Apologies if this has already been mentioned on the site: MySpace loses myspace.co.uk MySpace has had its myspace.co.uk domain seized by an appeals panel, with ownership passing back to a small ISP in Stockport. The domain was first registered 11 years ago by Total Web Solutions, two years before the social networking site MySpace launched More info: pcpro.co.uk/news/192891/myspace-loses-myspacecouk.html
My goodness... I'm laughing inside so much. How could MySpace, out of all places, lose an "appeal" battle. Makes me laugh. I wonder if I could launch an appeal to get microsoft.co.uk
Oh, this isn't over. Myspace wins Myspace loses Myspace wins Appeals are nonsense, they'll be appealing the appeals for years
listen.... you not gonna come take my name for your benefits just because you have trademark company.... specially in this case when the myspace.co.uk was registered 2 years b4 my space..... now i am wondering... some guys claming legal issue about my domain www.myspacedesi.com the guy is like myspace gonna sue me.......... i am like if i have no penny to give they gonna sue me for what? for my dirty underwears? lol
Any idea how many appeals "courts" they can go through before a final decision is reached (kinda like Supreme Court in US). The beauty of the internet = endless appeals processes, potentially. I think this will continue as it's almost become a matter of principal for Rupert's News Corp, and this small british ISP who thinks it's getting raped by capitalism to the extreme. Oops.
It's an interesting story - and it wasn't a just a simple case of myspace seizing a domain that was being used by an ISP. The ISP registered the domain before "myspace.com" but started redirecting to another site they operated under. When myspace.com became huge, the ISP had it redirect to a parking page at SEDO that ran ads saying "MySpace - Official Site", "Myspace Friend Adder", "SOCIAL NETWORK SOFTWARE" and "SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES". When you have a trademark, it is usually for a specific classification. There are at least three owners of trademarks on "myspace" - each has rights for a specific type of usage. You must also continually use the trademark and not abandon it. You also can't change the usage to ride the success of another, more popular usage. The uk site had pretty much stopped using the mark for an ISP - although they had 18 people who were still using it for an email address. Myspace.com is basically claiming they set up the parked page to make money off the success of their trademark. Had the ISP been continually using it and not put up the parked page, there wouldn't have likely been any issue. I'm sure myspace.com will continue with the lawsuit and there seem to be a lot of grey usage issues - typical of trademark law.
Wrong on many levels. It might seem that simple, but it really isn't. The case with Myspace.co.uk was actually a unique one. I mentioned in my blog post when they lost it that having Myspace.com related ads on the site probably helped in getting their domain hijacked... The appeal actually surprised me when it was returned the original owners. With the comment made above there have been cases where the domain was actually taken even after a trademark was issued. It just depends on how you use (and abuse) the domain.
You could own apple.com and as long as you never put anything related to computers, music or anything else related to their business, you would be fine. If you had owned apple.com long before "apple" existed and used it as a site about fruit, you would lose the domain if you decided to use it to sell computers or music (ride the goodwill of another company) The guy who owned Madonna.com only lost the domain when he started putting content about the singer on it i.e. trading upon her goodwill. The fact that you own a domain before someone else does not give you the right to change its usage to something that has become more popular. the uk myspace owners have a fairly good argument that they don't control what ads show on the page - but of course they likely made it a parking page to get revenue off the popularity of myspace.com. Had the owners put myspace layouts on the UK domain, there is absolutely no question that they would have lost the domain. The fact that they owned the domain before myspace.com even existed wouldn't matter at all.
Indeed. Its a matter of good ethics which comes first. Yes they didn't have the control of such ads on the domain parking but they absolutely used it to get the money and thats what myspace will try appeal back. And in my opinion they should. However, the domain belongs to the isp company and should continue to belong to them with restrictions on how they park it, if they cant control the parking and violate/use other brands, then they should be penalized for it by stopping the way they park it altogether.
So how does this work? If I owned myspace.co.uk would the judge take it from me and give it to myspace.com and then I just lose money? Or is this sorta like when the government takes land to build a road? Would I get paid?
If a domain gets taken, you do not get paid. You can also be ordered to pay damages and treble the other sides legal fees if it is found you infringed upon their trademark. This case is a little bit unusual because infringement cases generally involve people who go out and register a domain that contains an existing trademark after the fact i.e. ebaydeals.com. It is your obligation to check for existing trademarks (and their usage) BEFORE you register a domain. When you have a trademark, you "own" that name for a type of usage. This protects people from coming along and trying to make money off your hard work and success.
So, myspace.co.uk should be penalize because it had a hint of myspace in it? how do you quarantine yourself from the like of myspace, youtube etc if your on internet? is it even possible? the other thing is, its ok for other sites to profit from myspace but its not ok for myspace.co.uk? i reckon the only thing they are required to do is to put prominent sign on their site that they are not associated in anyway with myspace.com. you shouldn't penalized someone because hes a clairvoyant.
No, but you SHOULD penalize someone for trying to infringe on the rights of someone else, or try to infringe on their business. There's a big difference between #1: Owning a place called myspace.co.uk, and using it to, as someone else said, sell storage and #2: Owning a place called myspace.co.uk and using it to collect money off of someone ELSE'S investment (ie: myspace.com). #1 is ok, #2 is not. The 'owner' was doing #2, thusly he lost the domain, and the battle began. Basically, he's trying to profit off of myspace's success, and THAT is wrong. There are actually rules against that sort of thing, and they apply to almost every registration type out there, for this very reason. The only thing is this guy found a loophole in the rules.
I see your point. But don't he just parked his domain? many people parked their domain and put keyword myspace to get ads related to myspace. So how is it different from what he did? If you say it because hes got myspace name on his domain then you ARE penalizing him for being clairvoyant