Playboy gets Britney's domain?

[dtobias]

In a recent UDRP case, the publishers of Playboy won a big heap of domain names containing the word "Playboy" or "Playmate", registered by somebody in Australia. Among them were several containing the name "Britney Spears" along with the name "Playboy".

An interesting question is whether Ms. Spears can now sue Playboy or challenge them under the UDRP for those domains, as it would seem that once they are transferred to Playboy, they will be cybersquatting on Britney's name, and arguably tarnishing it by association with an adult magazine (reputed to have unclothed pictures... I wouldn't know, I just read it for the articles... :laugh: ).

But if she did this, and won, then she would be cybersquatting on Playboy's name... is there any way to untangle such a mess, other than to cancel the domain in question (leaving it open for anyone else to register it and start the whole mess again)?

 

[GeorgeK]

If Playboy just holds the domain, to preempt abuse (i.e. no nameservers, not resolving to a website, etc.), they could likely argue that the name isn't being used in bad faith, etc.

 

[jberryhill]

Mix-and-Match Cybersquatting:

http://www.icannwatch.org/article.pl?sid=02/02/12/194509&mode=thread