I don’t have all the details to the case, but after reading the article I kinda think they got it wrong.
Let that man call himself Lambo and keep the domain. As long as he isn’t pretending to represent another brand, such as Lamborghini.
Squatters do this shit every day to regular people and small businesses, but they don’t have the money to convince a judge to hand over a domain.
What the judge should have done is threaten to cut the domain name in half and see who was willing to give up their claim out of motherly love.
I wonder how much the city of LA would pay to get La.com back haha.
Why a city would want a .com tld? A .gov tld would be far more applicable IMO
I would guess tourism. It seems like that’s what it’s currently used for.
The city of LA should not get a .com name. They might have a case that la.com should not have a .com either (they look like a tourist .org though if they are not acting like a .org they are scammers) - but this would be a very hard sell in court. The city of LA should have a .gov (which won’t allow them) or .us (which is not organized well - something they should be mad about and pressure to get fixed) name.
I think the initial goal of top level domains having any real meaning is dead.
And that’s ignoring the state of LA.
What sucks is that a lot of commercial companies in L.A. use the .la domain, which is blocked by my company’s proxy.
I don’t get it. Since when are similar words and cultural references and nicknames too owned by the trademark owner?
It was pretty normal for most of the age of trademarks’ existence to use such derived references, including commercial use.
"He tried to claim … a word play on “lamb” and not … " - why would he have to?
I’m (ok, not really identifying as a fan of anything, but it’s good) a Star Wars fan and I can point out plenty of such references there to other authors’ creations, and George Lucas notably doesn’t hide or deny that, actually the opposite.
They are owned by the trademark when the person owning/using the name is acting like the trademark. Trademark law is generally based around would someone be confused if they say the other one. I could start a house construction business can call it Lamborghini without a problem so long as I was very clear in all advertising that I’m only building houses and not in any way related to the cars - but if I start putting Lamborghini cars in my advertising I could get into trouble for creating confusion even though my competitor Joe’s houses has cars in his ads. (this is obviously a made up situation)
From the article “didn’t develop the site, had attacked the company on more than one occasion, and tried to profit from its established reputation.”
If he had developed that site in what looked like good faith he would have kept it. However all indications were he didn’t care about Lambo as anything other than a get rich quick scheme and that will fail to trademark since the name is only valuable if it is confused with the trademark. A parody site (obvious parody) would have been fine. Obvious star wars fan sites as welll (though this could infringe on other trademarks so care is needed). Even adopting Lambo as his nickname could have worked - but if that was his intent he wouldn’t have tried to sell.
so long as I was very clear in all advertising that I’m only building houses and not in any way related to the cars - but if I start putting Lamborghini cars in my advertising I could get into trouble for creating confusion
That’s fine. But suppose your brand is Lambozucchini and you have cars kinda similar to Lamborghini, but with the brand clearly different, just with homage, a bit like Pepsi-Cola and Coca-Cola, where in the world is the problem with that? That should be legal, from common sense.
EDIT: Also nobody confuses Lambo with Lamborghini, a nickname is not confusion and trademark owner doesn’t own nicknames. And they don’t own everything in the world connected to their trademark.
That’s kinda how cybersquatting laws work.
Someone registered an available domain hours after I searched for it when I received out trademark. The domain was immediately put up for sale. I spent almost a year getting my ducks in a row to sue and reclaim the domain (I even had screenshots of the availability. The scammer was watching registration queries) but they let the domain expire for lack of interest. I scooped it up after that.
Legit question: why didn’t you take the domain before trademark was issued?
If you already had the name registered (but not issued), couldn’t you essentially cybersquat yourself and then buy it from yourself after it’s been issued?
We had no intention of making/hosting a website with the trademark. The company was in agreement.
After we got it, the bossman comes to me and says “so we can make this email addresses now, right?”
Like, duuude… It’s not his expertise, I know, but he thought web pages and email was totally separate systems.
Anyway, that was almost 25 years ago. All water under the bridge.
Stupid greedy asshole got what he deserved. Could have made bank by selling it for 1 million already. But the greed rulebook said to keep raising it to 75 million.
Fuck Lamborghini too.
He raised the price higher than the cost of going to WIPO to deal with it. If he set the price to $1 or 2 million they likely would have paid it. $75 million is bonkers.
