Tag Archives: legal

Thu 16th October 2008
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Kentucky Judge Upholds Domain Seizure Order - Thursday afternoon Judge Thomas Wingate issued a ruling that he would not dismiss the case brought against domain owners which included seizure of their names. A forfeiture hearing has been scheduled for November 17th. A copy of the decision can be seen here More on this soon… Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Bret Fausett on Blogging, Kentucky, and UDRP - An interview with Bret Fausett. I often claim that Domain Name Wire was the first blog-style site covering the business of domain names. I add “business” as a qualifier because I know I can’t claim to be the first to blog about domain names. Lawyer Bret Fausett started blogging at Lextext.com back in 2000. His goal was to publicize information about ICANN that wasn’t getting much press. He told ICANN they should try to put his blog out of business, and ... read more ...
Fri 10th October 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Schilling and Berryhill Win Another UDRP - Frank Schilling, with help of John Berryhill, successfully defend domain name. Frank Schilling’s Name Administration has won an arbitration case brought by a trampoline company. Domain name attorney John Berryhill represented Schilling. NAOP, LLC, which apparently manufactures trampolines under the JUMPRO brand, filed for arbitration. I can find little information about the company, and jumpro.com is in use by a company unrelated to the trampoline manufacturer. The ... read more ...
Wed 8th October 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Network Solutions Fights for Domain Owners in Kentucky - Some good news came out of the Kentucky domain hearings yesterday. Internet Commerce Association, which defends the rights of domain owners, sent Executive Director Michael Collins to Kentucky for the “Domaingate” hearings. You can read his synopsis on the ICA’s web site. The most interesting news is that Network Solutions appeared to be the only registrar to send representatives to fight the illegal and unprecedented transfer of domain names to the Commonwealth ... read more ...
Mon 6th October 2008
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
UPDATE: Max Hardcore is Sentenced - A few months ago we had a post about Max Hardcore (real name Paul F. Little), an adult film producer that was found guilty of multiple obscenity offenses, including charges he transported obscene material over the Internet. The court handed out its sentence on Friday and Max Hardcore was sentenced to 46 months in prison. In addition to the prison term, Judge Susan Bucklew ordered Little to pay a US$7,500 fine and to forfeit all profits from the distribution of the films he was convicted of distributing. In ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Yahoo-Google Deal on Hold - Ad sharing deal postponed, but deal wouldn’t have immediate effect on domain names anyway. Over the weekend Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) announced a delay to their planned online advertising sharing agreement to give the U.S. government more time to review the deal. Although Google and Yahoo provide the bulk of pay-per-click revenue to domain name owners, this deal would have little impact on paid domain name parking in the short run. The pact ... read more ...
Sat 4th October 2008
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
ICA File’s Brief in Kentucky Domain Seizure Action - The Internet Commerce Association (ICA) filed a “friend of the court” brief yesterday on the Kentucky domain name seizure. ica-amicus-brief (Adobe Reader Required) The brief attacks the governor action on several grounds. First the Kentucky law which was cited by the state in taking the action relates to “Mechanical Gambling Devices” which domains simply are not under the state law’s definition. Second the brief attacks the ruling for referring to domain names as property.  The brief points ... read more ...
Thu 2nd October 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Canadian Domainer Association Launches - New association to further interests of Canadian domainers. A new domainer association is launching at the Domain Convergence conference in Niagara Falls next week. Domain Owners Association of Canada (DOAC) aims to protect and increase the value of its members’ domain names. Peter Maxymych, President of Emall.ca, is founding the organization. In a statement about the launch, Domain Convergence organizer Frank Michlick said, “We are looking forward to helping ... read more ...
