
Google has to be a bit careful: So long as "Google it!" means going to google.com, they are ok. But the instant that "google" becomes synonymous with "search", regardless of what website you go to, the trademark protections that Google enjoys become threatened, and they'll be forced to be "evil" to protect their company name. Watch for it; I have no doubt it will happen as soon as some other search engine is actually more effective than Google.
Examples in history of trademarks that were threatened include: Xerox, Kleenex, and Band-Aid. All had to resort to legal means to protect their trademarks. And, some trademarks have been lost, or "genericized". EG: Aspirin was lost by Bayer in the early 1900s.
So, the IOC, once granted trademark to "Olympics", then had to enforce their trademark to ensure that the word "Olympic" doesn't become a generic part of language. If you say "Olympics", it has to refer to the version put forth by the IOC, or they lose their trademark. So, they had to sue anybody and everybody near mount Olympus, etc. Sucks? Maybe. But it's not necessarily a fault of the IOC, they are REQUIRED to enforce their trademark or lose it. (Since "Olympic" has a classic meaning, the trademark is dubious at best, IMHO) But if I create a new company called "DynaStealthzWealthz" and become highly successful, it would seem to me legit to have rights to my company name since it didn't effectively exist prior to my creation of it.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
The word "Olympics" (and all related words) is to my knowledge the only word that has special protection by act of Congress above and beyond normal trademark law. They had to make a special exception in the law to allow for a town called Olympia to use its own name when referring to itself. They sue everyone they can to protect that trademark. This is all in spite of the fact that the Olympic games were called that thousands of years before trademark law existed.
Check out the letter they sent to the website burningshithead.com, which used to have an event called the "Shithead Olympics." The competition - mostly games centered around throwing pieces of breakfast cereal - is now called the "Shithead [Censored]" thanks to the pressure of the USOC. Are a bunch of stoners throwing cereal really a threat to the Olympic trademark?
Slashdot shows it's two faced attitude once again - normally the received wisdom on Slashdot is that Domain Squatters Are Evil Vermin. But here, somehow, the domain squatter is an Enlightened Entrepreneur.
Actually, to some extent, trademarks do give you some forms of retroactive ownership.
I bet they did too... and found the trademark 'Chicago2016' to be available. But they probably know what you don't seem to - domain names aren't trademarks.
I've got no sympathy for either side in this one. The guy is clearly an asshat who is a hair's-breadth short of being a pure domain-squatting subhuman scum. The fact that he went out and registered a bunch of {city}{olympic-year} domains makes that clear. His only minor possible redeeming feature is that he doesn't appear to be in this for the money. But if he gets away with this crap, the next one will be!
And in this corner, weighing in at the proverbial 2000 pounds, we have the extremely offensive, litigious bastards at the IOC who deserve to lose every trademark they can for dumping all over the Special Oly^H^H^HGames, among many, many other things. If they win, it's going to be a tragedy for everyone who has a legitimate, established domain that happens to conflict with some brand-new just-imagined trademark.
I only see one way out. We have to kill everyone involved. The IOC, the Chicago bidders, the guy with the domain, ICANN, the rest of the population of Chicago, everyone who lives in a city that has or will ever bid on the Olympics, everyone with a computer, everyone with a trademark, everyone with a name...kill 'em all! It's the only way to be sure! :)
Perhaps some would say it is logical for the 2016 Chicago Olympic commission to have rights to chicago2016.com, but that is not enough. That was not a registered trademark when someone else registered the domain name, so too bad. This is like the case of Nissan Motor Co./Nissan USA, the automaker, not being able to steal nissan.com from someone who beat them to it. Nisan still hasn't been able to get nissan.com, and the owner has continued to use it as a site to promote hiss own business, which should absolutely be his right. Screw off, Chicago 2016 folks - somebody beat ya to it - pay the price to get it, or tough luck, go for 2024 and register chicagowillstillbewindyanddirtyfortheolympicsin2024.com instead, since I doubt anyone has registered that yet.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
STOP!
you know the next line
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
"Trademark" and "right to a particular .com domain name" are not necessarily synonymous, especially when the domain in question existed before any trademark that results in a claim against it.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
Okay, let me get this straight....
IP is recognized by the USA as being valid, as is exploitation of said IP.