He also set precedence. A few more cases like this can the cost of going to court becomes cheaper for everyone.
Both ends of this are frustrating. Buying a domain either as a purely speculative asset (as the judge correctly labeled this purchase as) so you can 1) get under someones skin enough to make them want to buy the domain from you, or 2) just buying up every popular or potentially popular domain just to sell if off is scummy behaviour that ideally this guy should never have been able to do in the first place.
The other end of this I don’t like though is the possibility of somebody being able to convince a judge that they should own your domain and then just being able to take it. In this case I think the judge ruled correctly but the idea that somebody (especially in the US government) would be able to just take away my domain on a whim is terrifying when you can’t just go to people and say “hey, the person you are going to this domain for has now moved and is now here”. Things like e-mail address, monitoring, firewall exceptions and many self-hosted sites assume that the owner of the domain does not change hands without permission, and trust the domain blindly. Taking away a domain isn’t just like taking away somebodies nickname. It’s taking away their online identity and forced impersonation.
I really wish there was a way to address each other in a decentralised way that doesn’t just push the problem down to something like a public key, where the same problem exists except now you worry about the key being compromised.
The fact that we have ways to coordinate globally unique addresses that we collectively agree on who owns what is a feat. It just sucks that it’s also something which somebody can take away from you.
I recently took over as webmaster for a small local charity, basic website, some backend things to sort, no big deal.
But they’re on a .net and I asked why? A previous webmaster let their domain lapse 10 FUCKING YEARS AGO, and one of those squatters grabbed it and has been holding it ever since. They wanted like $10k to give it back so these people just made a .net
It’s fucking ridiculous. I set a timer to try and grab it next time it expires, but I’m assuming they have their renewals automated.
The court ruled that Blair lacked any right to the name and had only adopted the moniker after buying the domain.
So he wasn’t rich enough to buy the domain that he paid for ?
Let A.I. have the internet. Humans are done using it.
He only adopted the moniker after failing to get Lamborghini to pay the very high price he wanted for the domain. If he wanted the domain to adopt the moniker he wouldn’t have tried to sell the domain in the first place.
Not sure why others are defending the defendant here. He was just a cyber squatter who had no ties to the name Lambo until after he bought the domain. His only goal was to resell it to Lamborghini for a profit.
I mean, if we are going to capitalism with a straight face we have to start being the whole bitch.
He owned it, Lamborghini wanted it… that made it a valuable asset that he held that Lamborghini should have paid for
Greed was hia downfall, nothing else. He started by listing it at 1 million, but then kept refusing bids to buy and kept raising the price up to 75 million.
Greedy bastard got what he deserved.
it’s easy to see it that way when a big corporation is involved, but average people and small businesses get fucked by cybersquatters too. On balance I tend to side against the cybersquatters.
if we are going to capitalism
Nobody is for capitalism, except as a derivative of classical liberalism. Capitalism might be useful as a tool in economics, but so is the “spherical cow” useful in physics - you can learn a lot but need to be careful as it doesn’t apply to the real world.
Since nobody is going full capitalist we can ask what liberalism things - and that is a branch of philosophy much more complex than just pure economics. In this case Lamborghini is entitled to their property, which we know is their property because the Lambo guy was acting like it was - in many other domain cases there is at least some doubt.
Not sure why anyone would defend a large corporation for any reason, ever.
I will defend anyone when they are in the right, even if I otherwise hate them. I require proper due process for murders and other criminals who have done worse things that large corporations (most large corporations have committed murder - or at least not done it in a way that I can prove beyond any shadow of doubt)
Cybersquatting is fun. No one is entitled to a domain name more than anyone else.
That judge is a dumbass and any precedent that ‘justifies’ this ruling should be reviewed and struck down. This is called theft. And do eminent domain too while we’re at it.
Theft is when something you own is taken away. The squatter never owned the domain, only registered to use it. In this case, ICANN owns the domain and allows a registrar to handle who can use that domain. ICANN sets strict rules on how domains can be used, and the squatter broke those rules.
Maybe the judge is a little smarter on actual laws than you are.
A domain name is explicitly not property.
Why not? You can’t hold it, but why should that be a limit?