Mon 29th September 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Lessons from ConAgra and Defensive Domain Registrations - How ConAgra played it smart by registering PeanutButterRecall.com, and lessons for other companies. [Editor’s note: Tim Morse, President and CEO of Penguin Search Engine Services, recently investigated defensive domain registrations. He became interested in the topic after discovering that food company ConAgra (NYSE: CAG) registered the domain PeanutButterRecall.com in the wake of the 2007 peanut butter recall but never used the domain. On Morse’s blog you can ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
“We The People, In Order to Acquire a More Perfect Domain Name…” - Legal services company tries to lay claim to WeThePeople.com. A legal document company that operates at the domain name WeThePeopleUSA.com has lost its attempt to secure the generic domain name WeThePeople.com through UDRP arbitration. In a case decided at National Arbitration Forum, the panel found by a narrow margin that We The People, L.L.C. didn’t have a trademark in the term “We the People”, but only in the term in addition to a drawing. This is not ... read more ...
Fri 26th September 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Governor Beshear Has Bitten Off More Than He Can Chew - Governor of Kentucky’s drastic step to seize domain names may backfire. Beshear: Public Enemy #1 I haven’t written about what’s going on in Kentucky yet. Frankly, I was so dumbfounded by Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear’s action to seize online gambling domain names that I didn’t know what to write. Yesterday I got a call from a reporter for The Courier-Journal and I spent about a half hour talking through the issues with her. (You can see her article here.) ... read more ...
Wed 24th September 2008
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
ICA Issues Statement On Kentucky Domain Seizures - The Internet Commerce Association (ICA) released the following statement regarding the domain seizures in Kentucky: “”””The Internet Commerce Association is aware of the extreme concern of ICA members regarding the action of the Kentucky Attorney General ordering the seizure of 141 gaming related domain names. It appears that there may be no statutory basis for this unprecedented action, that Kentucky may lack sufficient jurisdictional grounds and that it also may violate the Commerce Clause ... read more ...
Tue 23rd September 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Chad Wright Defends a South Pole(.com) - Follow up: Panel finds against clothing manufacturer. Photo from Wikimedia Commons Here’s a follow up to Domain Name Wire’s story in July about Wicked Fashions filing a UDRP for SouthPole.com. Wicked Fashions manufacturers a line of clothing called SouthPole. Domain owner Chad Wright has won the dispute (full decision from National Arbitration Forum). The panel found that the domain wasn’t registered in bad faith and that the respondent had legitimate interest ... read more ...
Thu 18th September 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Nike and Wells Fargo Join CADNA - Companies join associations representing trademark interests. Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse, an organization of mostly Fortune 500 companies, announced today that it has two new members and is concerned about changes at ICANN. Nike (NYSE: NKE) and Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) have joined the organization. These companies are no strangers to the domain and trademark world. Both companies have filed dozens of UDRPs dating back to 2000. Nike’s most recent victory ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Chicago Man Files Lawsuit to Keep Chicago2016.com - Follow up to Domain Name Wire story about Chicago2016.com. The battle over Chicago2016.com is turning into an olympic-scale battle. Stephen Frayne Jr., who owns Chicago2016.com, has filed a lawsuit to keep the domain name that is currently pending a UDRP decision at WIPO. As noted in Domain Name Wire’s previous article, Chicago 2016’s United States Olympic Committee (USOC) uses Chicago2016.org as its web site. In the lawsuit, Frayne argues USOC is violating ... read more ...
Fri 12th September 2008
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Virgina Supreme Court KO’s Anti-Spam Law - The Virginia Supreme Court overturned the state’s “anti-spam” law, enacted in 2003, to prevent the sending of masses of unwanted e-mail, because it violated the First Amendment right to freedom of speech. The ruling, comes from the criminal prosecution of Jeremy Jaynes of Raleigh, N.C, who has been characterized as one of the world’s top 10 most prolific spammers. Mr. Jaynes who was the first person ever tried and under the law, was convicted in 2004, of sending tens of thousands of e-mails ... read more ...
Tue 9th September 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Rick Schwartz Resigns from ICA - Schwartz says Internet Commerce Association headed in wrong direction. Rick Schwartz, co-founder and Board Member of Internet Commerce Association (ICA), and the face behind TRAFFIC conferences, has resigned from ICA. In a scathing post on his blog, Schwartz wrote: While the ICA has done some good things, it has missed too many opportunities to be more relevant. Too many opportunities to look out for domainers and the best interests of the industry IMHO. Too many ... read more ...
