I have a few domains which are the full (first and last) name of lead singers in quite popular bands/music groups. Some are .com and others are .org. Any idea about the potentials of these domains (in terms of price or development)? I was thinking maybe the .com's might eventually want to be purchased by the person himself/herself and the .org's might be of interest to people who want to build a fan site or something. Anyone agree/disagree?
From my experience, you will never get the famous person to buy the name from you. If you're lucky, they will contact you demanding that you turn over to them for free and won't sue you outright. Many "famous people" have a trademark on their name so that they can protect "their brand" out there. What I would do is develop the domain name(s) into "mini fan sites" or even just link lists that link out to the famous person's official site as well as other fan sites.
Maybe, but I won't jump into "person's name" business. It could relates to trademark issues. Example: jrrtolkien.com. See http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/14/0039213
Be very, VERY careful what you do with celebrity name domains. If you use one to make money, they can and will sue you. If you use it just as an unofficial fan site type thing, they still have the right to demand you take it down if they don't like what you're doing. Financially there's really very little you can do with celebrity domain names.
If the famous person was born several centuries or millenniums ago, it's more likely you have not problems registering such name, but if you are thinking of a person who is actually famous to profit from his/her name problems are just a minute away.
also depends on how famous they are and how common the name is. chances of selling to the famous person are slim, and dont ask for anything over about 1500 which would be filing fee against you in UDRP
agreed... if you don't develop them into some sort of fansite within a reasonable time then they'd be able to take the domain from you b/c you'd be squatting on their name ^_^... a lot of peeps lose in court on this issue... but its really easy to win if you cover yourself... the sites have potential... build generic sites and see how many unique views come to them without any SEO'ing... then you'd be able to know which have the most potential straight out... ..they might not be worth much.. yet, you may be able to drive a considerable amount of traffic with repeats from just hosting pics... or links to all the places on the web... maybe like a web portal to all of the news on that celebrity... 0_o ..IMO make sure you write, "Unofficial Fansite" on the page so you don't imply that you're directly affiliated and lose the domain by legal technicality..
Haha yeah good advice. If they try to sue, then I should offer to just hand it over for like a hundred bucks, so then they don't have to pay filing fees and make their lawyers do more work. lol