[12255] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
trademarks and the DNS
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Mark Boolootian)
Wed May 11 18:10:31 1994
From: booloo@framsparc.ocf.llnl.gov (Mark Boolootian)
To: com-priv@psi.com
Date: Wed, 11 May 1994 10:23:18 -0700 (PDT)
Steve Bellovin posted this to the ietf list. I don't know anything about
trademark infringement, but I seem to recall that AT&T/USL managed to
stop BSDI from using (or was it just advertising) a phone number with UNIX
in it. DNS and trademark infringement suits - might open up a whole new
line of business for Canter and Siegel (sorry, couldn't resist...)
>From: smb@research.att.com
Subject: trademarks and the DNS
Date: Wed, 11 May 94 11:45:34 EDT
The question has come up of what relationship trademarks have to DNS
names. A court may be about to look at the question. Enclosed below
is an article from misc.legal.moderated, reposted with permission.
--Steve Bellovin
In article <2qpjdf$eeu@panix.com, adam@mtv.com (Adam Curry) writes:
MTV Sues Curry
**************
Last update: May 10 1994
New Jersey, May 10 1994
I had planned to keep the following quiet until more information was
available, but since several journalists have already caught wind of it, I
decided to get it out into the open so my side of the story is heard as well.
The domain I maintain and operate on the Internet, mtv.com was founded
approximately one year ago. At that time I registered mtv.com with the
InterNIC, purely because it was a cool address to have, and it was available.
What a great "vanity plate"!
The site quickly became a frequently accessed "hangout" on the net, with an
average of 35000 accesses daily from Mosaic clients alone. During the start up
months I had many conversations with executives at MTV Networks about my
endeavours, which btw, were all financed out of my own pocket, and vps from MTV
Programming as well as Viacom New Media were aware of what I was doing on the
internet, and although they stated "MTV has no interest in the internet" they
gave me their blessing and supported my efforts.
This was enforced when I set up several email accounts on mtv.com for use in
MTV's on-air programming. Ever sionce the summer of '93, popquiz@mtv.com was
used for trivia quiz questions, that were then aired on MTV's "Most Wanted" a
program I hosted at the time. Solicitations were made on the air, and the
address was shown on the screen. For MTV's annual Valentines video dedications,
viewers were offered the choice of calling in their dedications, or sending
them via email to elove@mtv.com.
I never charged MTV Networks for this service, I purely saw it as a cool
feature to introduce to MTV's programming, spreading the "gospel", so to speak.
Then I started to get a lot of press about mtv.com, and some people started
to wake up at 1515 Broadway (MTV's HQ in New York City). And I was served with
a "Cease and desist" on the use of mtv.com. MTV's attourneys claimed that there
could be "confusion" for users of the internet, when connecting to *anything*
that had the letters mtv in the adress, and then receiving music and
entertainment information. I was obviously hurt by this move, but did see what
point they were driving at, an asked if we could settle this matter amicably.
The situation cooled down for a couple of months, but when I resigned on-air
from my job as a VJ, which MTV chose not to air btw, things started to get
ugly.
Long story short, MTV Networks has filed a lawsuit against me, for copyright
infringement of their "trademark", that being their "MTV" call letters, as well
as having information onlie that was MTVN "property". In this case they are
refferring to several press releases I put up on mtv.com, such a an
announcement about Beavis and Butthead's "experience" cd release. Understand
that MTVN sent me these releases over their own internal computer network for
this very purpose!
Again, I was only doing this to promote the channel, not for my own personal
gain..after all...mtv.com is free access for all, no charge.
Throughout all of this I have offered to maintain the site specifically for
mtv, but again they said "we're not interested". Ofcourse I have no problem
whatsoever removing all refrences to MTV Networks and it's projects from
mtv.com, no that I don't work there anymore gives me even more reason to want
to do this, but the kicker is they are moving for an injunction to make me
stop using the internet address mtv.com!
This is of course totally unacceptable, I registered the domain name, and I
don't plan on giving it up. Sure MTV and their parent company Viacom have a
vast legal team, but david also nailed goliath, so I have faith. In the long
run, everyone knows that the only *true* winners will be the lawyers.
There are many different viewpoints on this situation, but I feel that the
use of mtv in an addressing scheme can't be seen as an infringement of
intellectulal propert laws, and a search of the InterNIC database shows at
least 15 domain names registered with mtv in the address. Irony is that I
incorporated a company called ON RAMP, Inc (tm) and onramp.com was already
registered to someone else, but I'm not suing them :)
It appears to me that MTV has their mind set on the address mtv.com, maybe
not for now, but posibly for future use, and I feel extremely used, in that I
built up quite an audience for that address, and they are basically saying
"thank you very much, you may go".
A pre-motion hearing is scheduled for this thursday morning at 11am, wit the
honourable Judge McKenna presiding, in an attemp to get an injunction to make
me stop using the address mtv.com. I will update the situation as it unfolds.
Adam Curry, adam@mtv.com
--
Mark Boolootian booloo@llnl.gov +1 510 423 1948
Disclaimer: booloo speaks for booloo and no other.
