What would you do with Utube .com ?

[hugegrowth]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061013/wr_nm/media_youtube_utube_dc_2

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Utube.com, a Web site owned by a supplier of used tubes and pipes, has been swamped with visitors confusing it with online video service YouTube Inc. and has been barely operational since Google Inc. said on Monday it would buy YouTube for $1.65 billion.

"I'm at a point now, all I want to do is to make the site work," Ralph Girkins, owner of the site belonging to Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment Corp., told Reuters on Thursday.

"Today, it's been up the longest it's been up for a week -- an hour and a half," said Ohio-based Girkins.

utube.com is the sixth most popular U.S. manufacturing Web site, ahead of Whirlpool Corp., according to data provided by HitWise.

On Monday, Girkins told Reuters an intermediary who said he was acting on behalf of YouTube had offered $1 million to buy the Internet address, but he turned down the offer and was holding out for $2.5 million to $3 million.

A YouTube spokesman said it had not made an offer and had no plans to do so.

On Thursday, Girkins said he had received about 20 phone calls from people who offered to sell his site for him. He has not been in contact with Google or YouTube, he said.

 

[PeterMan]

Park it and make a ton of money, then sell it for a ton more! :teeth_smile:

That is a domainers wet dream come true!

 

[007]

I would make a ton of money with it.. How? Give it to me and I will show you!

 

[Leading Names]

I'd leave it as is now and wait for youtube.com to improve on their offer. As soon as you start trying to profit off youtube.com it's only a UDRP away from being theirs.

- Rob

 

[Deleted member 70408]

^ EXACTLY.

Google knows this company can't do much with the name. If they sell it to someone who wants to monetize it, the new owners will be served C&D and UDRP close to immediately I am sure. Why would someone want to offer $xxx,xxx to be able to take traffic for a few days? Hopefully Google will realize they lose many customers who end up on UTube.com and pay the guy accordingly.

 

[droplister]

It will be more than a few days. They could ride it out for a while to make back their investment.

 

[cursal]

site is down....sad to see all that wasted traffic :-(

 

[Creature]

^ Do you think the site is down due to exceeding hosting limits or perhaps they can't cope with making extra tubes?

 

[TheLegendaryJP]

Greed, gotta love it.

 

[Deleted member 70408]

You think they can make the $7.5 million asking price back in a short period of time?

 

[hugegrowth]

they could keep the site as is but sell ad space. with millions of visitors per month the impressions add up.

 

[denny007]

I think as they registered the domain 9 years before youtube.com they can do with the domain whatever they want. Even make a video upload site.

 

[petrosc]

You think they can make the $7.5 million asking price back in a short period of time?

why $7.5 million? He said he turned down the offer and was holding out for $2.5 million to $3 million

 

[stuff]

why $7.5 million? He said he turned down the offer and was holding out for $2.5 million to $3 million

he said min offer he will consider is $7.5 million

 

[007]

I think as they registered the domain 9 years before youtube.com they can do with the domain whatever they want. Even make a video upload site.

No they can't Google/YouTube owns a TM on the term "You Tube" in association with a video site. Since UTube.com never used their name for a video site they can't just start doing it now, and neither could the new owners.

They most likely have a TM on metal parts manufacturing. This has nothing to do with YouTube, but if they change their website to be a video hosting service, they will not be in for a fun future.

 

[petrosc]

UTUBE.com has a TM for whatever it is they are manufacturing. Youtube.com cannot take this domain by law, since it was registered and was running long before the youtube TM was registered, but this is true as long as UTUBE keeps it's content in the area of their TM. As soon as they get even a little bit close to video hosting, they are going to lose their legal shield and youtube will get it from them 100%.

I cannot register iWindows.com and create a website about software. MS would eat me alive. But I could however(please correct me if I'm wrong), register a trademark on "house windows", and run a business where I sell just that- house windows. In that case, MS would not be able to do anything about it.

 

[Dale Hubbard]

The guy apparently has a thriving business on the utube.com domain, and nobody can take the domain away from him if he tries to continue to maintain his site as he always has. I'd certainly be asking a big premium for the domain if it were me. Then if I didn't get my asking price ($3.5 or $7.5 million or whatever) I'd have high-paying ads up there so quick you wouldn't be able to draw breath. He probably regards the youtube intrusion as a bloody pest -- right now. I'll bookmark this one for a look in a month by which time Mr Utube will no doubt have considered his options.

 

[britishbulldog]

The law is an ass in the u.s and the udrp decisions are mostly bent in favour of the bigger corps,here in the u.k you cannot trade mark generic domains and that would include youtube although you can stick tm nect to any name you want legally.
The sooner the bent icann wake up to this the better !

 

[Creature]

Perhaps the utube bloke should hire a lawyer and see if it would be possible to sell advertising space.

Also, is there a chance in a billion that the utube bloke has some claim over the youtube.com domain ?

 

[denny007]

You want to tell me if they DO NOT have TM for utube.com they could loose the domain ? There is a lot of small businesses which does not have a trademark. How about utube.com sue youtube.com for a lot of bullshit traffic they are causing them yet they disallow them to put something on the web which will target this traffic ? US litigation is crazy enough to give them some damages...