Need your help? Legality of doing this...

[BostonDomainer]

Ok, here's my questions ladies and gents. I own several domain names of companies of this form: BusinessName.com and the companies own either Business-Name.com or BusinessNameETC.com etc being LLC, TLD, INC. In some cases I have prior usage/ownership in others I don't but in all cases the company has trademarks on the domain name. Now is there any legal way in which I/broker can solicite sale of such name without placing self in a legal quagmire down the road should a c+d be issued even though say a broker made contact with them? I managed to sell one name of such this year for x,xxx after a c+d and it was tp a law firm too and I did not solicit the found me probably trying to get to their own site. Nonetheless I just don't want to burn my own bridge especially if this means can be maintain if I don't solicit. What do you guys think???

 

[Warren.Davis]

I did some business last year similar to this. I would find better names than the company already had and offer them for a small fee ($200-$300). It worked pretty good and never had anyone complain about trademarks. Often they were happy to get the offer.

I think where you might run into trouble would be if you did something else with the domain. Say sell it to their competitors or develop it for yourself. If you are just looking to flip it to them or hold it you should be ok.

My experience is limited but I've talked to a lot of businesses and in most cases the idea of having attorneys chase you down isn't worth it if you have a reasonable selling price in mind.

 

[Gerry]

Like Warren, I know someone who did this very thing and it did work in many instances...until a snag.

I think many companies are unaware of all the options there are in registering a domain name. Many companies, big companies, will hire someone to develop a site and be done with it. In many instances the webmaster who put together and maintains the site is not even an employee of the company or firm represented.

She approached a large US based chemical manufacturer about one of their domain names she owned and it was available for sale. Reasonable price, no blackmailing, very innocent on appearances letter.

She got a certified or registered letter (one of those you have to sign for) for the firm's legal department demanding that she surrender their property at once. She showed me the letter and it was no joke and this was a huge firm and there was really no need to contest it. It was filled with all the legal speak and potential fines and penalties as perscribed by the state and federal courts of law, etc.

I think she mistakenly called their attention to the issue to begin with.

She gave up the name and she don't play that game anymore.

My personal experience involved registering some domains relating to the Academy Awards and the Oscars (same thing). Within a couple of weeks of regging them, similar registered mail showed up for me. They appeared to have a service alerting their legal team to infringement issues as soon as the names were regged.

They outlined, for my benefit, each and every case tried and won in a court of law protecting the rights, trademarks, images, etc. Very pretty and fancy expensive paper from an LA law firm.

Seeing how quickly this showed up, I cancelled each domain regged and forwarded copies to the law firm cancelling the cancelation.

So I never got the chance to barter the names.

It's a crap shoot. It may end up biting you in the butt but hopefully not.

 

[Warren.Davis]

Yeah that's a good point too.

You really have minimal risk if you just buy, offer, and hold. Worse case scenario you turn over the domain and lose $7. If you sell 10% of your names for even low $xxx you can afford to lose or sit on the other 90%.

Like I said I tried this last year and found it to be more trouble than it was worth. Not legally but just in terms of playing phone tag with the company, trying to pin down the right person to talk to, explaining to them how it works, going through the domain transfer process, etc.

A good tip though that is sort of on the same level, I did have quite a bit of success selling generic names to local businesses. For example real estate agents that had long urls like company.com/realtorname/ I would offer them homesbyname.com or namesellshomes.com. That was fairly profitable but again quite time consuming and I gave it up in favor of doing things with a faster turnaround.

 

[Gerry]

A good tip though that is sort of on the same level, I did have quite a bit of success selling generic names to local businesses. For example real estate agents that had long urls like company.com/realtorname/ I would offer them homesbyname.com or namesellshomes.com. That was fairly profitable but again quite time consuming and I gave it up in favor of doing things with a faster turnaround.

Not a bad idea!

On the other issue, I guess she made the mistake of contacting the public relations department at the chemical co. and I guess they turned it over to the legal department. Brutal!