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Domain-Name Wars, Rise of the Cybersquatters
CWmike writes "When FreeLegoPorn.com began publishing pornographic images created with Lego toys, Lego acted quickly. "The content available on the site consisted of animated mini-figures doing very explicit things. We were not amused," says Peter Kjaer, an attorney for Denmark-based Lego. Lego didn't go to court. Instead it filed a complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organization, which ruled in its favor. The domain registrar for FreeLegoPorn.com, GoDaddy.com, eventually shut down the site and transferred the domain name to Lego under ICANN rules. But it's not just Lego and Verizon that are suffering. Green energy is a hot topic, so cybersquatters have been targeting wind and solar energy start-ups. And malicious sites can create havoc with a brand's reputation. Cybersquatting activity rose by 18% last year, with a documented 440,584 cybersquatting sites in the fourth quarter of last year alone, according to MarkMonitor's annual Brandjacking Index report. And WIPO cited an 8% jump in dispute filings in 2008, to 2,329 complaints — a new record. Now, ICANN is preparing to open a potentially unlimited number of new top-level domains as early as the first quarter of 2010."
"The domain registrar for FreeLegoPorn.com, GoDaddy.com, eventually shut down the site and transferred the domain name to Lego under ICANN rules." So if a domain name uses a trademarked name in an 'offensive' manner, it's perfectly fine to strip ownership of the domain from the person who registered it and then give it to the company whose name was used? - Similar situation from 2003: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/04/nyregion/04AMBE.html There are a few domain names I wanted that the damn domain name resellers beat me to, all I need to do is trademark a name that is a slight misspelling of the name and it's all mine! - Don't ruin my plan with your silly logic.
"The Y chromosome is genetic. The odds are very good that if you are male then your father was too." -Internet Commenter
They should make it where the price of a domain doubles for each domain you have registered.
1. $35 ...etc.
2. $70
3. $105
That would raise the annual price of owning two domains to $105 and $210 for three, $420 for four, $840 for five and so on. That keeps the price relatively cheap for people who just want a personal domain or small businesses, but the domain squaters will be rendered out of business for the most part.
I want to see someone squat 1,000 domains at those prices.
Cant afford to send a legal team to Sweden? Then you lose. Company I work for had their domain (and thus their company name) taken away, not because it was being misused or anything like that, but because we couldn't afford to go defend ourselves. Now if you go to the domain there's just a diatribe against us full of false claims and BS.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
"Fair use" is one of those things you can't really determine until you go to court. Granted - that's sort of the way it is with anything that involves a court. But fair use is nebulous and tends to shift from court case to court case.
Parody has been held as fair use. But even parody has limits. Ask the Penny Arcade guys about their infamous Strawberry Shortcake strip. American Greetings came after them for use of the Strawberry Shortcake character. Their intent, if I remember right, was to use a popular 80s icon to parody American McGee's treatment of another childhood favorite - Alice in Wonderland. Penny Arcade's lawyer recommended they give in. If the Penny Arcade guys were parodying Strawberry Shortcake, they might have had reasonable footing to start their fight. But as they were parodying American McGee, it didn't give them license to use Strawberry Shortcake under fair use. Again - they could certainly take it to court as you can't really tell how a fair use suit will shake out until you do. But following their lawyers' advice isn't a bad idea.
Lego porn? I'd expect the issue to be similar. Are they really parodying Lego? Or using the Lego brand to parody something else?
I agree. Anyone have any idea how much it costs to take a cybersquatter to court? My band's domain name is currently being squatted on. There are alternatives but nothing that's any good is available. I registered something that's a mediocre replacement at best just as a back up, but it'd be nice to be able get the name I want seeing as how no one is actually using it.
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
Seconded. In fact, I remember another case where the court—wrongly—grabbed a domain name simply because of its resemblance to another site: etoy.com vs. etoys.com. etoy came first, but somehow eToys managed to suck up to a judge and lay claim to etoy.com, however temporarily. It may have had something to do with the fact that eToys thought it had a trademark for a vibrant, useful commerce site while that Johnny-come-earlier was pushing that wishy-washy pinko art.
This is the sort of thing the judiciary has to consider carefully when looking at a case where domain names rub a little too close together. And with the press continuing for domain names, the situation will only get worse.
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
IMO the idea of the domain name is so ten years ago. The explosion of TLDs makes it more so, as it's no longer possible to get true exclusivity on a term. In the age of Google and SEO, what matters is the number of inbound links, the naming of file names, and such. Not the domain name. I say this as someone who once made $10,000 by cyber-squatting on entegris.com back in the day (thank you Network Solutions and the ability to reserve a name 30 days before you paid for it or it just lapsed) .
There's a new, free typosquatting scan tool at aliasencore.com. It shows you all the registered .COM domain names that are one character misspellings of any Alexa top 100,000 site you enter. It also displays screenshots of those typosquatting sites. It's a nifty way to get a quick idea of the rampant growth of typosquatting (which is a subset of cybersquatting). Here's an example that shows the 431 registered .COM domain names that are one character away from google.com.
Full disclosure: I am Graham MacRobie, the CEO of Alias Encore, Inc. We help companies recover cybersquatting domain names, but we focus solely on "slam-dunk" typosquatting cases, not questionable cybersquatting cases such as the one mentioned in this article.
WHOIS:confirms. LEGO indeed now owns a domain advertising Lego Porn.
Next question: What are they going to use it for? :P
Apple Computers and Apple Records coexist because of multiple out-of-court settlements, and the only court ruling appears to be about interpretation of clauses in the first settlement. I don't think you can use that as an example for either side of this argument, except perhaps to say that Apple Computers probably signed their original settlement because they thought they were going to lose.