Copyright question... footballers name.

[Samogon]

Hi ppl, just a quick question. I have a dot info domain name of a very talented football (soccer) player and was wondering whats the rules/copyright trademark etc on something like this.

I registered the name two years ago, when the player was only 16, since then he has joined one of the top clubs in Europe, scored for his country and is being chased by a number of other big clubs in Europe.

Am I allowed to own such a domain? and if so, what can I do with it (content wise)?

Look forward to hearing your views.

 

[ImageAuthors]

Generally it's best not to target particular people or particular companies. Regardless of whether there's a trademark involved, nobody likes having their name owned by someone else without an obvious legitimate interest in it. So you end up a target for UDRPs and lawsuits.

There are so many valuable domains out there that don't target any particular company or site or person that it's just not worth developing a reputation as a cybersquatter OR putting yourself at risk of litigation.

Plus, we're talking about a .INFO here. Not a .COM. So I doubt there's much value in it in any case.

Look for other kinds of domains.

 

[Rado_Ch]

I don't believe (others can correct me if I'm wrong) that many personal names of footballers (especially youth ones) are trademarked, so you shouldn't have any trouble keeping the name. You can attempt to sell it to the person in question and if it possesses value for them (although most probably not, as its a .info), but my personal advice would be to drop it, as even if there weren't any risks this still gives a bad feeling about your reputation. If this was a football team's name, they can enforce the acquisition of the domain name, but with players things might be different.

Trademarking your name (or nickname) has become popular in football in the recent years, as there were too many trademark trolls trying to put famous names on their brands (I remember the case of the Saint Iker jewellery and the Lahm pesticide :D). I read somewhere that in the last World Cup, only about 20% of the players had their names trademarked.

Btw quite curious to know who is the player in question. Marco Veratti? Romelu Lukaku? Paul Pogba? Come on, the tension is killing me