I have a handful of .tv domain names. The names can be claimed as very similar to certain major companies copyrighted names. I was told by someone that .tv may have different rules related to the general copyright rules. I was also told that you can hold these and maybe offer the name as part of an overall service to be provided to the company (as opposed to a blatant sale of the name). Finally, i was also told that if you are a domain registrar you can actually hold these names for sale w/o fear of an ICann dispute etc.... Please help me on getting the facts straight! I have not received any threats from these companies, but i was called about the potential purchase of one. I need to figure out if they have worth....
The registration authority for .tv domains adopted the ICANN UDRP policy to handle such issues. This means that .tv domains have the same issues as a .com or .org. Info about dispute policy for .tv As far as holding the domain and trying to sell it to the company as part of a service package, I doubt that would have any additional protection. If you register the domain and do nothing with it, then it is not likely they would find it unless you tell them about it or they monitor domain registrations. In that you would be potected. As soon as they found out about its existence they could file a dispute. If you were to include it as part of a package, you could only charge for the cost of the domain registration (with a little extra for processing). So in such a package, you could charge maybe $25 for the domain, but not $2500. Of course, some companies won't know any better, but if they are of any decent size they would simply dispute the domain rather than pay for it. If you own it and the company offers to buy it from you without any offer to sell from you, then you should be fine. Registrars are not immune from the rights granted to trademark holders. A good example of this is the lawsuit that Neiman Marcus filed against Dotster.com for the practice of domain tasting. Dotster (and others) grab large groups of domains (in this case, some of them were typos of Neiman Marcus) and keep them for close to five days to determine if it would be cost effective to keep them longer, then dump the ones that don't convert before the drop-with-refund date. Dotster settled that case rather than go to court. Neiman Marcus is also suing Name.com and Spot.com for the same practice. Neiman Marcus is seeking 4-12 million in damages over 40 domains that were "tasted".
I thank you for your information. I thought that may be the case. Have you heard of Pinnacle holdings>? They are who called me. Why would they offer to buy it if its ownership can be challenged? The domain name is a pretty large retailer.
There are several Pinnacle Holdings. There is the one that primarily deals in real estate for the purpose of telecommunications (cell towers, etc...). There is the one that operates the business for Native American Fund Advisors. There are a few others around the world. As far as why they would offer to buy it. There could be any number of reasons. Perhaps they do not fully understand the implications, or they do and don't care. Perhaps the domain contains the mark of a company that they are a parent or child company of. Depending on what they are offering, maybe they feel that would be a cheaper option than the $2,000 + lawyer fees to go through a UDRP (or even more for a court case). If they did not give a specific offer, perhaps they are trying to bait you into quoting a price so they can use the attempt to sell the domain as evidence of bad faith in a dispute they plan to file later. Perhaps they intend to release a new product or service using that name (it is permissible for two companies in different industries to use the same word mark even when the companies are not related at all). I'm sure there are hundreds of other reasons for why they might want it.
i made a mistake it is Peninsula holdings (but i am sure there are several also) I thought someone once told me that they hold a lot of .tv names.... I appreciate your advice and will make sure NOT to give them a price. If they offer one can i counter?
I would say not. Unless, for example, you purchased the domain for say $500 and they offered $300. If you could prove the purchase price, you can ask to get what you paid for it. If they started off offering you $1000, then you would either have to accept it or decline the offer all together.
Thanks for all your help...... The guy is supposed to call me tomorrow, i will keep you posted. It appears from your replies that the most value i have is the actual cost for someone to challenge me rights to the name (approx. $2500)...
Yes, unless they choose to offer you more. Remember, costs only include actual cost of aquiring the domain name. It does not include hosting or advertisong costs.