I recently acquired a band's name domain.. The band owns the .com and i own the .net. I am currently running it as a fan site. I don't really wanna mention the name of the band, but they are massive online, and were very recently signed to one of the biggest record labels in the US. The band basically shot to stardom over nite, and so Im pretty sure they don't own any trademarks yet (although the big bad record label will undoubtedly be hooking them up soon). They have not tried to contact me yet. So, should I: a) Keep the domain and the website >> keep running it as a fan site b) just park the domain c) sell it now asap! Any suggestions?
Was the domain acquired before the band made a name for themself? They can and possibly will go after you to have the domain turned over to them. You will need to prove you are not trying to cash in or mislead their fans using the same name with a .net (but you already mentioned using it as a fan page) and prove that the domain was registered prior to them becoming 'famous'.
Thanks for the response.. Well, they have been a band for about a year or so, but they were not internationally recognized like they are now. In other words, they did start "trading" and making money off their name before I registered the .net. At the moment, I have a big disclaimer on the site, and I have big link to the official site. But now what? because ultimately I want to make some cash from this site, not just keep it as an ad-free fan site!