Naturally, she won. Hopefully this lawsuit didn’t cause her too much stress, because her waist is already a tiny 15 inches. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, that’s about the size of a mayonnaise jar.

Source | Domain Name Wire
Photo | Flickr

Rest assured that if we, as .MUSIC are faced with the possibility of being gamed and abused in a manner that we find illegal, we will use our trademarks and other means necessary to do what we have to do to protect ourselves and our respective community.

People like Roussos think are they entitled to own a gTLD simply because they thought of it first. As far as I’m concerned, everyone should have an equal chance to operate any extension. If someone can do a better job of running .music than Roussos, let the guy have it.

Photo | Flickr

This dispute was more than likely filed by one of Paris Hilton’s legal representatives. This is a good thing, as the star has often been a subject of ridicule for her lack of intelligence. The name is owned by Troy Rushton, who registered it on March 31, 2010. I don’t think he has much of a case to defend his use of the name and the registrant will probably lose the dispute.

On a side note, Hilton was briefly detained at a Corsica airport this weekend for possession of cannabis.

Photo | Flickr

Two domainers registered ChannelRoulette.com and LocalRoulette.com several months ago before the ChatRoulette announcement. Maybe the company didn’t want to pay the asking price for these names? ChatRoulette is going to lose a lot of traffic without them.

Another potential loss of traffic is the creation of subdomains on the site. Users can now access the site regionally using geographic subdomains, such as london.chatroulette.com. Clever typosquatters are sure to get a hold of typos like londonchatroulette.com.

Photo | Flickr

This isn’t the company’s first foray into the anti-cybersquatting world. It released an add-on for Internet Explorer in 2005 called Typo-Patrol that blocks domain typos.

According to Microsoft, some 40% to 70% of typo domains are parked with six top domain parking services. Going after thousands of domain owners to enforce a trademark is very difficult, but going after a handful of advertising companies isn’t. Some day, the domain parking services will likely feel Microsoft’s building wrath.

Right now the domain doesn’t point anywhere. In fact, Yahoo’s owning of a popular typo for a Google domain is a bit of a coincidence. Blogsport.com was owned by sports site Rivals.com. But when Yahoo bought Rivals, it also bought all of its assets, including the domain.

Yahoo will probably never monetize the domain or redirect it to a rival service because it does not want to face legal action from Google.

As part of a campaign called ‘Operation In Our Sites,’ the government has already illegally seized the domains of nine movie streaming sites.
According to an insider source at TorrentFreak, ICANN took control of the domains and then handed them to the government– in clear violation of domain owner rights.

The government was poised to seize The Pirate Bay’s domain as well as MegaUpload.com, but changed its mind at the last minute for some unknown reason.
This does not mean these sites are safe, however. As Professor Pouwelse of the Delft University of Technology put it, “Hollywood lawyers have discovered the soft underbelly of piracy.”

ICANN has declined to comment on the matter.

This case is interesting because the arbitration panel ruled that the domain was being used in bad faith because it had no content. The respondent (domain owner) also failed to respond to the complaint.

Respondent is not making an active use of the domain name as the disputed domain name resolves to a website displaying only a “Network Error” message and no original content. The Panel finds that Respondent’s failure to actively use the disputed domain name indicates bad faith registration and use .

It wouldn’t surpise me if the arbitration panel was biased towards Verizon to begin with. People reserve domains all the time without adding the content to them. Of course, one could also argue that is more fair for Verizon to have the name because it actually plans on using it.

Photo | Flickr

Charter claimed the domain violated a number of its trademarks and alleged that the owner was using it in bad faith because. The name at one point contained a parked page with a few Charter-related links.

The firm failed to include in its original dispute filing that it had a trademark on “Charter Business Networks,” however. Though it included this information later on, the arbitration panel did not take it into consideration.

Because Charter made such a poor case, it lost the dispute. The panel did not believe sufficient evidence existed for a bad faith ruling.

It all started when American soldier Steve Hill registered kokeshi.com in 2001. He registered the single-keyword domain because of his interest in Japanese kokeshi dolls. In 2009, Editions Milan began publishing a series of children’s books called ‘Kokeshi.’

You can probably see by now where this is going. The French company wanted the domain. Although it does own the trademark to ‘Kokeshi,’ the mark only applies to books and CDs. After Hill refused the company’s $1,500 offer to buy the name, the publisher filed a dispute with the WIPO.

Pointing out that the firm’s trademark did not extend to his doll-related domain and that the company cannot monopolize generic words, the WIPO ruled in favor of the American serviceman. Adding insult to injury, the arbitrator declared the company guilty of reverse domain hijacking for its abusive behavior.

It’s always nice to see the little guy win. You can read the full case documents here.

Source | DN Journal
Photo | Flickr