This also trickles down to the state level, then to the county level, to the city/town level.
How can the city of Chicago have a leg to stand on here, being late off of the mark ?
He seemed to have 'innovated within the framework to synergize the relationship between ideas and IP and leverage the database outcome available to him at the time.' (did I type that with a straight face??!!??...Uhmm...NO!, I probably left out some marketdroidspeak out of sheer ignorance of said lexicon-thank goodness!)
He has done nothing different than a lot of companies/corporations have done (and got away with), except he has pissed off^Wimpeded a local gov't.
He will have DHS invade his local Toys-R-Us to clear the shelves for National Security, get waterboarded at Gitmo, and get put on the No Fly List to be body cavity searched. Oh, and get audited by the IRS.
Bitter? Yes I am, and disgruntled, also. This next election looks like a choice between a Turd Sandwich or a Site Casserole.
Barr? Well he seems to be 'one taco shy of a fiesta', IMHO. I think I will write in my vote for JFK or Tricky Dick Nixon...How much further harm can dead men do?
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Obviously the City of Chicago doesn't buy (or attempt to buy) many domains.
I can't wait to see how this plays out but my money is on the current owner.
Mod Parent down. -1 MetaTroublemaker
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
What if they simply register another domain and ask the guy to put up a link on his page? I'm sure that if they pay him a small amount he'll agree. It's better than losing a website and the IOC is sure to have visitors pointed to the right location.
"Also, a Scottish company cannot expect to successfully market a "McBurger" regardless of how common the "Mc" is in Scottish names"
On the other hand, I seem to remember about ten years ago that McDonalds tried to sue a local butcher in Scotland (by the name of McDonald) from making his own burgers and selling them. Seem to remember this was in The Scotsman newspaper. As I recall the judges threw the case out, told McDonalds the US company to leave Mr. McDonald the local butcher alone.
Can anybody find a reference to this case? Did it actually happen or am I imagining it? :-)
Awww, isn't it too bad that trademarks don't give you retroactive ownership of whatever you like? Next time, check BEFORE you secure the trademark to see if it's already available.
And if they had checked - what could they've done? Given up their bid to host the olympics? Or bid to host them under a different name than what the convention has been, Sydney 2000, Athens 2004, Beijing 2008...?
This is a special case - quite different from e.g. what became the national laughing stock in my country, Finland, a few years ago. Our national telco changed its brand and name and paid an agency a hefty sum to come up with a new one - only after they had held a press conference and announced it to everyone did someone bother to type in www.newstupidnamethatiwontmention.com (surreal that nobody at a telco thinks of doing that first). At the time it was the domain of some small American company the owner of which then got a nice sum out of it since they realized that it was the cheapest way to solve the problem.
Why is the site not called chicago2016discussion.com - or something similar - if that it what it is supposed to be about?
Now if you created a parody site called "mcchocolatecake.com" and testified that you had used the term with the belief that it was so outlandish that McDonald's would never use it AND that any onlooker would see the name as a parody rather than a legitimate name, then you might have a case. But if McDonald's did come out with a McChocolateCake, you might be screwed anyway. It would be up to the ICANN panel to decide.
Not necessarily.
There was a very similar situation with Malcolm McBratney, who's nickname is McBrat. He sponsored a Rugby team an put his nickname on the shorts. McDonalds tried to sue him, partially based on their plans for a childrens clothing range. Although their planned name was McKids, NOT McBrats.
Anyway, they lost. It probably didn't help them that Malcom is an IP lawyer.
You can read more at: http://www.lawyersweekly.com.au/articles/McBrats-wins-in-IP-lawyer-vs-Maccas-case_z68530.htm
Ever stop to think
"he is operating in the same line of business whether he thinks so or not. He's doing that by using the name Chicago1026 *on the internet* which is where the official Chicago Olympic Bid team are working too!
Or, alternatively, because the bid team say so.
Either way works for ICANN.
What if Olympic commitee would make www.olympics.com kind domain where they would host the neutral information about olympics (all the sports rules, informations etc) and then easy to find links to every olympic happening what is coming. Then user would go just to "www.olympics.com" and in front page would be easy-to-click button for the server on the countries where the 2016, 2020 etc olympics are kept. Then you would not have anykind problems with domains when you could have the olympics site running example on www.chicago.com/olympics
THIS IS A DIFFERENT SITUATION.
