How Could MySpace.co.uk Have Been 'Abusively' Registered Six Years Before MySpace Existed?
from the time-warp dept
Arbitration rulings over domain name disputes sometimes have hard to understand results. Take, for example, the fact that MySpace has now won the right to the MySpace.co.uk domain. The arbitrator found that the domain name was an "abusive registration," despite the fact that the owner had registered it in 1997, six years before MySpace existed. However, by setting up a parked page and putting ads on it, the arbitrator found that the registration was apparently retroactively abusive. This seems open to rather widespread abuse. If you want to own someone else's domain name, all you have to do is build a bigger company based on that name and then point to their parked page and demand they hand it over?
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Filed Under: abusive registrations, arbitration, domain names
Companies: myspace
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let this be a lesson to all lazzy asses out there, if you constantly do nothing people will sho up and take your shit.
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Nothing wrong
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Edit: NM, the guy blocked the site via robot.txt so it isn't on the Wayback Machine.
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ooh ooh ooh
http://64.233.169.147 it!
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M'no.
It was eleven years ago. Six years before MySpace even existed. Personally, I don't think this was fair, albeit the fact the buyer wasn't using it.
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Michael Januik Fan
So tonight, I humbly submit for your approval, Januik 2005 Merlot.
Wow. What a fantastic wine. Seriously. There's a discrepancy- Either 148 or 248 cases were produced. Either way, it's in limited supply. I bought a case when it was at $28 a bottle and sent it out to friends and family. Now it's $40 a bottle.
If your ever in Redmond WA, be sure to stop by the Januik Winery for a tour. Who says you need to go to UW to be a good influence in society? This should be on Woot.com
Here's the specs:
Klipsun Vineyard, Red Mountain
Our 2004 Klipsun Vineyard Merlot is a wine we think measures up to previously acclaimed vintages, including the 2004, 2003 and 2002 (rated by Wine Advocate 90+, 94 and 93 respectively). With only 148 cases of this beauty produced, chances are it won’t last long. Rich and lush, ripe and juicy, this is a fruit-forwarded wine scented with raspberry, chocolate and vanilla. What’s not to like about Merlot this seductive?
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seriously?
If you writeoff people as squatters and justify taking away their rights, dont be surprised when your rights are the next to go. scary stuff.
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bahah
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if you buy something, it's yours. the person(s) with the myspace.co.uk didn't abusively do shit, besides be lethargic with his domain.
this is unjust. im glad i just use myspace for spamming tards, thats about all it's good for anyway.
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Abusive... which side??
Either way, I think it's scary that so many of you think that just because the guy doesn't use the site in the same way as myspace means that he's abusive. If his site was nearly identical to myspace... that would be copyright infringement or something else illegal. They should have just bought the site so the guy would hand it over instead of making it a legal battle against someone who... according to many other recent suits... should have been able to sue myspace instead! Honestly... he was using the name, and then they showed up and made a tidy profit using a name he already had. Isn't that worse according to similar law suits?
Anyway... I might go out and register my name nationally even though I've got a business license for my state... wouldn't want any of you suing me for my domain and winning since I haven't been using it lately.
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Cyber Squatting ??
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Re: Sorry Anonymous
That reminds me of another story. AutoZone had to change it's name after almost 2 years of operation and huge regional store location settings. They changed it from AutoShack. The Radio people were too distraught.
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What about mine?
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Fair use
You do not own the web name/address but merely pay for the right to use it (like you do with an ip address).
It is public domain ...
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Re: Fair use
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Re:
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Re: Abusive... which side??
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Maybe if he trademarked it...
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wrong
These people are using trademark infringement as a means to take away property from others. Trademark infringement is SUPPOSED to mean you are using markings or names in ways which could lead to confusion with another mark and lead a consumer to think you are, or are associated with, the other party. If i have a squatter site that doesnt look anything like myspace, then I am not infringing myspace. I dont know what this site looked like, but the only way they could be guilty is if it were obvious that they were trying to confuse people into thinking they were on the official myspace site. If they were doing this, they are guilty. But Im pretty sure they were not, and thus this case should never have taken legal property away and given it to myspace.com.
