Squatting as a favor?

[tmax]

I have a few domain names that are related to my city names.
Some domain names are pretty specific for my community entity.
If they ask me to sell my domain name, I will charge $1k

This is my philosophy.
I am doing them a favor by holding good domain names for them.
I am preventing the others from demanding $15K for their domain names.
With $1,000 price tag, I will be happy, and the buyer should be happy too.
So.. everyone is happy.

Am I justifiable? or am I just another cyber-squatter?
I mean, I can't give them domain names for free.

 

[AdoptableDomains]

i bought this domain, i did NOT reg it.

That is not really a distinction that matters. Whether you are the original registrant or bought it on the secondary market won't make a bit of difference in a UDRP dispute or lawsuit. Whether the original or later, you are still listed as the "Registrant" for puposes of control/ownership of the domain.

If Posession is 9/10th of the law, then In this case, use would be the other 10th. Using it as a fan site would maybe give some minor level of protection, but probably not as much as if it were not the .com version. The fact it was ever for sale by you for any reason would pretty much shoot down any defense.

Additionally, the person you purchased it from isn't totally off the hook either. They wouldn't be the subject of a UDRP, but could be sued in civil court for their profits if the TM owner chose to do so.

Please note that I'm not making any accusations of intentional wrongdoing. There are many people breaking TM and copyright law that just don't know the law or interepret it correctly. My points are to educate those who may not know yet.

 

[donlee]

man lol im done with these thread you guys are so far off topic it hurts. how many times do i have to say that i have not, and will not, try to monetize my domain it was never my intention.

oh and the reason i said "i bought not regged" is because he assumed that if i sold the domain for XX amount of dollars i would be profiting, when he does not know if i paid XX-XXXX for the domain, so it could actually be a loss if i sold not a profit

 

[Grrilla]

well i must disagree, i think your interpretation is skewed, and im sorry if my tones are harsh, but i call it like i see it just like your duck is a duck reference. There is no reasonable way anyone with morals can call extorsion - free enterprize, capitalism, or any combination thereof. Furthermore what you are still no understanding is that I have NOT tried to capitalize on my domain. That is what you guys are not understanding your said:

"capitalizing on another's brand name for personal profit is just that, regardless, of what label is applied to it"

That my friend is what you guys are not understanding, I HAVE NOT and WILL NOT monetize or commercially profit from my domain name. But until you can understand that I guess I could just talk myself blue in the face but I will spare you all the trouble.

I, clearly, heard what you said and understood your meaning. A domain name marketer, (I assume), that pays money for a domain name with a high profile trademark in it and has no intention of earning revenue but has put it up for auction just didn't compute very well. The impact of your pronouncement didn't fully sink in, because of the blinders that, instinctively, came up when I started trying to put the pieces together and make sense of them. Well, best wishes for your endeavor, whatever it may be.

I have no need being in a conversation with people justifying extorsion. The man that started the thread has no intention of using the domains he is "talking about" registering for any other reason than to EXTORT money. I understand this got turned on me and I feel i have defended myself 100%. I just feel bad for anyone that tries to construe an act of EXTORTION into an acceptable business practice no matter how they see it.

Now, it appears, that your interpretation is skewed and you, also, have put up a pair of blinders. You may be able to find one or two people in this thread who might reason that extortion is justifiable, but the only time I've seen the word come up, at all, is in your posts. There are, unfortunately, people who register domains based , purely, on the potential of extorting money from a company. Not only do I see this as a dispicable practice, I see it as a stupid, flawed and high maintenance business model that may work for a masochist or a lawyer, but is far too much aggravation for the averege Joe's, like myself, who account for the vast, majority of the NP membership.

But, to be, totally, open and honest w/ you, there are a couple of companies that have ripped me and, the thought of using extortion, as a means of balancing the books, has an appealing sense of irony and poetic justice to it. However, I don't condone the practice of registering names that have trademarked names in them, regardless, of whether or not extortion is the intent behind the registration.

 

[donlee]

yes the only time you have seen the word EXTORTION come up is in my posts, cause I am the only one that will tell them that what they are saying is OK is in fact EXTORTION.

and what has to be looked at is intent. my domain was drug in this thread. without knowing my intent. the person who started this thread made his INTENT known, and that was to intentional reg domains that have intellectual rights belonging to others in an attempt to make alot of money off of them.

My intent was a fan site, which i have not had time to do, and by putting it up for sale (no one knows what i paid for it, and it was not reg fee ) has no bearing on the situation because i was NOT profiting.

So I guess it boils down to intent. My intent i feel was justifiable because i did everything possible to ensure that I did not use the domain in bad faith (parking, minisiting, etc) and his intent is to just straight up extort them for more money.

