i am a singer...not a hugely famous one, but i've been in a couple of bands on labels that have sold some records and do have some (albeit small) fame. a few years ago, the record label i was signed to owned a domain with my name in it. now that i am independent (and have been for a while), i wish to own this domain for myself, but when i've looked it up in i find that it is now owned by some other company...and according to their site they want at least $688 to sell it to me. my question is since the domain name is my legal name, and i can be fairly certain that they own this because me or someone in business with me would want to purchase it, do they have the legal right to own it and then sell it to me at such an inflated price?
Depends on the situation, but at $688.00 wouldn't it be cheaper to buy it than to get lawyers involved?
Well, if someone else has the same name as you, out of luck you are. Someone has had my name domain for years and years. He is a real person with the same name as me (we are not related).
yes, i would imagine it would be more than $688 to get lawyers involved...but i'd still like to know the legality of it. and i don't know the actual price yet, that's just the minimum stated on their site. of course i'm sure there's other people with my name in the world, but it appears this is owned by a domain selling company (buydomains.com), not someone else with my name, and (trust me, i'm not trying to toot my own horn here...this is an irritating situation to me) if you search google or wikipedia for my name, it is indeed the real me that comes up...so i'm sure they're holding this hoping i'll cough up money for it. anyway, like i said, i would just like to know the legality of this. not that i'm anywhere near as famous as these people of course, but if a company owns howardstern.com or billyjoel.com do the actual celebrities have any rights to those domains or is it free reign for the domain holders to own and sell them as they please?
eh screw them ... register another domain with your name include - or something else ... band, singer etc.....
First, get the .net, that would be a good domain for you. Set the .com to backorder at pool or something similar. If available, ask your lawyer to send a C&D letter, and maybe they will be willing to settle for a smaller amount just to get out of trouble. Sometimes that's all it takes to scare them.
Sorry but being a singer, no matter how famous, doesn't give you carte blanche. Someone got the domain, and paid for it before you did. Someone has a .com of my name, and my name isn't all that common. For all we know there could be a popular soccer player in some other country with your same name. I don't think there's any legal action that could be taken. Tom Cruise had to have his lawyers lodge a complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organization for tomcruise.com. This only happened because WIPO obviously knew who he was, and they only acted in favor of him to take possession of the domain because the registrant was a questionable individual (who already had trouble with WIPO in the past before this case). Domain names are on a first come first serve basis. You have two options: Buy it from them, or become as famous as Tom Cruise!
Madonna got hers but only beucase she is Madonna And i am sure Hilton would get hers as well if she asked for it. But you should just make another domain like band or something do not waste that much money for a domain name
Pasting a copy of my post on a similar question: Using an administrative procedure for this like the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) will cost you at least $950, not inclusive of an attorney's fees should you retain one. You might want to read the decision below rather than make a blanket post: http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/decisions/html/2000/d2000-0847.html
If you are not willing to shell out some big bucks for an attorney you will never get your domain back, i would advise coughing up the money the domain seller wants. Would you mind sharing with us who you are or giving us a clue?
Ok. Here is one for you. I used to own craigedmonds.com and I accidentaily let it expire. My ex business partner caught on that the domain name had lapsed and then registered it after we had a big falling out and I discovered this a few months later when I typed my domain name in my browser and did a whois. When I asked him about it, he wrote me an email saying that he wanted to get my domain name in the case I did the same to him. (basically he admitted to registering it in bad faith) I have been seriously thinking about spending the $1500 needed to make a domain dispute. Does anyone know if my chances of getting it back off this schmuck are increased becasue I did own it at some point? I have absolutely no desire to make him an offer on the domain (which would probably be cheaper), I would get much more satisfaction by having a wipo? telling him to hand it back to me.
Whilst I am in no way a legal expert, I would have thought that the very fact you had previously owned the domain and let it expire would count against you. Anyone who later bought the domain (I would have thought) could argue that as far as they knew, you didn't want the domain and had no further use for it, afterall, how many renewal reminders do you get?
Quitely register the net version if it is available. Get some one you trust to front for you and buy the stupid name. A decent lawyer is 250 bucks and hour and you are looking at a lot of hours. Unless everyone knows your name you can buy it for a few hundred. If not just use the net version.
Register a domain in your name such as YourName.org or YourName.net. Then just do some good SEO, so that when someone types in "Your Name" into a search engine, you come up on the front page of the search results. If yours is not a common name, you'll probably come up #1 (I do). But the key is doing some good SEO so that your domain will appear in the SERPs above any other domains using your name.
If you can gather proof that he is holding your domain under false pretences, in other words holding it "hostage", then you can get it back for free. I'd say type up a fancy letter with lots of legal lingo and he will caugh it up real quick.