Note, phd’s can easially be written on this subject defending either side. Some of those will say things like domains are not generally property, but for some situations we should treat them like property and in other situations not. I’m not expecting a response. I’m expecting everyone to think about the question.
This isn’t about an intangible thing being property. This is about the way domains are controlled. Nobody owns a domain, they register the right to use a domain. All domains are controlled and “owned” by ICANN, which allows registrars to handle who can use domains.
They are not anyone’s property.
That is part of what a phd can argue about…
I would argue that the registration cost is just a tax and you own it. But remember I’m arguing as a philosopher and not someone who can’t see both sides or even thinks there needs to be one correct side.
Cornell Law disagrees.
Property is anything (items or attributes/tangible or intangible) that can be owned by a person or entity. Property is the most complete right to something; the owner can possess, use, transfer or dispose of it.
The point isn’t that intangible objects can’t be property. The point is that domains are not legally owned by people or corporations. You can pay for the right to use one, but you don’t own it.
Fun fact some states took this into thier own hands
https://www.nh.gov/glance/state-constitution/bill-rights
[Art.] 12-a. [Power to Take Property Limited.] No part of a person’s property shall be taken by eminent domain and transferred, directly or indirectly, to another person if the taking is for the purpose of private development or other private use of the property.
Don’t have much sympathy for this person but no company has any more right to a domain name than any of us and this sets a scary precedence.
The person who owns a trademark or copyright has a right to use that trademark and the onus to defend that trademark from other people using it. We used to allow anyone to call themselves anything they way, and it turned out badly.
I don’t really feel any sympathy for this guy.
This fucking thread 🤣
Scary! Sets precedent🤦♂️!
This shit has been going on for 25 years and complaining have been ripped away for this bullshit before.
Nothing burger. Judge was right.
Shows you the type of people that are on Lemmy.
“stop defending corporations”
It’s like we hate the corporation too but they’re correct in this instance.
Always crazy seeing people lick the boots of huge corporations like this. Do you think they give you a Lamborghini for it?
I don’t care how much I hate someone, or otherwise how evil they are: when they are right I will support and cheer them. I can still oppose them in other ways, here they are in the right.
It’s not bootlicking, you weirdo. It’s recognizing when one thing is right and one thing is wrong. Just because a company does something doesn’t make it automatically wrong.
I know it might be a crazy concept that is hard to grasp, but the world isn’t totally black and white. It’s almost like bad people can do good things sometimes. And good people can do bad things sometimes. Your way of thinking is exactly the way Republicans justify all the evil shit they do. They are religious, which makes them good people, and therefore everything they do is good. In your case, you think a corporation is bad and therefore everything they do is bad.
Unpopular opinion, but the judge was right. There would be zero benefit to society to reward this absolute cybersquatter. There’s an almost zero benefit to reward a corporation. Both bad, but the corporation should get it in this case.
How is a cyber squatter worse than companies who squat on other things like money or diamonds.
The man bought the domain and if lambo wants it, they can buy it from him.
How long until other companies start trying to get any domain name that is part of their name now?
See: Nissan.com
Or the poor Italian guy Luca Armani, who registered armani.it in the early '90s for his rubber stamp shop.
He tried to keep his name in a lawsuit carried by the most famous Armani, and he lost. He also lost all of his money and his shop.
Details matter. In this case the guy shouldn’t have kept the name. On the one you mention the guy should have.
Of course in both cases I am lacking full information. It may be biased sources are giving me incomplete information and if I had all the information I’d change my position.
I know the story of Luca Armani and I think it’s sad. He even lost his health because of this.
He should have just offered the Armani brand to pay him a good sum and that’s it. Instead, he wanted to fight for his rights, and he ended up losing.
(I honestly think that he was right, but the judge didn’t know anything about technology and the internet)
People are debating the little guy vs the big guy, but it’s a problem when you name your company after yourself, and you share that name with a giant established brand. If you call your rubber stamp shop Armani, in Italy no less, you should expect confusion. Big companies don’t like confusion, and will pay to avoid it.
The company was actually called Timbrificio Luca Armani, it was just the domain being armani.it
Or Mike Rowe software.
Because the domain name system is the tragedy of the commons. We all share it, and cybersquatters fucking it up for any of us fuck it up for all of us.
Companies on the other hand, are just a fucking tragedy in general.
