[12293] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Name Reg. Time for Policy Change
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bruce Fancher)
Sat May 14 15:38:21 1994
From: bruce@phantom.com (Bruce Fancher)
To: nettech@crl.com (Joseph W. Stroup)
Date: Fri, 13 May 1994 20:48:02 -0400 (EDT)
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: <Pine.3.87.9405121216.A2143-0100000@crl.crl.com> from "Joseph W. Stroup" at May 12, 94 12:35:16 pm
[Joseph W. Stroup] has written:
|
| I think that its time for a policy change regarding the way domain names
| are assigned. A new problem that is going to become a profit center for
| some lawyer, will be to sue people who register names that have been
| covered by a Trademark, Servicemark, copyright etc. The NIC should be
| very carefull about this. Obvious things such as PEPSI.COM, COKE.COM,
| EXXON.COM (examples only) should not be registered unless those companies
| are actually the ones making the request. You would not be allowed to
| have a phone listed under PEPSI for obvious reasons so why a domain name.
| I understand, alot of people have done it - Not to hold themselves out as
| the company but, more like a personalized license plate. Its just that
| the Internet is no longer a place known only to a few. If you are one of
| these sites and NOT the legal holder of the name, my advise would be to
| change your domain name or have a big wallet. I made this posting after
| someone brought it to my attention that there have been suits filed and
| specific actions taken.
|
|
|
| Joseph Stroup
|
To the best of knowledge, the first case that may actually go to trial is
MTVN's threatened lawsuit to take mtv.com away from Adam Curry. MTVN
allowed Adam Curry to run mtv.com for several months during which they
were aware of his activities and apparently gave him permission to
use mtv.com, which might have some strenghten Adam Curry's position (I'm
not a lawyer, it may not). But even if they win and set a precedent in
US courts, what's to stop some from registering a pepsi to a system
in another country?
