Re: [ga] Reuters: Net name dispute body gets first case

[idno@tallship.net]

Gee,

Hit a nerve there I guess. Sorry you're an agnostic Ken. I really didn't
mean to upset anyone with what I felt was good news. I used to think that
mandatory non-binding arbitration was a good way to get parties in dispute
into a room and "hash it out", so to speak before going to the courts. I
was not aware of the indifference the courts had towards actions that had
been previously aribited.

I'm going to borrow from a friend here with an example of those whose
might be fully entitled to the Domain Name "FORD.COM"

Ford Motor Company
Ford Modeling Agency
John Ford

Yeah yeah, first come fist served registration according to RFCs. that's
how it should be. But this legislation that past a couple years ago that
has caused corporate atty's to pursue people who are using that "Ford"
name under the threat of losing their trademark if they don't aggressively
defend it seems to extend that sort of thinking into things like ford.no
and ford.cc and ford.to

In other words, it's kind of silly to think that one of the fords could
lock up the entire namespace by blotting out the word "ford". They don't
even have to register those names. Just attack those who do. Rubbish.

Now there's also another party who is entitled to the Name "FORD.COM", and
that's good ole John Doe. No... his name isn't ford, and that doesn't come
into bearing either. according the RFCs he is entitled to register that
name. But according the wording of a US Senate Bill he could also be
imprisoned for cybersquatting - even if he didn't have any intentions of
using the domain name as part of the real estate speculation game. After
all, we're not talking about registrations here, but ownership nowadays.

Okay, now there are two schools (Primarily) of thought.

1.) first come forst served. you snooze you loose.

	I really don't see this as too bad of a way to view things if you
take into account how large the name space is. What, with all of the TLDs
we've been introducing regardless of ICANN's desire there should be plenty
of fords to go around. You don't even have to settle for a black one.

On the other hand...

2.) Trademark holders have priority first, over all of the name space (not
just .com) and everyone else can use domain names like r2d2c3po if their
not worried about getting sued by Lucas films. Really now. Why even have
the name space, let's jsut insist that everyone learn IPv6 and brush up on
their hex. DNS rolled out in 1985 to make it easy for the feeble human
mind to remember and identify hostnames (Computers, boxes, machines). The
organizations weren't even that particular as to what they would be
called. Sure we had .mils and .edus primarily, but when .com  became an
issue less than five years ago the government had already stated mandates
for companies to do business with it and submit bids electronically.
Anyone who didn't get a clue back then or have a domain name registered (
or reserved - most of you don't even know that you could reserve a name
for zero dollars back then) jsut missed the boat.

but now those same arrogant bastards are angry because the rest of us took
it seriously and stepped up to the bat and participated. So they're here
to steal them away from us. (They can only enforce this in the legacy
roots. Other roots are other networks merely running IP and communicating
via a common backbone grid - effectively private internetworks that can
dole out their namespace any way they see fit and charge their subscribers
accordingly). These special interest groups should take care not to
fragment what is already exceedingly obvious as fragile. Otherwise they
may have to pay for .com a dozen or so times to ensure that it means the
same thing on all the internetworks. Not to mention .kz or .web or .info. 

Well, this wasn't helped by nsi's plicy to sell .org and .net gTLDs along
with a .com if they were available, but they were out of control and out
to make money - This was not according to the RFCs though.

Now I did think about the ramifications of registering nike.com etc way
back when, but unlike many of the true cybersquatters that have catalyzed
this debate, I didn't have a legitimate need for that domain name. I
didn't want to sell obsolete missles and I wasn't in the shoe business. I
saw no reason to profit on Nike Corporations shortsightedness. Others did.
I think it was a bit opportunistic, some would say immoral, illegal etc,
but the bottom line is that many people see it strictly as real estate and
approve of this behaviour. And the truth is that as long as these people
weren't going to sell shoes under that name, they were entitiled to do
business under it.