And thus i repeat, this is really scary. Trademark was never meant to be this.
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Myspace has no right to it whatsoever, regardless of its usage.
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SO
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Re:
Techically, with enough time and will, you can take any parked page you want. Buying domains just to place ads and re-sell them is against the rules.
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Crap. I'm so screwed.
So, based on this article, if someone wants my domain, I'll have no choice but to hand it over?
Ha. I dare anyone to try. Even with compensation, I'm not giving it up. I'm absolutely tired of Corporate America feeling their name takes precedence over common sense to obtain the website with some respect.
Every day, stories like this just makes it more difficult to dispute the logic of groups wanting to take down skyscrapers.
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There's nothing new under the sun
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Won't Someone Please Think Of The Children
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Re: Content
> project site it would be different, but from
> TFA it seems it was just another ad farm.
Since when does someone have to justify what they do with a web domain they have legitimately registered and purchased? This guy only had ads and links on his page... so what? If he legitimately obtained the domain, he's entitled to do whatever he wants with it-- he could put up nothing but the words "This is my site" and leave it there for years if he wants to. It's not for you, the government, or anyone else to start policing which content is legitimate and which is illegitimate.
This is the same sort of thinking that got us the disgusting Kelo decision by the Supreme Court-- where a city can now come in and take your land from you and hand it over to a big company like Wal-Mart or Home Depot because they've decided the big company will make more productive use of it than you will.
This idea that big companies have more of a right to domains (or land or just about anything else in society) than the average citizen merely because they are big companies is elitist and ridiculous.
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Joining the crowd
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Re: Wolfger
What is 'wrong' is that the system allows Person B to come along and say "Gee, that is a great domain name, I wish I had though of it 8 years ago, I think I'll steal it" and then hire lawyers to do just that.
Remember, this isn't a tangible object. My ownership of a website in no way deprives you of owning a (different) website.
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And so the universe ended.
One of the major selling points of that wholly remarkable book, The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy, apart form its relative cheapness and the fact that it has the words 'Don't Panic' written in large friendly letters on the cover, is its compendious and occasionally accurate glossary. For instance, the statistics relating to the go-social nature of the Universe are deftly set out between pages five hundred and seventy six thousand three hundred and twenty four, and five hundred and seventy six thousand three hundred and twenty six. The simplistic style is partly explained by the fact that its editors, having to meet a publishing deadline, copied the information off the back of a pack of breakfast cereal, hastily embroidering it with a few footnotes in order to avoid prosecution under the incomprehensibly tortuous Galactic copyright laws. It is interesting to note that a later and wilier editor sent the book backwards in time through a temporal warp and then successfully sued the breakfast cereal company for infringement of the same laws.
http://www.marktaw.com/blog/TheNewHHGG.html
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Re: Joining the crowd
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giving it away
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Re: Abusive... which side??
You can only RENT domain names, and when you do, due to the limited availability of domain names, you have to actively be using it, or give it to someone who will! Otherwise, you are empowering all these assholes that Park Thousands of perfectly good domain names and wait until someone is interested and then try to extort insane amounts of money to give it up!
Do you know how many of these pricks parked perfectly good domain names to extort money off someone like me, who wanted to start a small website but couldn't because these parasites parked all the good names, and are demanding 10,000 - 100,000 dollars to give it up?
This is not to say, that legitimate people who innocently parked domain names and are developing something for it, shouldn't have their rights protected against big corporations who would bully them to get it!
They absolutely should have their rights protected, but the law should be modified to push all these domain parkers out of business and into the pig sty where they originally crawled out of.