Shit. When a mass-murdering baby-shagging, infant-munching scumball gets killed by the government, we will all have nothing bad to say. But when someone protesting for peace gets arrested, tried for terrorism and killed by the government, we will have plenty bad to say.
Is this hypocrisy or is it because they are two different reasons?
You decide.
done...next question please
Well that would be me. To avoid being slashdotted to hell I'm not posting the link to my blog but you can figure it out if you try hard enough.
In 2000 I purchased the .net domain of my site intentionally avoiding the .com since I'm not a commerce site. Fast forward to 2005 when some wrestler named Raige came into being. On top of that I was sent a notice to immediately surrender my domain to this douche bag.
I actually was lucky enough to have college legal resources available to me and brought the issue to them. Fact is, since he didn't exist when I purchased the domain he had no standing what so ever. I replied to the letter with some legal mumbo jumbo and they replied with a threat of a lawsuit. I told them to go ahead but that I was willing to fight all the way.
The issues that come with this guys site are the following .com site... that means it commerce... if it's not he might be in trouble. However all that he would have to do is sell a T-shirt through www.geekstuff.com or something.
1) Did he create the site knowingly of previous site names the olympics used?
Does NOT matter. You cannot trademark a naming scheme. You CAN trademark a name. So while a symbol, or McChicken can be trademarked... "Mc" cannot. It could be argued in court if someone made a McChickenWafer...
2) Is this guy a commercial entity? He has a
3) Does he actively use the site? If he didn't... he would be viewed as a squatter and smished. However, the site is actively in use... meaning that this isn't a problem.
In short, ICANN will not be able to take the name and the Olympics will have to create another site or purchase it from him.
Not because he's particularly insightful, just because he doesn't deserve a flamebait mod (by a long shot).
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
The subject line says it all. He was there first (in 2004 no less), now they're all BAAAWing about how they can't do anything without it. Panzy ass losers, if you ask me. Had they not thought about things like "chicago-olympics.com"? No? Well then they're 'tards. Kid wins. Move along.
1) Ye who registers FIRST gets the domain. 2) IP/copyright/trademark/etc don't apply.... 3) Too bad if mcdougals dot com or something points to something not related to that company. 4) If you want the domain so bad you negotiate with the owner to purchase it. All this BS over allowing IP..... early registration in new TLD's etc. is BS..... When a new TLD opens or you open a new company you register the domains that are available to your or approach the owner to sell a registred domain to you. First come, first server. Simple, easy, and no problems until the lawyers show up.
1311393600 - Back to Black
Basically, McDonalds is considered to have a "family" of marks; short of an actual Scottish name (and even, perhaps, then, if associated with fast food), putting "Mc-" in front of your business name is a good way to bring an army of red-shoed lawyers down on yourself. Doubly so if the "Mc-" is in front of food names.
It was the same with the european sweets factory Ferrero. They had a milk chocolate specially marketed to german children called "kinderSchokolade" (I guess since about 35 years now). Later one they sold more "kinder-" labelled chocolate products: "kinderUeberraschung" (kinder surprise), kinderPingui and what not. In several countries they got a trademark on "kinder-" in front of product names.
Then the dotcom boom came, and in Austria a marketing agency launched kinder.at. Ferrero sent the lawyers, argueing that this was domain squatting. They lost. They had all the trademark rights, they could prove they were defending kinder- in all variations. Nothing helped.
The judge wrote in his finding of fact: "Kinder sind nicht in erster Linie Lebensmittel" (children aren't food in the first place).
Touché
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
who actually goes to the official Olympics page? Any time I need information about a sporting event, at least in the US, I go to ESPN or turn on the TV. And which ever broadcaster has the rights, believe its NBC will have all the streaming videos. Why on earth would anyone ever need to go to the "official page" ?
Anybody remember Etoys, founded 1997, who tried to shut down Etoy.com (registered 1995) for trademark infringement?
This is too funny. As I was walking thru O'Hara, I heard a commercial on the radio saying something about visiting Chicago2016.ORG. I wondered if .COM was already taken. Personally, if the guy can justify his purchase at the time, then it should stand. Hey, too bad for them.
This discussion is great and everything but shouldn't these opinions be directed at ICANN?
