Domain Copywriting Options

[Andy]

Interesting discussion i've just been having with a work mate, we were talking about search engines and google.

Anyway, more to the point, we got onto talking about buying domain names, just messing we said imagine if you could buy google.co.uk for £9.99, (obviously you can't), but whats to stop you buying something like, www.google2.co.uk, or www.googlelabs.co.uk or www.notgoogle.co.uk etc...... something that would remind you of google, searchgoogle.co.uk etc.... you get the picture.

What kind of legal issue's or copywriting falls behind doing something like this, there is a well know computing forum at http://www.sysopt.com, one day i was messing looking at domain names and i ended up buyiny http://www.sysopt.org and pointing it to my site.

What legal issues surround this? especially with the google trademark etc....

Thanks

[Grumpus]

I haven't dealt with this for a while, but as near as I can remember, a domain name is pretty much public domain - whomever gets it first owns the domain name, regardless of what it may be.

Amazon handles this by putting it into their Associate Agreement that associates must not have a domain name that contains the word Amazon or anything else that might give the illusion that the site in question might actually BE Amazon.com. Obviously this doesn't do much good if someone who does their own order fulfilment snatches a similar name, but it nips a vast majority of the would-be offenders.

Google, on the other hand, takes more of a Tommy Gun approach - they simply own all of the potential misspellings - except for a few that were registered before they came into being (like goole.com).

There are still piggybackers, and that's just because there really isn't a lot you can do about it. You can enforce trademark and content copyrights, but a domain name is just, in essence, a phone number.

G.

[bragadocchio]

There are a couple of different elements to domain names that have involved trademark disputes. In the early days of the web, those issues didn't seem to come up much.

Now, there are quite a few. Here's a good introduction to the topic:

http://www.chillingeffects.org/domain/

There's more, and I've seen some interesting stuff about politicians and "political cybersquatting." I'll see what I can round up, and post those a little later.

[bragadocchio]

I think the chillingeffects site that I pointed towards in my last post does a good job of explaining a lot of the ways in which choosing a domain name have been affected by trademark disputes and cybersquatting fights.

If you looked at the FAQ on the site dealing with domain names and trademarks, and the FAQ involving parody, protest, and criticism sites, you probably have an idea of how domain names and trademarks interact. The sections in the second FAQ on the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) and the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy are things that people should know about when registering a domain name. They're not the only legal aspects to a domain name, either.


If you like looking into the background of domain names, and the bodies that oversee their registration, here are a couple of articles worth taking a glimpse at:

The Domain Name System: A Non-Technical Explanation: Why Universal Resolvability Is Important
http://www.internic.org/faqs/authoritative-dns.html

The body that oversees domain name registrars is Icann. A watchdog group that comments regularly on Icann has the following article on their pages:

ICANN For Beginners
http://www.icannwatch.org/icann4beginners.shtml


An excellent article about how the original simplicity of the Domain Name System met with marketing forces and intellectual property, from First Monday:

DNS: A Short History, and a Short Future
http://firstmonday.dk/issues/issue4_3/byfi...ield/index.html


Here are a few articles about domain names, trademarks, and cybersquatting. They might confuse matters a little. The arbitration procedure that is followed sometimes brings results that seem inconsistent with one another. The first article is about efforts to criminalize cybersquatting in Idaho, if the aggrieved party is a political candidate. One article presents these matters from an "Australian Perspective," but it is a couple of years old, and may not reflect how trademarks and domain names interact there now.

Stennett bill would outlaw Web site fraud
http://www.mtexpress.com/2003/03-02-19/03-...ersquatting.htm

Political cybersquatting scores a win
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-894311.html?tag=rn

Pro-life cyber squatter ruled in contempt
http://washingtontimes.com/business/200302...05-18096272.htm

Crichton wins 'cybersquatting' case
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/a...rts/2542055.stm

The New Cybersquatting Law Also Stops "Typosquatting"
http://www.business2.com/articles/web/0,16...3,12501,00.html

The Australian Perspective on Cybersquatting
By Michael Bradley
http://www.gigalaw.com/articles/2000-all/b...000-05-all.html

[Andy]

Wow, Cheers Bill,

Have read most of the stuff, ummm am not gonna bother messing in this area, very very complex.

Was just a topic of conversation with a mate, thanks dude.

[bragadocchio]

You're welcome Andy,

It's a complex topic, and it's kind of a shame that it is. In the early days of domain names, it seemed to make sense to use words and have them translate into IP addresses.

When businesses starting seeing the value of having a certain domain name, and others starting buying as many as possible to resell, it took the use of domain names to a whole new level.

Companies that have brands and trademarks protecting them do need to be vigilant to enforce the trademarks. But they often clash with people unaware of the trademarks, or who have uses for the addresses that have nothing to do with the companies in question. Also, using a domain name to make fun of a business or a public person through parody or protest has created a lot of conflict.

A lot of people have a considerable amount of money invested in domain names. I don't know how long it will be before we ease away from their use in their present form. There would almost have to be a public directory -- sort of like the phone book -- for us to turn to a system that used only numbers instead of letters.

I know I got pretty expansive in my answer, but hopefully pointing out those links will help other people when they think about getting a domain name.

[Grumpus]

There are quite a few that have happened over the years. The one I remember is "veronica.org" - Where Archie Comics went after a dude who made a web site for his newborn daughter Veronica so the fam could check out her pictures as she grew up...

http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/...d_Domain_Names/

Hundreds in that cat above...

G.

[bragadocchio]

Nice find Grumpus

Some good articles there. Thanks.

The Nissan v. Nissan case is one I've come across before. Totally amazing:

http://www.ncchelp.org/

[Grumpus]

Empty Reply to fix \"last read\" pointer.