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Re:
I hate those lazy ass extortionists that park thousands of domain names for years, it hurts all of us! Especially web entrepreneurs who want to launch their own websites, after all, this is what the internet revolution is all about! Its about empowering the common man, as broke-ass as he is and as cheaply as possible! To give these people a voice to be heard, and to NOT have to deal with extortionist scum!
I'm happy with the verdict, and I would be interested in hunting down the rest of these domain parkers and suing them all! GET A REAL JOB LIKE THE REST OF US!
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Re: Re: Content
Big companies find it less costly to just pay the Cyber Squatter the few thousand he asked than to pay their lawyers to sue his pants off, effectively encouraging this sort of behaviour!
Besides, you can never OWN a Domain Name. You can only LEASE it. Your analogy is faulty.
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Re: Re: Joining the crowd
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Re: Re: Re: Content
You're kidding me, right? No "small guy" has been empowered here. A multi-million dollar corporation (MySpace) took a domain *from* a small guy.
The small guy is the one who was silenced here by the big corporation.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Content
He reserves Domain Names only to sell them!
Go online and try to register a good domain name .. go ahead and try!! You won't find any good ones, and you know why?
Its because scum like this guy have them ALL Parked to be sold to the highest bidder!! What part of that don't you understand?? This hurts EVERYONE, the small guy, and the big guy!
Forget MySpace!! MySpace just made it into the news because they can afford to fight this battle, but what you don't hear about is the hundreds of thousands of little guys who can't fight back! The guys who want to register http://www.cellphonebatteries.com/ or http://www.fixyourpc.com, or http://www.2for1dildo.com , ..etc but can't because some jerk-off is sitting on them waiting for you to contact him!
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Content
I hate them as much as the next guy.
But in this case, I'm glad they won.
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Re: ooh ooh ooh
I have now increased in nerdness for memorizing it
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Content
Um... no. He had this domain for several years before there even was a MySpace. It's not like he reserved Sony.com knowing that the real Sony would have to come to him to buy it. There MySpace didn't even exist when he reserved that domain.
> but can't because some jerk-off is sitting on
> them waiting for you to contact him!
Way of the world. It's how business works. No different than someone buying land on the outskirts of Houston, then waiting until the city grows big enough that what was once cheap farmland becomes valuable real estate.
In your world, if Home Depot wants that pasture, they should be able to just take it because they want to build on it whereas the owner is just sitting on it to try and sell it to the highest bidder.
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Trademarking and IT Media
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Reverse Domain Hijacking
This isn't just about the trade names either. Many corporations can apply for new trademarks as easily as though they are picking candies. If you currently registered a domain name, or are even using one for a web site or business (current or for future use), after enough time it's possible that a new corporation, or even a corporation's new product release will use something that is similar and trademark it, and retroactively come after you, "legally" too. Whether they have a just right to do so or not, doesn't seem to stop them from trying regardless. This will especially be true if the domain name has much value.
So for those that think "good riddance" to the former owner of myspace.co.uk, I say you're fools! You are helping the rich get more rich, and nothing else. I think Myspace Corp. should have offered money for the name, if they really wanted to start using it now. But in their millions of $$$, they are still too cheap to do even that. Sickening if you ask me, just like those people who defend this sort of practice.
What I think needs to happen AT LEAST, is that whenever a person or corporation issues a complaint by legal means over a domain name (a dispute), they should not only have to pay their own lawyers, but all the legal fees of the defendant UP FRONT, and perhaps a bit more to compensate for the stress and agony brought on because of it. This would at least limit the corrupt angle of trying to make the other business go bankrupt just trying to defend their case.
I will admit however, that I'm not a fan of corporations retroactively taking domain names away, AFTER creating NEW trademarks. With "Myspace", it's their official name now, but the situation is similar because it came after the UK version of the domain was registered. But what's stopping them from creating new products or services, then using the same legal tactics to take more domain names away from others? Ever consider that? It's a real problem, and I can't see it getting any better over time, as more domain names get used and/or registered... and thus become more valuable and wanted by multiple entities.
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Re:
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