Category: National Arbitration Forum

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Myspace Radio? Social networking service Myspace wants the domain

Justin Timberlake

It looks like the next chapter of Myspace, which is owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake, could be more of a focus on social radio, as competitors like Facebook do the same.  In September, Myxer Social Radio integrated with Facebook.  The service allows friends to listen to the same music in real time. 

It’s been a couple of years since Myspace has filed a complaint over a domain name – but it looks like the company’s legal team is dusting off their ‘domain dispute’ skills. 

This week, the social networking service filed a complaint (Case Number 1414953) over the domain Myspaceradio.com with the National Arbitration Forum.

Myspace has an excellent track record of winning domain disputes and the company should have no problem winning ownership of the domain from its current owner, who apparently tried to sell the domain on Flippa, a marketplace for buying and selling domains and websites.

While Myspace could have big plans for ‘Myspace Radio’, it’s also possible the complaint is nothing more than a defensive move as part of the company’s intellectual property strategy.

[Update 2 on December 21, 2011:  The domain name myspaceradio.com has been ordered transferred to MySpace.  The decision was published online today.]

[Update 1 on December 19, 2011:  It’s official.  MySpace has announced details of its MySpace Radio service.  The domain name still doesn’t belong to MySpace, as a decision hasn’t been handed down by the National Arbitration Forum as of yet.]

(Photo of Justin Timberlake arriving at the 2007 Golden Globes via flickr)

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Denied: Lady Gaga loses dispute over LadyGaga.org domain name

Lady Gaga

Despite being an internationally renowned recording artist and performer who has sold millions of albums globally, as well as a fashion icon as claimed in her complaint, Ms. Stefani Germanotta, better known as “Lady Gaga” was denied rights to the domain name LadyGaga.org after filing a dispute with the National Arbitration Forum on August 17, 2011.

The respondent in the case was “oranges arecool XD”, who owns well over 2,000 domain names, many of which are celebrity domains like faith-hill.us, keyshiacole.org, audrina-patridge.org, and even blakelively.com (which I’ve written about in the past).

In order to have the domain name transferred, Lady Gaga had to prove all of the following:

(1)  the domain name registered by “oranges arecool XD” was identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which Lady Gaga had rights; and
(2)   “oranges arecool XD” (the respondent) had no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name; and
(3)  the domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith.

On point #1, Lady Gaga proved that ladygaga.org was identical to her LADY GAGA mark, as follows.

1.    LADY GAGA (Reg. No. 3,695,038 registered October 13, 2009);
2.    LADY GAGA (Reg. No. 3,695,129 registered October 13, 2009);and
3.    LADY GAGA (Reg. No. 3,960,468 registered May 17, 2011).

However, on point #2 “Rights or Legitimate Interests”, Lady Gaga lost.

The three-member panel found that Lady Gaga had not established a prima facie case in support of her arguments that “oranges arecool XD” lacked rights and legitimate interests.

Because point #2 was not proven, point #3 was considered moot.

As a result, Lady Gaga’s complaint was denied and “oranges arecool XD” (the registrant/respondent) kept the domain name.

You can read the details of the decision here: Claim Number: FA1108001403808

Discussion: 106.1 KISS FM

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Disputes National Arbitration Forum News Video Games

ModernWarfare3.com: Activision’s attorneys take official control of domain

ModernWarfare3.com Whois

In what has been one of the most highly publicized struggles for a domain name, Activision’s trademark attorneys at Millen, White, Zelano & Branigan, P.C, have officially taken control of ModernWarfare3.com from Anthony Abraham as of September 21, 2011, after winning the dispute over the web addresss earlier in the month.

Now all that’s left to do is to transfer the domain to Activision’s Mary Tuck, who serves as the company’s senior litigation counsel (and is the registrant for most of Activision’s properties), then re-direct the domain to the official ‘Modern Warfare 3’ website at callofduty.com/mw3.

Modernwarfare3.com doesn’t resolve to a web page at the time of this story, but lets hope that Activision puts it to good use shortly.

Type in modernwarfare3.com into any of the major search engines, and EA’s Battlefield 3 is still the first result.  A temporary effect of Anthony Abraham’s redirection of modernwarfare3.com to  battlefield.com/battlefied3 back in July.

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Anthony Hopkins wins domain name dispute over siranthonyhopkins.com

Anthony Hopkins

The National Arbitration Forum has ordered the domain name siranthonyhopkins.com transferred to the actor Anthony Hopkins.

On August 10, 2011, a complaint was submitted to the National Arbitration Forum against Pablo Palermo who had first registered the domain back in 2001, according to the complaint.  

The panelist, Honorable Paul A. Dorf (Ret.), ruled in favor of Anthony Hopkins after finding the domain name identical and/or confusingly similar to the Anthony Hopkins mark, that Pablo Palermo had no rights or legitimate interests, and the domain name had been registered and was being used in bad faith.

As Kevin Murphy of Domain Incite pointed out when the dispute was first filed in August, Anthony Hopkins was knighted in 1993 and he is the third celebrity to win his “Sir” domain at UDRP.

In August 2010, Anthony Hopkins won control of anthonyhopkins.com, also at the National Arbitration Forum.  Today, the domain name anthonyhopkins.com resolves to a parked page that displays third-party sponsored listings.

You can read the details of the decision here: Claim Number: FA1108001402710

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After years of being called HuffPo, news website wins dispute over HuffPo.com

huffpo

For years, The Huffington Post news website has often been referred to as ‘HuffPo’ for short.

The only problem was, the site founded by Arianna Huffington in 2005, didn’t own the web address HuffPo.com; Pauta’s International SA did and it used the domain to send unsuspecting visitors to third-party websites.

Huffpo.com however, will soon enough be re-directing users elsewhere.  AOL Inc., which acquired The Huffington Post in 2011, has won the rights to huffpo.com after filing a dispute with the National Arbitration Forum.

AOL also won rights to the typo domain names mapqwest.net and moivefone.com.  All three domain names have been ordered transferred by Judge Harold Kalina (Ret.), Panelist.

You can read the details of the decision here: Claim Number: FA1108001402910

Discussion: Business Insider