Is this copyright infringement?

[Joshua Harding]

Hi all,

I have a question concerning a potential copyright infringement, or UDRP concern. I'll mask the identity of the domain in question by using an analog, which should be equally as telling.

Say a company owns the domain - iClub.com, having confirmed trademarks and rights to the name and its products.

If you're to register the domain - i.club - is that copyright infringement? Or is a single letter universal enough that when in conjunction with a TLD, it's of little concern?

Thank you all for your input!

Joshua

 

[jberryhill]

Just as a friendly pointer - "copyrights" and "trademarks" are two different things.

Copyrights are virtually never relevant to domain names per se. Copyrights are for works of authorship, such as books, articles, photographs, song lyrics, and audio recordings. Copyrights do not apply to single words, slogans, etc..

What we are primarily concerned about with domain names are trademarks. Trademarks are words or symbols which are used in connection with goods in commerce such that they distinguish among the goods or services of one source from another in a relevant mark - i.e. when you see "Coca-Cola", you know it is not "Pepsi".

I'll mask the identity of the domain in question by using an analog, which should be equally as telling.

No, this type of thing is practically never useful. Trademarks don't exist in a vacuum. The strength of a trademark, and its scope of enforceability, depends on how well known it is. Additionally, whether there is "infringement" would depend on what the trademark is FOR (i.e. what goods and services, or whether perhaps it is a famous mark), along with what the domain name is being used for.

What we normally deal with in trademark law is whether there is "confusing similarity" or a substantial likelihood of confusing similarity. If your question is intended to ask "does it matter whether there is a dot in the middle", that's been asked and answered numerous times.

For example, does "Wal.Mart" look like "Wal-Mart"?

I think it does. Anyone suggesting that "Wal.Mart" would not be confused with the largest retailer in the US by that name is smoking something unusual.

Under normal UDRP cases of this type, a complainant with a mark in "iClub" would pass the first prong of the UDRP in a dispute with i.club. That first step, though, is simply one of "does the domain name kind of look like the mark". Well, sure it does. But that's just the first step of a UDRP analysis.