How about take what you have to say and send it here:
http://www.icann.org/cgi/contact/
Thuth
You can see the difficulty.
No. I can't, you schmuck. Just shut up, you are so freakin' stupid AKAImBatman.
Hrm, let's see. He's got law students backing him up. You have... ? Oh yeah! Jack and his friend Shit.
I once worked at a place where they were trademarking a .com name for use on the internet. I went and looked it up and it was not even registered yet.
IANAL, but isn't just easier to register it first? You know, cause then no one else can get it...
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Now, I know many many people on here will hate this post because well I think a reasonable price should be determined and the site should be relinquished. Begin hate replies now while I finish. If this person was using the site to plan a big party, a wedding, or some other legitimate business purpose, then the domain should remain his. But, no this person is squatting on a domain for what amounts to "I want to make a social statement against economic development", because we all know how terrible it was for China. To reiterate if the site was being used for legitimate business reasons, then Chicago be damned. But, no he is trying to use subterfuge to make his voice heard.
If they really want the name so bad, they should just make a reasonable offer to purchase it, not cry about their mistake. Or... they could just register a different name that is available and still makes sense... *SHOCK!*. In fact... why dont they use the official olympics domain for all olympics from now on? Using a subdomain, they could easily have Chicago2016.olympic.org...
Battle City
I don't believe it.
(even though we didn't register it, pay for it, or think of it first) This guy truly comes off as a self righteous jerk with delusions of entitlement. It's comments like that that really make me question our education system.
After all, we're talking about something scheduled for after 2012-12-21.
Everything seemed fine to me until I heard from the local NBC station here in Chicago he also owns Tokyo2016.com. Hmmm??? Visit this and tell me it still seem like he is not squatting.
Not anymore. (No, it wasn't me.)
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
I would agree with you, except that it seems that the IOC has devolved into a bunch of self-important moneygrubbing f***tards, and as such deserves neither our respect nor our support.
Frankly, as appalled as I was at how China forcibly relocated thousands in Bejing to make room for the Olympics, it's a drop in the bucket compared to the fact that the IOC did absolutely nothing about it... guess they were too busy counting all their profits.
Bitter? no, not me. :)
The Digital Sorceress
Ladies and gentlemen, please RTFA:
Frayne in recent years has laid claim to 40 online addresses that combine a city name and year, including Tokyo2016.com.
This guy is a squatter, plain and simple, and deserves to be slapped down.
In case you don't know, there's actually a chain named "McDonalds Coffee Shop" in Scotland (at least), and it has nothing to do with hamburgers. http://picasaweb.google.com/jpe.salo/Skotlanti#5064951421888567954
Chronologically late.
In the state of Washington there are a lot of people who wouldn't mind being able to Olympic as part of a business name. They are people who live on the Olympic peninsula and used to have the right to use the name before the IOC/USOC got greedy.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
jesus christ fuck off.
Buy it or go away quietly. Thanks, Chaz
I thought the Scottish were just Irish that went looking for crappier weather?
[UID-HeinzIntel]
What a total Kroc!
[UID-HeinzIntel]
Instead of fighting over the domain name, the USOC should pull Chicago out of the running and promote LA in 2016 instead.
Why? Because LA still has all of the facilities from the 1984 Summer Games, is ready to handle the influx of people, and the weather is better.
Besides, would you want the world to play baseball (needs to come back in 2016) in Wriggly Field or Dodger Stadium? More people can see the game in LA (56,000) then in Chicago (35,000?)...
As always, just my $0.02 worth.
This case will almost certainly come to a question of "good faith registration," and the fact that the registrant registered a large number of likely Olympic sites followed by Olympic years
To me all that implies is that he evidently intended to run a site related to those olympics, and like the rest of us has no idea where the olympics will be. That's not bad faith; that's common sense.
The fact that he's used the particular pattern the olympics has favored recently is the ONLY issue. But, frankly I'm not satisfied that city-year as a PATTERN is specific enough to assert trademark over.
After all, Expo uses it too... Zaragoza2008.com, as does the Canadian Ultimate Championships (Calgary2008.com), as does the World Science Fiction Convention (Denver2008.com)...
Jakarta2008.com is being used for some massive religious convention...