So Virtual Works should win out over Volkswagon. Yeah, but it should be a
non-issue anyway. And vw.cc should be able to be owned by "very wicked
country clubs Inc." and Velma Wickenstein should not be intimidated when
she wants to set up a gopher server at vw.org. And since we're talking
about ownership, rather than registrations that have a notion of being
temporary and leased, as opposed to owned (although that's what they
really are - leased), good ole Velma should be able to offer up her domain
name to Volkswagon for a fee. After all, volkswagon could ahve registered
under every vw.xx that exists to lock out all of the domain space.

Should Harvey Bumblebee be permitted to register ford.com for the sole
purpose of selling it to a shortsighted FoMoCo at some later point? Well,
All I've got to say on that is this could have been prevented with an
acceptable use policy during the registration process that prevents
entities from entering into the speculation game by requiring them tostate
under the penalty of revocation that they will not sell, transfer etc..
such domain names for more than the current registration price of the
domain name.

That would keep the price of the real estate to appx $70.00 regardless of
it's scarcity.



On Tue, 7 Dec 1999, Ken Stubbs wrote:

> what does this have to do with the current dispute. are you implying now
> that all disputes are illegitimate and unfounded ? if so then just say that
> is how you personally feel  and quit trying to make it sound like god, might
> and right and the balance of the world population  are on the side of the
> "oppressed individual domain name holder" in every situation. that song isnt
> playing very well any more because of so many blatent abuses by domain name
> speculators. nthere are abuses on both sides but all you ever focus on is
> one side
> 
> this  VW case is significantly  different and represents to me a clear
> misuse of the legal system by a large company to try to enforce its will
> against others by what i call "financial intimidation". i have stated and
> felt from the beginning that the volkswagen claims were unfounded and
> unfair.
> 
> but dont imply that all claim filed under the UDRP have no merit. i fully
> recognize that there are some out there who dont like the idea of any
> dispute resolution process or anyones right to ever make a claim but they
> are a very small minority. (i would also admit that i am a very small
> minority on this list when it comes to advocating for the UDRP but i can
> live with that and like you i wont be shouted down for those views either)
> 
> 
> ken stubbs
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <idno@tallship.net>
> To: William X. Walsh <william@dso.net>
> Cc: Ken Stubbs <kstubbs@dninet.net>; Andy Gardner <andy@navigator.co.nz>;
> <ga@dnso.org>
> Sent: Monday, December 06, 1999 1:04 PM
> Subject: Re: [ga] Reuters: Net name dispute body gets first case
> 
> 
> > Well,
> >
> > there's nothing like spreading around a liitle christmas cheer. So I
> > thought I'd drop this on the list so we could at least have some thread of
> > justice come to mind. More can be found at http://www.vw.net
> >
> > here's the article.....
> >
> > http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article/0,1087,3_246671,00.html
> >
> >
> > On Mon, 6 Dec 1999, William X. Walsh wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > On 06-Dec-99 Ken Stubbs wrote:
> > > > gee thats funny...
> > > >
> > > > i thought this was a dispute resolution between 2 parties who both
> > > > agreed to
> > > > it.
> > > > what has "support" got to do with it. are you suggesting that people
> > > > line up
> > > > and advocate on behalf of one party or the other with the dispute
> > > > resolution
> > > > provider.
> > > >
> > > > maybe we ought to arbitrate it in the newspapers or in some list. . or
> > > > better yet lets put up a votebot and take a vote...
> > > > kinda like the old roman coliseum ... thumbs up or down !!!
> > >
> > > Many times, Ken, the only defense a small guy has against a big
> corporate
> > > attacker is the damage to the corporation's public image, and the best
> way
> > > to demonstrate to them is in the public support for the small guy's
> rights
> > > to his domain name.
> > >
> > > Case in point: Ajax.org, Pokey.org, Veronica.org (just to name a few).
> > >
> > > In a case I myself was involved in, the public pressure forced the
> company
> > > to deal with me from a much stronger position, and to compensate me for
> > > the time, good will, and effort that had gone into building a service
> > > around that domain.
> > >
> > > --
> > > William X. Walsh - DSo Internet Services
> > > Email: william@dso.net  Fax:(209) 671-7934
> > >
> >
> >
>