[12307] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Name Reg. Time for Policy Change
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Joseph W. Stroup)
Sun May 15 10:05:53 1994
Date: Sat, 14 May 1994 16:03:44 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Joseph W. Stroup" <nettech@crl.com>
To: Bruce Fancher <bruce@phantom.com>
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: <9405140048.AA18543@mailhost.phantom.com>
Bruce, it like Exxon. They sue anyone anywhere for using anything that
even remotely like their name. I am sure Pepsi would not be bothered by
the distance if they thought it was worth it. After all these companies
sell all over the world anyway.
The MTV situation was in the paper today (wire service story) So I will
put in my $0.02 worth. I think Adam has a good chance of to win this
case. MTV advertised an e-mail address of satellite. Adam was the one
that gave them that address as far as I know. Since they did not tell him
there was a problem and new what the domain name was - Well it can be
argued that they in fact gave him license to use MTV for that purpose.
This will be argued to death by lawyers. I just don't think its very
bright for the Internic to register such names. MTV will probably say
that it looks like he is holding himself out to be MTV or something like
it that can cause MTV fans to think whatever. Adam should strike a deal
to sell the name to them and do a transfer.
I seem to remember some company buying up alot of custom 800 numbers and
then re-selling access to them to companies doing a contest etc. Say like
the 1-800-CAL-PEPSI. Not only were these numbers NOT sold to the
companies whose names could be form from the numbers but, the services we
sold and no one ever complained about copyright. There is a close
parallel to the situation with Adam. The MTV reporter. BTW: Good Luck
Adam !
Joseph Stroup