Washington2008.com belongs to the Barack Obama campaign.
Plus the innumerable cities that own their own name-year domains that redirect to their page of current events. And nevermind the dogpile of domains used by those pointless advertising directories.
I just don't think the olympics can claim they own a trademark on the pattern here.
Mr. Uzi Nissan started a company called Nissan Computers, way back when Nissan cars were sold under the Datsun marque. It didn't stop Nissan Motors sueing him over his nissan.com domain (which he had properly registered and used for his company). Nissan Motors mostly won in a series of bizarre precedent-setting decisions, and Mr. Nissan is about a million bucks out of pocket in legal expenses.
http://www.lctjournal.washington.edu/Vol2/a002Rozsnyai.html
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/careers/careerstemplate.jsp?ArticleId=i100302
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
One of the huge issues in these unbalanced, unfair, proceedings to take a domain name away from someone with obviously much more foresight than the Chicago Organizing Committee is the fact that he's asking for donations. FOR SOME STUPID REASON the very idea of making any kind of money (donations, ads, sales of merchandise related or not) is always HELD AGAINST the original domain name holder. The people trying to seize it without paying a fair price for it (fair is what the market will bear) certainly plan to use it to raise money, yet its a huge strike against the original owner if he used it for that reason.
Also, that domain is a WHOLE LOT MORE VALUABLE today due to the Streisand Effect!
Lastly, Chicago DOES NOT DESERVE the Olympics in 2016 because clearly their Olympic committee is obviously dominated by LIARS AND THIEVES! This case proves it.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
sounds like some sort of intestinal upset or STD
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
My point was this is irrelevant, as the "pattern" names do not belong to any single entity. Actually, I'm dubious about the "Mc" prefix as well, and tend to think that McDonald's vs any small company will not be decided on the merits; but at least "Mc" is based on a person's name. The name of a city and a year are much, much more generic and do not belong to any of the parties.
Here on /. we tend to root for the little guy and boo the big companies
Yes. But here I have no sympathy for either party. The owner of the site was just speculating the name will be valuable. But the committee have no right (IMHO) to the site, and really no one is going to confuse their site, which properly, for once, is on a .org now. They don't sell click through ads so bulking up their traffic should be of no concern to them.
lol its stuff like this that makes me love /. Watching people get flamed for not getting jokes on encryption or written in perl. Being a tool and registering domains. Sure we still get goatse links on occasion but we dont have a vast deluge of racist morons or religious nuts (unless mac counts). When we are pricks its atleast in fantastically nerdy fashion.
I don't care, so what if he has that url... its not liek it screams chicago olympics for 2016...please
get a life, chicagoolympics.com or 2016olympics.com or if you have a lot of cash...2016olympicsinchicago.com etc... there are so many other ones that get the point across, and that are not so close as cocacola.com to say I stole your url...ya know!
From the article:
"One local trademark attorney, who is not involved in the dispute, noted that city and year combinations have become common for Olympic bids.
"Chicago 2016 falls right in line with the names Olympic committees have used for years," said Jeff Handelman, chairman of the trademark litigation group at Brinks Hofer Gilson & Lione. "If what the gentleman is doing is duplicating a well-established naming pattern that Olympic committees have used for so many years, I find that interesting. I wonder what the intent is." "
So, what do you want the Olympics people to do? register EVERY city and year combination, just in case?
Really,
I could start an event called "San Fran 2009.05" and park the page and announce that I will have a major pornograthon scheduled. Whether or not I ultimate line up the funding and get more than a few hundred visits is irrelevant. Same for high school kids who might want to register their enmity toward their high school or city, and celebrate their graduation by saying, "Marshville-2015" or some such name. Whether or not "Marshville" is aware that it has funding programmed to fix sewer and other infrastructure woes and plans to have a massive county-wide celebration in 2015 is irrelevant. They'd better snap up the page, start advertising on it, and have an activity that is worthy (or unworthy) of using the name.
What IS relevant is that the Olympics/their sponsors committed slept. If they had been doing due diligence, they'd have registered all of them, or asked the international arbitartion/relevant standards/registrars groups to blacklist names of existing trademark/sequential/periodic events and make trademark holders pay for the maintenance of such lists, and to park the pages if parking would be prudent.
