"David Post of Temple Law School
panned the controversial anti-cybersquatting legislation and raised questions
about how the courts and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers (ICANN) are dealing with disputes regarding who has the right to
certain domain names.
Under some laws and ICANN's dispute
resolution policy, people can't register names in 'bad faith,' a term that has
yet to be defined, Post said. One person in the audience asked if a parody
site could be considered a site registered in 'bad faith.'
The answer from the panel: We don't
know. "
________________
They don't know? Well, how about an educated
guess? If the udrp came down on the side of a trademark owner
in a parody case it would be violating well documented First Amendment
protections in the U.S. It would be challenged. The decision would be
overturned in court, the trademark owner would lose and people would become
reluctant to use the UDRP because it had no authority.
"In bad faith" just like "fame" is subjective.
Words and phrases that cannot be defined with some degree of universality
should be avoided where possible in created the rules and regulations
surrounding the dns. But as long as we're using human language, not zeroes and
ones, it isn't always possible.