Legality of Radio/TV Call Letters in Domains?

[deleted984054565403]

:hi:

Is anyone here familiar with what the standard policy is in terms of copyright/trademark issues with domains of call letters for radio or TV stations? About a year and a half ago when heat was picking up in LLLL domains, I considered taking a bunch of names beginning with "W" and "K" and hope that the respective radio or television station would make an offer on it.

But is this legal? What are the risks of owning a WLLL domain that shares call letters with a radio or TV station? What would be the expected course of action if I contact the radio or TV station that uses these call letters in hopes of a domain sale?

I look forward to your responses, and any help is appreciated. :tu:

Steve

EDIT: This looks interesting...

 

[npcomplete]

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But is this legal? What are the risks of owning a WLLL domain that shares call letters with a radio or TV station? What would be the expected course of action if I contact the radio or TV station that uses these call letters in hopes of a domain sale?
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While there have been a lot of bad WIPO decisions, this is not one of them. In general I think the majority of WIPO decisions are good, with the respondents engaging in obvious infringement.

In this particular case, the respondent did almost everything wrong:

1.) No response was filed by respondent

2.) competing in same TM category (both radio stations)

3.) directed the WLUM.com traffic (call letters of complainant radio station) to respondent's website, another radio station in the same local market.

4.) respondent registered the full name of the complainant's owner.

I can't imagine a UDRP or suit failing given the respondent's actions.

Interesting quotes from the decision:

"Likewise, the fact that WLUM may have been used as a business name does not spawn trademark rights and MRA presents no direct factual basis from which the Panel may conclude that it has trademark rights in the specific mark WLUM."

"Contrary to allegations in the Complaint, the Panel’s examination of the Internet website – www.rock102one.com reveals no use of WLUM, either on the home page or any other of the several web pages that were reviewed."

comments: pay attention folks. Your domain alone does not give you TM rights. Make this claim on your page. complainant should have known better, even though they won.

"MRA asserts that "bad faith" is present because 1) LAZER registered the at-issue domain name with knowledge that WLUM was a famous MRA mark and shortly thereafter, linked WLUM.COM to its own LAZER 103 Internet web site; 2) LAZER refused to transfer the domain name to MRA upon MRA’s request;"

comments: Issue 2 above was denied in the decision, as it should have been. It would be a sad world if the only thing you had to do to prove bad faith was show that you requested to have a domain transferred, and the respondent refused.

Overall: This is a good decision. In your case, hopefully you are not competing in the same market as the TM owners, and redirecting your domain to your own competing radio station. Be careful in approaching owners with offers to sell. This is frequently used as evidence of bad faith by TM owners.

Marc