Do you take advantadge of someone who will become famous and register their name then use it for money making ? Is it legal and legit to use adsense or some other advertising network?
Hmmm... Sounds like there's a race to register domains on the first day of Pop Idols... And, I thnk it works. Of course, the PR people are probably catching a wake-up and registering these domains first. 2c worth, but I would LOVE to be able to register a famous domain.
Hey I got the 2004 American Idol winner the day of her audition. 2 years later, still going strong, I also have a top 24 contestant from 2004 and a top 10 contestant from last year. All do very well. Legal yes.. but there is a matter of ethics involved. Lots of people I've met that run these "fan sites" don't understand they actually represent an individual.
What's much better, if you make a deal with a famous person to start a website/blog and 50/50. Peace,
Let speculate this way: if you think a company will be very famous, try <company name>sucks.com. E.g. DigitalPointSucks.com, PayPalSucks.com... It's also ethics involved but as you know there're two sides of everything.
there is lots of potential here but you are walking a thin line as They could as you to turn over the domain ... BUT many never will but they could as you are profitting Due to their name.
Sure, you can register their names, and they can take it away from you whenever they want. Imagine slaving 2-3 years on a celeb's name, building up an audience, making decent money, and suddenly they want to take it away from you. Your best bet is to use their name and add words , i.e. "celebritynamefan.com", or "celebritynamefansite.com", etc. This way you can distinguish yourself as being a FAN of theirs, and really, they aren't going to go around grabbing every domain name with their name in it, just the EXACT domain (i.e. jessicaalba.com).
I think thats a wrong thing to do, if someone tries and takes advantage of someone elses name or popularity. Like the steveirwinrip.com site. That was totally insane. Of course you could add a section on a related site, or on your blog, if you really feel for him, but making a completely new site to earn money is cruel!!
That sounds like to smart way to go about it, I'd hate to have to give something away that I've been working on for a while. But then again, I happen to share the same name as someone who is famous. If I would've registered our name as a domain before him would he have the right to take it from me? I don't think that having the same name as a website gives you the right to take it over. If that's true, I'm naming my first born "Google".
In your case, if everything you put on the site is about YOU, and makes no mention of that famous person, then you won't lose the site because that site is not trying to capitalize on the famous person, and you have as much right to the website name as the other one, and it's a question of you getting it before he did.