PAY ATTENTION: NOT GOOD. MySpace wins domain name fight

[buysellfast]

MySpace has won the right to have the MySpace.co.uk domain name despite another firm having registered it six years before the social networking website launched.

Link to article.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jan/31/myspace.digitalmedia?gusrc=rss&feed=media


guy's any feedback. this surely puts domainers in a bat spot.

 

[Focus]

yeah this sucks and it's total BS - here's how I feel in a related thread:

http://www.dnforum.com/f31/myspace-...ce-thread-274547.html?highlight=myspace.co.uk

this is reverse hijacking at it's finest...who can rightfully tell them what to do with THEIR property when it predates the one that is causing it traffic? I guess that assuming all things to be equal online then youtube.com could take utube.com away from the industrial company using it to monetize the spillover traffic correct? This decision is complete and utter BS and I have a feeling that this guy (that decided in their favor) had Myspace in his back pocket if you know what I mean...this better get appealed to a higher court or something..this could set a very bad precedent for domain owners who have names that predate new services!

:veryangry:

 

[Cashcows]

Did the other firm have a trademark? Thats what matters. But typically if you buy the domain before they trademark it you can still keep the domain. Maybe the laws over in the U.K. are different.

 

[sashas]

who uses MySpace these days anyways?

Social Networking sites have a shelf life of 5 years. When a newer, cooler one comes along, the loyalty base shifts in months. Thats what happened to MySpace when FaceBook came out, the same will happen to FaceBook when another one comes out

 

[Focus]

not the point here

 

[dcristo]

who uses MySpace these days anyways?

Judging by Alexa.com still a shitload of musicians and other users.

This is bad news indeed, Murdoch is flexing his muscles.

 

[Devil Dog]

What brought myspace.co.uk down was showing ads to social networking sites after it had shut it's doors a couple of years back.

 

[sashas]

so tell me, by this logic, if I have a picture of a coke bottle on an empty piece of land I own, I'm liable to hand over that piece of land to coca cola?

I say bullcrap. Right to own property is a fundamental right. Domains aren't too different.

There should be a civil lawsuit against this.

Who wants to file one?

 

[draggar]

What brought myspace.co.uk down was showing ads to social networking sites after it had shut it's doors a couple of years back.

So if I own a domain and develop it, put ads on it, and then (years later) someone gets a huge site and business based on a different TLD (say I own the .com and they own the .net), statistically, their site will come up on some adsense (most likely they subscribe to adwords) then technically they could use this ruling to acquire my own domain?

That's F-ed up.

 

[Beachie]

I believe there's an opportinity to appeal .UK decisions. Might not be final.

 

[acronym007]

MySpace has won the right to have the MySpace.co.uk domain name despite another firm having registered it six years before the social networking website launched.

Link to article.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jan/31/myspace.digitalmedia?gusrc=rss&feed=media


guy's any feedback. this surely puts domainers in a bat spot.

I put in offer in on that name at Sedo back when they were still taking these names. Glad I didn't win it, gulp...

 

[LizzeyDripping]

OK, I read the full judgement. And for most of it, I was shocked at what appeared to be occurring.

Then I got to the bit where the use of the site changed so that links claiming to be to myspace.com were in fact going to ebay.com. Now, I may be naive, but is that what happens when you park a domain? That sounds like something you'd have to develop to me. And that appears to be the crux of the decision.

Please read the judgement through http://www.nic.uk/digitalAssets/27270_myspace.pdf- the Respondent made a big mistake here, it seems to me, though this view may attract criticism.

On most key points, the Expert appeared to hold with the Respondent's assertions. But this "change of use" appeared to swing it. If the domain had just remained parked without any hint of development to redirect traffic intended for myspace.com, the fact that links to myspace.com had begun to appear on myspace.co.uk would not have constituted a change of use and the Expert would have found for the Respondent.

Just my two-pennies worth and time may make me a liar, but my feeling is this shouldn't have implications regarding reverse hijacking of parked domains...

I do however stand to be corrected

 

[jdk]

So what did we learn from this? Block the waybackmachine's robot using your .htaccess file

 

[nameadvertising.com]

A C&D or take down notice would have sufficed. There was no need to resort to thievery.

 

[LizzeyDripping]

Touche!

Don't get me wrong - I believe that the equitable course here was for the domain to be purchased for a fair market value.

 

[4u-domains]

What brought myspace.co.uk down was showing ads to social networking sites after it had shut it's doors a couple of years back.

Yep, sad but true.

Still, this industry has some specific rules that would have a lot less hold in other industries. I guess we're peeved because it looks at first like just another case of big guy bullying small guy and money talking yet again.

He must have been getting HUGE traffic, was it mentioned?
Should have stuck to a safer PPC strategy, just on volume and percentages he would surely have been making a decent living.

 

[Muhammad Mustafa]

as I remember and if I am not wrong, the exact case happened with AlJazeera when they wanted to take AlJazeera.com (Apr 1996) from it's owner but they wasn't able to do so, .com owner owns his own before them -about 4 months.
but in MySapce's case, it's totally strange!!
6 years (taken) and 4 months (Not taken)
very bad news for our business