Title to Domains

[BLazeD]

There is a law in New Zealand that very roughly is about if a person buys stolen goods unknowlingly for fair consideration they have good title to them.

Is there a similar law in the US and how would it apply to stolen domains?

Likewise, what about some sort of test for the owner of the stolen domains, like if they were extremely negligent and made their domain account very easy to hack, "inducing" someone to steal their domains and rip some other innocent party off. Their negligence effectively caused someone else to get ripped and then they still get the domains back.

e.g. I leave the keys in my car, it gets stolen, someone then buys the car the next day not knowing it was stolen. I then get my car back from them and what are they left to do?

All theoretical, but interesting I think.

[buysellfast]

the burden lies on the purchaser to conduct his due diligence ensuring that there is no future claim against his new purchase.

"If you left your keys in the car, and there was drugs in the car, someone stole the car, u still get into trouble as the car belongs to u. and a buyer of the car surely would check if it has an engine, the registration papers etc, and buying into forged papers will give the same result, negligence on the part of the buyer.

BTW, did someone offer u stolen domains?

[HuntingMoon]

sex.com was returned to its owner if you are looking for history fyi.

[BLazeD]

BTW, did someone offer u stolen domains?

No, but the massive scam that just went down got me thinking

[domaingenius]

On the same theme. There is a new law recently passed in the UK (and Europe I believe) that effectively gives credit card users a trump card to get their money back of things that they buy are not what is advertised, i.e. if for example a domain is not owned by the seller

DG

[mediawizard]

Off-topic slightly, but nevertheless, we need a worldwide master list of stolen domains, something that can be referred to if any purchase is deemed suspicious.

This will still leave out a percentage of domains that people don't input to the list or come to know after the fact but a beginning would be a big help.

I would think though that if you buy something and its stolen you're out of the money and the domains.

[idevlabs]

The person who bought the stolen domain has recourse... he can sue the thief to recover his losses. That is why when you are doing a deal you must make sure you know who the other party is. You can't sue Joe with no last name who emailed you from his Gmail account.

[jberryhill]

That is why when you are doing a deal you must make sure you know who the other party is. You can't sue Joe with no last name who emailed you from his Gmail account.

Give the man a cigar.

There is a law in New Zealand that very roughly is about if a person buys stolen goods unknowlingly for fair consideration they have good title to them.

Where you are going wrong there is in the "very roughly" part. This is an ordinary provision of commercial law that relates to sales by dealers of goods of the relevant kind in the ordinary course of trade. BFP status does not apply to one-off sales between individuals (BFP - "bona fide purchaser for value" in the context of the Uniform Commercial Code). A thief cannot convey good title.

This discussion, of course, begs the question of domain names being considered goods.

Several key issues in the sex.com case render it pretty much irrelevant to anything today, since the terms under which domain names are registered at the present time is markedly different from the original registration terms in place at the time of registration of sex.com and at the time of the fraudulently-induced transfer.

[Poohnix]

Off-topic slightly, but nevertheless, we need a worldwide master list of stolen domains, something that can be referred to if any purchase is deemed suspicious.

This will still leave out a percentage of domains that people don't input to the list or come to know after the fact but a beginning would be a big help.

I just created DNBlacklist.com as a resource which can be used for this. It's still a very rough system - created in a few hours - but it's a beginning.
No all it needs in for people (the owners preferably, but anyone can do it), to list their stolen domains.
Anyone can search the database, but to enter names in the DB users must be registered.

.

[mediawizard]

Very nice Goran, well done.

Will try and spread the word if you like.

And take 10%, towards the great idea fund, when you sell it

[Poohnix]

Very nice Goran, well done.

Will try and spread the word if you like.

And take 10%, towards the great idea fund, when you sell it

Yes, spread the word... It's useless if it's not used; specifically it's necessary that the stolen domains gets into the database.
I don't plan on selling it, it's supposed to be a resource for the community.