CyberSquatting And Copyright Infringement
Written by Justin G on March 28, 2008 – 3:23 pm -
“Cybersquatting” has been something fairly common in the industry for a while. I’m sure even some of you that are reading this may buy and hold domains based on the fact that price and value goes up every year. Something however that has a lot of businesses and organizations on the defense is the fact that thousands of domains are registered every year with copyright names within or as a part of the domain registered.
The views on this issue are somewhat split. While some ’squatters’ have registered domains to put defamatory content about a company, others have registered various domains and jacking up prices to ridiculous amounts in hopes of a company with that name wanting to buy it.
Let me give you one example of what I am talking about. Locally here in the Houston area where our corporate office is located, there is a car dealership that is very well known named Munday Chevrolet. You would think they own mundaychevrolet.com right? Wrong. They own munday-chevrolet.com, a second rate domain name for your company if you ask me.
If you go to mundaychevrolet.com you will find very brief text from the website owner saying why he would never buy a car from Munday Chevrolet. Previously the site was used for pornography. Thats got to be bad for business especially when you have to tell potential customers to add a dash in the middle of your name.
Lets take an even bigger name into consideration that caused a legal battle for years, nissan.com as opposed to nissanusa.com. The only problem here is that this is a bit complicated. What happens when your last name is truly Nissan? This guy is not trying to ‘cybersquat’ at all. He has a legitimate computer business he is running on this site. It’s unfortunate that Nissan motor company had a lawsuit filed against this guy. So where does the gray line run into black and white, making things clear as to what domain you should and shouldn’t be able to own without legal ramifications? (Read more about the Nissan case HERE.)
According to a group called the “World Intellectual Property Organization” that watches over ‘cybersquatting’ occurrences, it has been reported that the snatching up of domain names of popular celebrities names and corporations from the previous year is up 18%, and is continuing to rise. The industries that had the largest issues with this was biotechnology and pharmaceuticals. Closely following was financial institutions and banking.
The fact is, anyone can register a domain name, and people will continue to register domains that contain parts of or even full trademarked names. We could go on even further with domains that are typos as well, but I’m gonna leave it at that. Now its your turn to give us your thoughts. Where should the lines be drawn?
Tags: copyright, cybersquatting, domains
Posted in News Bites |
By GMan on Mar 28, 2008 | Reply
I think the Munday Chevrolet thing is hilarious! but generally speaking whether legal or not, it is unethical to intentionally register someone else’s name in an attempt to profit. Just my 2 cents. ;-)
By Justin G on Mar 28, 2008 | Reply
Its unethical but that won’t stop people, especially when living in certain countries that don’t see it the same way because of different local laws.
By Richard F on Mar 28, 2008 | Reply
Despite their suggestions to the contrary most, if not all domain registrars encourage this behavior. Every domain registrar I know offers bulk registration and has a convenient reseller marketplace. Some offer bulk pricing on domains. I think this encourages people to register every name they can think of or generate using software, and see who’s willing to pony up a few bucks.
IANA has allowed this to happen for years and appears not to care.
By Kayol on Mar 28, 2008 | Reply
When we tried to register our domain with .com and noticed that some CyberSquatting must be going on because of the 30,000 plus parked for years. We decided to take .net and park, .org, .info, .biz, and .mobi just in case.
We even tried to get a hold of the owner but no luck and they use whois privacy protection. Dot com is still the most popular top level domain (tld) and people seem to automatically think .com when giving a url to go to.
I don’t entirely think CyberSquatting is wrong either. I think parked domains with ads can be profitable just as web hosting or any other online service.
Phishering sites especially, online banking I do have a major problem with though.
Copyright Infringement I’m kind of on the fence and think it depends on a case-by-case bases. Example: HostGaroo
Not the url but the content and layout. A domain name isn’t a piece of copyrighted literature by itself. If that were the case than HostGator and anyone with Host(insertname).com would be sueing each other over name infringement.
BTW I would never settle for a “-” sign in a website url.
By brianm on Mar 28, 2008 | Reply
The Munday Chevy thing is absolutely hilarious!
I bet you that the person that owns that name could get a free new car in trade for the domain name. If not a new car, they could ask for a ton of money. They could probably get it to. If not I bet the lawyers at the car dealership will try to sue them for the name.
By Dave on Mar 28, 2008 | Reply
When will Windows Shared Plans be up!!!???
By Anthon on Mar 29, 2008 | Reply
We can all learn by stealing a page from the domain squatter playbook. Typo squatting? redhat.com has redaht.com.
Domain names with dashes aren’t that bad. The names are inherently SEF, so they’re suited to stealth web sites.
By Debbi on Mar 31, 2008 | Reply
A specific scenario:
In Nashville there is an elderly legendary country music singer who still performs regularly, but the dear gent has no idea about today’s electronics.
I’d noticed that it was not he who had ownership to hisownname.com and he said someone had stolen his name.
Upon researching and contacting the person who had registered it a few years back, I learned that the registered owner (who resides in TX) had discovered several star’s domains a few years ago and registered them himself “for safe keeping.”
When I asked him if my singer friend could have his rightful dot-com, this guy said sure, all he wanted was the money he had in to it, which, he said, was about $500.
I couldn’t bring myself to mention it to the country singer, he being clueless about such things. Meanwhile, don’t you know that this guy in TX actually renewed the domain name again, even knowing the real owner should have his own name. Guess he doesn’t mind making the “investment.”
By joey on Apr 1, 2008 | Reply
Thats… Life in the big city bud!
By bozebo on Apr 4, 2008 | Reply
i think it should be illegal.. i know its a bit hrd to regulate and would annoy some ppl.. but hey, its nasty - just like stealing, assault etc. other illegal things
By ClearpointTech on Apr 21, 2008 | Reply
Cybersquatting IS illegal. The trick is meeting the requirement of proof of intention on the defendant side. Add to the cost of legal action, and it’s almost impossible for small business and individuals.
Here’s a good writeup on the anti-cybersquatting laws and remedies:
http://www.bitlaw.com/internet/domain.html
By gm on Apr 30, 2008 | Reply
Hey, I think everyone has equal rights to register a domain. It only becomes a big deal when the little guy outsmarts the the deep pocket celebrities and corps. As the old saying goes, you snooze you lose.Early worm gets the worm..If you are celebrity xyz and your handlers were not smart enough to get it registered, well that’s just too damn bad..Even worse, if you are a company that didn’t get their own name registered, then I suggest you fire your entire marketing dept. If they want it bad enough, they will pay..As for the nissan case, why didn’t nissan register it? Why don’t they buy it, they can certainly afford it…What if the Nissan guy wanted it from NissanUSA? Well, guess what, nobody would give 2 shits about him….
By tom on May 10, 2008 | Reply
I think cybersquatting has really gotten out of hand. A small time entrepeneur like myself independently thinks of a great name but find someone else has only registered it in the hope of getting rich off of it. Not proper names or brand names, just regular word combos. Most real sites these days are broken in one way or another and the rest are squatters. Munday Chevrolet has a good case if they want to take the guy to court. They have the right to the domain name because Munday is the real name of someone connected with the company and they have a history. The squatter isn’t contributing anything. He’d be better off filing on a complaints board. Google will pick it up and people will find it.
By Zishan on May 10, 2008 | Reply
I know people will disagree, but I think one way to cut-down on cyber squatters is actually to raise the price of registering a domain. $8/9 is too little.
This way you only get a domain if you really need it. And simply hosting it for ads won’t be worth it. Plus the extra money can fund taking action against cyber-squatters. Anyone with me?