 

[Grrilla]

Sorry your name got drug into the mud.

Would you consider selling it to me? I've come up with a great plan.! I'll whip together a quick site, recruit some Marvel comic book haters off of Usenet who will flame Marvel and, than, have a 3rd party notify Marvel of my intention of selling the site to DC Comics. That would make everyone happy- you can gt your investment back and wipe your hands of the whole affair. I can make 10's of thousands, (you won't mind- it's not your soul that's at stake), the Marvel bashers will have had their oppurtunity to let the steam out, Marvel will have saved their reputation w/ a protective registration and DC Comics will have side-stepped a serious law suit by never having, even, known that the domain was available for purchase.

BTW. I have met Stan Lee, spent time in his office and he, even, gave me a few autographed comic books. He is one of the nicest and most unassuming guys that you could ever meet and extorting Marvel would be the last thing that I would ever consider doing.

 

[donlee]

as per the first part of course i would NOT sale to you knowing you had malicious intent for the domain

and i have not met stan lee but know lots of people in the comic book industry as i have done a few illustrations for the guys at IMAGE (im a tattoo artist/comics/book illustrations/ and some animation) that is why i wanted the name cause i really liked what was done with marvel in the film industry and I have a friend that is an absolute marvel nut (figures, comics, dvd's and all) and I thought it might be cool to build a forum dedicated to marvel films and let him have fun with it. that was my intent. and like i said, if marvel wanted the domain sure they could take it, but the point is they would not have to even go to URDP, they can have it straight from me no problem whatsoever.

and i know your coment was not serious.

 

[Grrilla]

Foiled again! Gosh, I would have sworn you were Stan Lee's nephew, Don, and were planting a trap.
I worked in the Hollywood studios for several years and had occassion to meet him and several other luminaries through my work. Stan Lee is, in fact, so unassuming that when I first met him I was certain that I was meeting his assistant.
In the world of Comic books, I also had the privelege of meeting Bob Kane, the creator of Batman. When I was leaving his house, he told to wait, he had something for me. He scribbled away at a piece of paper fo about 90 seconds an handed me a grey pice of stationary w/ a bat logo on top. He had sketched out a signed and dated, full page head shot of Batman w/ a black felt tip. He died a few months later. (Not as a result of my visit, BTW.) I framed it and it as one of my prized possesions until I gave it to my son to help him decorate his apt several years back.
Nothing like digressing and going w-a-y O/T.

 

[donlee]

thats nice that you have met those guys....i have met a couple of industry guys McFarland being one, although it was only for an instant so i don't know if I would call it a meeting, but I have corresponded with him via email and via telephone once or twice. Anyways, have a nice day

 

[Grrilla]

Anyways, have a nice day

You too. Keep the faith and keep sticking up for what you believe in. More power to 'ya.

 

[primacomputer]

No you are not a "cybersquatter",

And no, you are not a judge

You are a person who decided to invest your money in domains to make money and you were the first person smart enough to secure them. Should we say if a person decides to buy automobiles and then decides to sell them at a profit is an "automobile squatter"? It's just business and like every other commodity in this world domains can be bought and used/sold to MAKE MONEY!

Tell it to the judge The one anyone with that sort of reasoning will eventually end up loosing a case before.

The thought just occurred to me that companies that TM and brand a generic word are doing, essentially, the same thing to businesses that manufacture products or perform services in industries that are related to the generic term that cybersquatters are doing to TM holders.

The results may be similar, but the intent is different. And that's what it's all about, intent. There is a fundamental problem in that there is not a TLD for each class you can obtain a trademark in. This is compounded by .com being the most widely recognised TLD.

In a perfect world there would be TLDs for each class, and 2LDs in every ccTLD for every class. You could have a name in the class 2LD of your ccTLD, or an international mark in the TLD of your class.

We don't have this because of the history of how it happened. It wasn't viable to have international class TLDs at the time .com, .net, .org, etc. were introduced. No one had any idea how important domains would become, and many countries weren't part of the Madrid Protocol. The US only joined a few years ago. This has had a knock on effect to the ccTLDs as most of them follows the .com/net/org/gov format.

One can see that we are headed more and more in that direction. In fact ten years from now we may very well have far more TLDs then there are classes of marks. In the mean time we have to deal with the system as it stands. That's one of the reasons we have UDRPs instead of just suing for trademark infringement. Obviously this isn't perfect, but I generally agree with most decisions. You look at cases like A.R. Mani and see that the little guy does often win. And when he doesn't it's almost always because it was a clear cut case of bad intent.