Cybersquatting

“Cybersquatting”

The first article, “Domain Name Disputes”, explains the domain name policy disputes. It talks about infringement of a trademark and the legitimate use of a trademark. It says that there are guide lines to which the law can act upon such infringement, called bad faith. Bad faith rules under these conditions: “1. If a domain name owner has obtained a domain name primarily for the purposes of selling, renting or otherwise transferring it to a party who owns a registered trademark or to a competitor of that trademark owner.
2. Registering a domain name in order to prevent the owner of a registered trademark from protecting that trademark in the form of a domain name.
3. Adopting a domain name primarily for the purpose of disrupting the business of a competitor.
4. Intentionally attempting to draw visitors to the web site of the domain by creating a likelihood of confusion between the domain and the trademark.”
The article also covers the presentation of a claim in which the trademark owner can file a civil suit, and then discusses the fees attached with hiring an attorney, establishing a court date and so on.
Next it discusses the results of the claim. It says that the domain can no longer be put on hold like in previous trials, but can be canceled or transferred under the conditions: “1. A written authorization from the domain name owner;
2. An order from a court of competent jurisdiction or arbitration panel requiring such changes; or
3. A decision by the ICANN panel (different than the panel in 2 since it is not one set up by federal law) requiring changes.”
After that it discusses the impact on trademark owners. It says that if trademark owners to not protect their trademarks through legal action and let them get infringed upon then they could be on the wrong side of a lawsuit.

The second article “Court dismisses Falwell domain name case,” discusses the case where a man from Illinois, Gary Cohn, made a website called jerryfalwell.com. The site blamed Falwell for the Sept. 11 attacks, and also blamed it on gays, pro-choice groups and others. He also compared his views with terrorists. Falwell tried file a suit against trademark infringement but the court had no jurisdiction because the court was in Virginia and the site did not target that state or its people, it targeted the whole nation. Also there was a dispute against freedom of speech and so the court dropped the suit.
I feel like the court made the right decision, because it was freedom of speech. There would a large amount of people disagreeing with the court if it went the other way because the court would be breeching Cohn’s constitutional rights.

The third article, “Julia, Jimi, and Cybersquatting,” discusses The Julia Roberts Case and the Jimi Hendrix case. In the Julia Roberts case, someone made a website called juliaroberts.com. Julia Roberts wanted to file a trademark infringement suit against this person. The court had to decide whether or not the site was in bad faith or not. Although Roberts didn’t have a U.S. trademark on her name, the court decided to experiment with the public to see if when “Julia Roberts” was heard, if the public would directly associate the name with the actress. So the argument was that when people logged onto juliaroberts.com, the public could possibly get confused and think the site had a association with the actress herself. The site also did not fall into “fair use,” such as a parody. So the site was transferred to Roberts.
I feel like that the court made a wrong decision. I think someone’s name should not be able to be trademarked. Even if logging onto the site may be misleading.
In the Jimi Hendrix Case, there was a similar suit. A registered website named jimihendrix.com was owned by the Jimi Hendrix Fan Club. But the fan club was not registered in Florida, where it resided, and was not a “true fan club.” The site was solely made to sell the domain name, and if it were a real fan club then it might have resided in a fair use settlement and be allowed. The site was settled as being use in bad faith, because of the similarity of jimihendrix.com and jimihendrix (the estates marks) and therefore transferred.
Again I feel as though it shouldn’t matter whether or not a name is trademarked or to close to another name, it should still be fair.