For this:
"We certainly see Chicago2016.com as the logical default domain for our site, and we believe having someone else control it is misleading for people seeking information about Chicago's bid,' said Patrick Sandusky, a spokesman for Chicago 2016, a moniker protected by trademark.""
That is sheer stupidity. Their "natural right" or "logical default domain" is a hollow argument if they KNOW they have a name that is easy to preempt.
There are lots of people named "McDonald" who might want to open a website and a business named "McDonald" (but not "McDonalds"), and they'd get their asses sued off. Well, except in the UK, from what I understand, since a well-regarded/immensely wealthy/historical individual with the name would simply order McD's to surrender or quit business in the UK... There are some 100 people with my surname, and if i want to use solely the letters in my name, i'd likely be SOL. But, if I use my letters in combination with some product or idea or place, I'd have a better chance. If another hostile person of the same name or a country or entity wanted to challenge me, they'd have to shut up simply because there are many many surnames and people with common names, and they'd have to learn to differentiate their activity more creatively.
I have nothing against the Olympics in general. They just went to sleep at the wheel and they should just accept that. They can Say "Chicago-Olympics-2016", and have a more legit, more clear, more explanatory name that. The nerve of some people...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
I'll bet that if you named your product:
MicroBird Softhouse, or
SoftBird Microhouse
they'd still come after you, in sheer bad faith descending upon you.
But, by that token, they should not have been allowed to bully MikeRowe, either. It's not as if he had a viable, contending software company to topple ms' "good name".
In another post to this topic, I pointed out (like the person bringing up Mc" prefixes on names), there is someone wealthy/historic in Europe/England/UK who is in the position to deprive McDonalds of ever doing business in the UK should they ever tell him his name on restaurants is an infringement on "their" name. They have a living succession of humans using the name. IIRC, McDonalds is an entity made up, only "recently".
Just my 1.99 cents...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
vux984, I'd mod you up on this one if I could spend my mod points in this thread... all of that may be key - if not, at least helpful, to this guy's case.
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
Of course he's going to make money off the name, and he doesn't need to sell it. Games sponsors are going to need to advertise on the site because many people are going to be mislead into going there. The deception is quite obviously deliberate.
Here are a few more factors: .com name but isn't carrying on a "commercial" business; .com sites before other tld sites with the same name.
- he has registered a
- the URL completion in many browsers will return
So, IMO he's going to lose the case - and quite rightly. He's a smart guy who has clearly anticipated this very conflict arising. He chose to gamble.
The anarchists and the amateur constitutional lawyers out there will support him simply because he's doing something opportunistic and disruptive.
As for the COCOG, the IOC can now register and manage their own TLD, so all future games cities should be able to register "year.city.country.olympicgames".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_of_the_Five_Rings#International_Olympic_Committee
International Olympic Committee
One legal issue for Legend of the Five Rings involved the use of a symbol that consisted of five interlocking rings, arranged in essentially a star pattern. This symbol was used for several years in the role-playing game and featured prominently on the backings of the cards in the collectible card game. The United States Olympic Committee sued Wizards of the Coast, who at that time owned Legend of the Five Rings, over the logo, because a special Act of the U.S. Congress gave them the exclusive rights to any symbol consisting of five interlocking rings around my dick.
The only way to completely resolve the issue was to quit using the symbol. For the role-playing game this meant very little, but for the collectible card game it meant that the backing of the cards had to be redesigned, which left players with a mix of cards that essentially resulted in marked decks. In an attempt to appease the players, Wizards released the first set with the different backs â" Spirit Wars â" bundled with opaque sleeves that would obscure the designs on the backs of the cards, allowing players to use any mix of cards in their decks.
Hehehee.. bunch of dorks want to take on U.S. congreese
I rape myself in my sparetime
2016Chicago.com is free.
Eh?
whois 2016chicago.com tells me:
Record last updated on 28-Mar-2008.
Record expires on 27-Jul-2009.
Record created on 27-Jul-2005.
2016chicago.com hasn't been "free" since 2005, at least. What were you looking at to give you the idea that it was recently available?
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
http://staplerstaplerstaplerstapler.com/
I don't think anyone can pressure him to let go of the domain. The domain clearly is not a trademark name, Chicago and 2016 are widespread words, dictionary words to which no single individual or company holds legal naming rights.
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