news JioHotstar.com - a case of innovative (or dumb? ) domain squatting

[comRaid]

JioHotstar.com domain was regged by a developer who now wants the company to fund his higher studies abroad.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com...tter-to-the-company/articleshow/114517530.cms

Now that the news is viral on social media , any legal step from the company may attract negative public reactions.

 

[draco]

Both Jio and Hotstar are trademarked. He's admitted he knew about them. I don't see how anyone could react negatively to the companies wanting the domain. It would be different if, for example, he registered HotStar . com before Disney launched the service and used it for something related to stars, etc.

 

[comRaid]

Instead of asking for money directly, he asked to fund his studies. So general social media sentiment is on his side. Now company might think of this as an opportunity to be in limelight by just funding his studies. That is going to be in " postive news" section of most media channels for sure. That level of advertising would cost even more.

 

[silentg]

On 23rd October, a Delhi-based app developer, who identified himself as a dreamer, uploaded a page on the domain name ‘jiohotstar.com’. This occurred just hours after the official announcement of the name to be adopted by Jio following the merger of ‘JioCinema’ and ‘Disney+ Hotstar’. On the page, the “dreamer” claimed that in 2023, he came across news reports suggesting that Disney+ was planning to sell its Indian streaming service along with streaming rights (if any) to a competitor. He asserted that he had “hypothesised” that Viacom 18 (owned by Reliance) would be the only competitor in the market capable of buying Hotstar from Disney+.

Throughout these two days, I gathered additional information from a legal perspective, speaking to several experts in the domain industry, including Ankur Raheja, a Domain Name Lawyer & Panellist. Ankur, who has 20 years of experience in domain law, has handled numerous Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP) cases.

https://lekhakanurag.com/explainer/jiohotstar-domain-saga-cybersquatting-extortion-attempt/

Easy UDRP win if they decide to go that route.