Mon 8th September 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Arbitrators Define DeepThroat.com - Arbitration panel finds in favor of domain registrant in DeepThroat.com case. “Honey, I’m just doing some homework for a legal case I’m working on.” That’s what the three panelists in a recent UDRP arbitration through National Arbitration Forum must have told their spouses as they decided the fate of DeepThroat.com. The panel found in favor of the domain owner, who was represented by John Berryhill. The complainant, Arrow Productions, owns the rights to ... read more ...
Thu 4th September 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
There’s a Lot of B.S. Around BS.com - Domain name at center of lawsuit and WIPO action. The previous owner of BS.com failed to recover the domain in a WIPO arbitration. In a decision dated September 1, the three person panel found that the complainant failed to prove it had a trademark for the term “BS”. But there’s more to the story. The complainant once owned the domain name from 1997 until 2003. In 2003 the domain name was acquired by Hazan Ozdemir. In 2005 the complainant filed a lawsuit ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Editorial: How a Domain Industry Can Clean Itself Up - The domain business is a good business with a bad image. What can be done about it? Earlier today I read DNJournal’s weekly sales recap. There were some good sales, including RoomDividers.com at $75,000 (congratulations, Rick). But all of the good sales were overshadowed by a couple bad sales: Mozzilla.com for $40,000 and wwwMatch.com at $11,100. Neither of these domain names would stand a chance in UDRP challenges. Both of them are typos of famous web sites. ... read more ...
Wed 3rd September 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Details Emerge on Sofa.com Heist - Here’s a follow up to a story Domain Name Wire covered in August 2007. In 2007 it emerged that the sale of Sofa.com for $200,000 in 2005 was not approved by the actual owner of the domain. An employee sold the domain to what is now an online sofa company. He managed to have the buyers wire the money directly to his personal account. (See $200,000 Sofa.com Domain Name Stolen by Employee) An article in RealBusiness gives more juicy details about the purchase. ... read more ...
Tue 2nd September 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
New York Times Correctly Defines Cybersquatting - New York Times article offers up correct definition related to trademarks. It seems that the domain industry is quick to pounce on mainstream journalists who broadly define cybersquatting to include what many of us would refer to as domain investing — buying generic domain names. Perhaps we should pat a journalist on the back when he correctly defines “cybersquatting”, as New York Times writer Steve Lohr did in his August 31 article “A New Battle Is Beginning ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Google Chrome Domain Names - Google remained tight-lipped about its new browser. So who registered GoogleChrome.com a month ago? By now you’ve probably read that Google is releasing a web browser called Google Chrome. Perhaps you’re feeling the same way I am: great, one more browser to optimize for. Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) did a good job keeping the lid on its browser announcement. There have been rumors of a Google browser for many years, in part because the domain name GBrowser.com was ... read more ...
Mon 1st September 2008
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Be Careful How You Title Your Domains - According to Fasthosts a webhosting firm located in the UK, disputes over domain name ownership increased by 30 per cent in the past 12 months. Companies typically found their claims of ownership were harder to prove or defend if they had registered a domain in an employee or advisor’s name. Fasthost’s report illustrates an issue that has effected domainers and non-domainers as well. Corporations usually have an employees contact information on the whois record. If the employee is fired, quits ... read more ...
Thu 28th August 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
BMEzine.com Picks adult BME.com in WIPO Dispute - Gregory Ricks loses three character domain name. Long time domainer Gregory Ricks has lost the domain name BME.com to BMEzine.com, LLC. Ricks lost the case because of the content of recent parked pages on the domain and because the panel found that his initial registration in 2000 was not relevant because he transferred the domain between entities since then. BMEzine.com is an ezine about body piercing, tattoos, etc. For the past couple years the domain has shown ... read more ...