Do you think judgement against stealer of sex.com is too harsh?

[ngenme]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_M._Cohen

The domain he stole worth $13 million.

He made $100 million out of it in an otherwise legitimate biz.

Why should he pay $65 million?

Yea he should be punished. But this is far from what he stole.

Also if I steal a domain, I would well, park that I suppose.

This guy actually build a reasonably complex biz out of it. It's not just the domain names. Sex.com appeal to customers. Businessmen cares only about return and profit. He doesn't have to steal sex.com to run his adsense like biz.

He could use sex.co and it would have still been a good biz.

So yea, I honestly think he is over punished.

Think about it. You build a good biz. Then someone find a relatively minor element of your biz is illegal. Then you got to hand over ALL profit of the so called "ill gotten" gain? Doesn't make sense.

 

[yogiDomain]

Wow!!
That is an amazing story. I never knew about this.

I think the punishment of paying what he earned from stealing the domain was right. He did fraud by impersonating someone else which is a fraud, stealing and using others property is again fraud.
Well he made his life hell.

 

[Dave_Z]

What anyone here thinks doesn't matter.

Mr. Cohen knew what he was doing yet did it, and dealt with its consequences.

If you don't want what happened to Mr. Cohen, then learn from his deed.

 

[hawkeye]

Think about it. You build a good biz. Then someone find a relatively minor element of your biz is illegal. Then you got to hand over ALL profit of the so called "ill gotten" gain? Doesn't make sense.

So it's OK for someone to steal the deed to your land, build a great big house on it, sell it for big bucks and be able to keep all/most of the proceeds; because the stealing your land part was a 'relatively minor illegal element' of it all. Wow. I guess we can see where you're coming from...'Mr. Cohen??'

 

[cocaseco]

Lets not forget that this was his FIFTH major crime conviction...prior convictions for bankruptcy fraud and grand theft. The man was a career criminal and took, more than he gave to society. You have to imagine he was involved in substantially more illegal activities than he was actually convicted of. While the sentence was harsh, you can't look at just the sex.com events. Instead you have to look at this mans behavior, value system and lack of remorse and base a sentence on the whole of his crimes. Besides, he didn't actually pay all of the money and presumably has it stashed away somewhere where investigators haven't yet looked. Honestly, I don't know why he doesn't fall under California's infamous "three-Strike" law resulting in a lifetime sentence.

 

[jamesosix]

He never paid it anyway, so why feel bad for a thief and career criminal who has never paid his dues into the system? I bet you wouldn't have the same opinion if it happened to you.

Also, it doesn't matter what the domain is worth, as we all know full well, the value of a domain is very fluid with a lot of variables at play.

Surely the original owner got the domain back and suitable compensation on top from Network solutions?

 

[Compassion]

So it's OK for someone to steal the deed to your land, build a great big house on it, sell it for big bucks and be able to keep all/most of the proceeds; because the stealing your land part was a 'relatively minor illegal element' of it all. '

By the looks of our country, it was "OK" for Europeans to steal land from native peoples and rewrite history to make it look like they were some sort of liberating force. On top of all the resources stolen and hoarded from the natives - they wiped out 95% of them by introducing small pox!

And now? What kind of of just compensation is in action?

Natives get small pieces of "reservation" land, cigarettes and alcohol, state sponsored antidepressants, television - but hey, at least they can own casinos and take green fiat paper from drunk people.





...Indeed Cohen was a fool and the punishment makes sense

 

[The New Guy]

By stealing the domain and making $100 million, he denied the rightful owner the opportunity to make $100 million by using the domain.

No wonder some people think of domainers as dishonest and scummy.

 

[Compassion]

By stealing the domain and making $100 million, he denied the rightful owner the opportunity to make $100 million by using the domain.

No wonder some people think of domainers as dishonest and scummy.

Yes as stated above, Cohen was a fool. It sounds like he just needed to pitch his business plan to the owner of sex dot com

 

[Compassion]

Lets not forget that this was his FIFTH major crime conviction...prior convictions for bankruptcy fraud and grand theft. The man was a career criminal and took, more than he gave to society. You have to imagine he was involved in substantially more illegal activities than he was actually convicted of. While the sentence was harsh, you can't look at just the sex.com events. Instead you have to look at this mans behavior, value system and lack of remorse and base a sentence on the whole of his crimes. Besides, he didn't actually pay all of the money and presumably has it stashed away somewhere where investigators haven't yet looked. Honestly, I don't know why he doesn't fall under California's infamous "three-Strike" law resulting in a lifetime sentence.

Maybe in another lifetime Cohen killed natives and stole their land. Although any native will tell you it isn't "their" land. People can't "own" a piece of land for their piddly 100 years of existence while the Earth will be here a billion years from now....

Heck Cohen is clever enough he may have been one of the plebs that profited from selling resources from "America" back to Europe.

Or perhaps Cohen traded slaves, that seems like his cup of tea.

 

[dordomai]

The domain he stole worth $13 million.

He made $100 million out of it in an otherwise legitimate biz.

Why should he pay $65 million?

Yea he should be punished. But this is far from what he stole.

Also if I steal a domain, I would well, park that I suppose.

This guy actually build a reasonably complex biz out of it. It's not just the domain names. Sex.com appeal to customers. Businessmen cares only about return and profit. He doesn't have to steal sex.com to run his adsense like biz.

He could use sex.co and it would have still been a good biz.

So yea, I honestly think he is over punished.

Think about it. You build a good biz. Then someone find a relatively minor element of your biz is illegal. Then you got to hand over ALL profit of the so called "ill gotten" gain? Doesn't make sense.

i dont know the full story but consider this:

The domain was sold for $13 million in 2012 or 11 i think.

He stole the domain in the nineties when it was said to earn 500k/month just from type-in traffic. 500k was worth far more back then.

So he held it for 5 years and could have made 30$ million from the domain alone. More like $60 million today.

 

[ngenme]

My point is the following. He is wrong to get the domains. However, that domain is just a minor component of his biz.

sex.com is a PPC. It doesn't even have to be in a PPC.

Imagine someone stealing your laptop because he doesn't have money. Then he build $1 million dollar biz out of it. Then get caught. Yea I would demand double or tripple the value of the laptop. However, the rest are his. Poor guy don't have a laptop.

Yea he should have borrowed money to buy that laptop legitimately.

Notice I am a reasonably vengeful guy. Some guy defraud me of $3000. I was made at that guy because that's his only biz. He's defrauding $3k.

As for sex.com, the domain stealing is bad. But sex.com ppc is a legitimate productive business.

Someone mentioned that $13 million bucks would have been $60 million in 10 years.

Yea.

You need to understand that domains appreciate higher than interest rate. When he stole it, sex.com worth $3 million at most.

The stupid part is this guy do not need sex.com at all. He made a PPC biz. Why does he has to steal sex.com?

 

[dordomai]

However, that domain is just a minor component of his biz.

I think the only thing he did was to put a few affiliate links on the site. This was a few hours of work.

The domain was everything of his biz. If he had bought sex789.com he wouldn't have earned anything with this strategy.

If Kremen had kept the domain he could have sold the traffic in the next 5-10 years for 500k/month without doing anything.

 

[hawkeye]

The stupid part is this guy do not need sex.com at all. He made a PPC biz. Why does he has to steal sex.com?

This makes no sense. He had a PPC biz 'because' he stole Sex.com. good grief.

 

[D Haynes]

Haha yeah his business was the domain name sex.com. Without the domain he had nothing from what I gather. Should have to pay every cent he earned to the domains true owner.