GoDaddy Sued For $100 Million Because A Website Put Up Copyrighted Photos Of Michael Jackson?

from the you-can't-make-this-stuff-up dept

Wed, Aug 4th 2010 5:18am — Mike Masnick

Honestly, if I wanted to make up this sort of stuff, I couldn't. Apparently domain registrar GoDaddy has been sued for $100 million by a guy who claims to hold the copyright on some photos of Michael Jackson, which appeared on a website with the domain MichaelJacksonCasino.com. Now, I could see a right of publicity argument from the Michael Jackson estate, and maybe there's even a copyright lawsuit for the copyright holder... but they would be against whoever created the website, not GoDaddy. In this lawsuit, I would imagine GoDaddy's lawyers will quickly point out the pertinent DMCA safe harbors and that will be that.

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Filed Under: copyright, dmca, michael jackson, safe harbors
Companies: godaddy

17 Comments

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bob563 (profile), 4 Aug 2010 @ 6:15am

Obviously...
...he chose to sue GoDaddy because the actually HAVE $100 million bucks. It doesn't matter if they are responsible or not in the world of shotgun lawsuits (sue everyone and see who pays).
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NullOp, 4 Aug 2010 @ 6:27am

$$$
We can only hope this guy loses his suit! I am so sick of the low-life money grubbers!
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Cohen (profile), 4 Aug 2010 @ 6:51am

Losing a suit
Not only do I hope he loses his lawsuit. I do hope they take away his suit. And perhaps his shirt, tie, shoes, and socks. These guys should be paraded out of court in their underwear.
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Riseven, 4 Aug 2010 @ 6:52am

Terms of Service change
That could be the reason behind this change in GoDaddy terms of service notification email that I received yesterday:

"We recently made changes to the Universal Terms of Service Agreement affecting your Go Daddy products and services. These changes include, but are not limited to, the following:

Section 5 (Your Use of Go Daddy Content and User Content) and Section 6 (Go Daddy's Use of User Content)

We added language to clarify that the applicable provisions are not intended to and do not have the effect of transferring any ownership or licensed rights (including intellectual property rights) you may have in content posted to your hosted websites. ...."
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Aug 2010 @ 7:01am

Yea but will the Judge really listen. I seriously doubt it.
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mike allen (profile), 4 Aug 2010 @ 8:04am

Re:
so do I
The only way to tackle and stop all this crap is to collectivly tell the lawyers and the court stick it up your ass. \Yes i am talking global disabediance.
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sumquy, 4 Aug 2010 @ 8:45am

I think you do yourself a disservice. You absolutely could make this stuff up if you tried. Here, I'll give you a template to get you started.

[Name generic non responsible party here] Sued For [Put huge sum of money here] Because A Website Put Up Copyrighted [put generic IP here] Of [Put generic big corporation here] on the internet.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Aug 2010 @ 8:45am

Re: Re:
You would think the courts themselves would be getting sick of this, and passing rulings that discourage wasting their time.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Aug 2010 @ 9:47am

You know what's more. I own 80% of Facebook!!
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Aug 2010 @ 10:09am

Re: $$$
As much as I hate "low-life money grubbers", I think I just might hate Bob Parsons more.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Aug 2010 @ 10:10am

Re: Re: $$$
Wait? Aren't they one in the same? Now I'm confused.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Aug 2010 @ 5:44pm

Re:
Sadly, I only own 2.7% of Facebook. I'm very jealous of all the 50%+ owners out there.
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Marwan Williams, 22 Sep 2010 @ 3:24pm

This is nonsense
If they included the (c) copyright information at the bottom of the photos they should be ok. But also, if they are put on a webpage, they become copyrighted again by the owner of the site. There are companies out there that search for copyrighted material everyday to find something copyrighted.
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Marwan Williams, 22 Sep 2010 @ 3:24pm

This is nonsense
If they included the (c) copyright information at the bottom of the photos they should be ok. But also, if they are put on a webpage, they become copyrighted again by the owner of the site. There are companies out there that search for copyrighted material everyday to find something copyrighted.
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BestGames (profile), 16 Jan 2011 @ 12:59pm

Totally stupid. Any fool can sue anyone for anything. The US legal system seems to be a joke and a game best played by well monied corporations.
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Ember Autumn Rose Leona, 11 Jan 2019 @ 5:50am

The laws are terrible ie change business name for immunity.
Sometimes he just needs to add et al to the lawsuit because he may not be able to find out the webhosts information. If godaddy is hosting the material then they are also responsible in a way. A loop hole would be using a third party site to host images.

The "law is not enforceable" is a common phrase used which proves how law enforcement needs improvement. 1st I suggest law school for law officers and any public school student. Then perhaps the laws will be enforced and/or abided by.

But more important is freedom of speech in court and public recording of court to ensure integrity and undermine corruption. What is the point of court if you are denied the first amendment right to speak by a Judge that swore an oath to uphold the constitution. see article at shop-s.top and vibrochat.com's website for sale page.

Also my gofundme and fundanything.com sites (now spoof website) are concealed. I wanted to sue for these rights. tiny.cc/rights1 and tiny.cc/rights.

Lastly, I have paid godaddy.com for Domain Buy and Backorder and I have watched my website change ownership 3 times. From sitehero.com to uniregistry.com to namesilo.com I need to sue them as well.
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openInvent, 11 Jan 2019 @ 5:58am

Re: Stupid Legal System
A good tactic for case law generation to deny a Judge the judgment would be to lose cases on purpose to get caselaw in support of your [clients'] cause.

Sadly, a judge today has less authority than a [Slaveholder] Probation/Parole officer (see CA Penal 181). Also a psychiatrist has more power than a Judge see the Mental Competency of the LA Clippers owner for example. In two words "Mentally Incompetent" you lose the right to own property and even your wife loses here 50% share of commutative property per CA law.
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