The Sun has an interesting story published today about musician Noel Gallagher who split from the English band OASIS. The artist who has become a solo artist, decided it was time to get with the times, and get online.
According to the Sun, the domain name noelgallagher.com, was registered over 10 years ago by a Spanish OASIS fan who demanded a small fortune for the domain name from the English Star.
Instead of paying the money outright, Noel decided to wine and dine the fan, who eventually agreed to turn over the domain name for signed memorabilia and guest list passes to Noel’s upcoming solo shows.
Noel took matters into his own hands last week. He paid for the Spaniard to fly to London, put him up in a plush hotel and met him in person to thunder out a deal.
And after some serious haggling, and a few Oasis anecdotes, the chancer changed his demands from tens of thousands of pounds – to some signed memorabilia and guest list action at Noel’s next solo gigs.
Instead of filing for a domain dispute (which Noel may not even be familiar with), it looks like he found it easier to go this route.
According to Whois records, the domain name is registered to a Steve Ithell, and was last updated in March 2010.
Steve Ithell
54 Linhope Street
London, London NW1 6HL
United Kingdom
Research In Motion (RIM) filed a complaint this week with WIPO over BlackberryTablet.com, ahead of the company’s launch of its own tablet in early 2011.
Although Research In Motion has named its tablet, Playbook, the company is going after the owner of BlackberryTablet.com who first registered the domain name nearly 1 year ago on January 24, 2010.
Ever since Apple introduced the iPad, tablets have been in demand, but this is the first such case filed with WIPO over a tablet domain name, but it likely won’t be the last. According to the reports from CES 2011, over 80 tablet launches will be taking place in 2011.
Research In Motion isn’t the only company missing its name
A quick glance at some of the bigger names launching tablets, shows that Research In Motion isn’t the only company who doesn’t own their name + tablet. Only a handful of companies appear to have registered their name in time. Not even the mighty Apple which leads the tablet market with its iPad owns Appletablet.com. The domain name was first registered back in 2006 and serves as an online resource guide for Apple products. Apple doesn’t own iPad.com either.
Motorola which is launching the Xoom in the first quarter of 2011 doesn’t own MotorolaTablet.com. The owner has the name up for sale.
Dell, so far, might be the only exception in the lot. The company does own Delltablet.com and it redirects the domain to its homepage on Dell.com. The company which launched its own tablet called “Streak” in 2010, also owns DellStreak.com. And if Dell pays attention to the domain aftermarket, it has a chance of getting the generic domain streak.com, which has been put up for sale with a reserve price range of 10,000 – 24,999 EUR in the upcoming GreatDomains auction starting January 20th.
Samsungtablet.com, Panasonictablet.com – neither name is owned by the company and you’ll be hard pressed to find very many manufacturers that own their company name + tablet.
Research In Motion and WIPO
Research In Motion has filed dozens of complaints over the years with WIPO over domain names and it has had success in having a large portion of the names transferred. Cases the company have won include RIM.com, researchinmotion.com, blackberryworld.com, blackberryguru.com, and dozens of other cases.
Currently, Research In Motion has other cases active with WIPO where a decision has not been made, including blackberrybing.com and blackberrybridge.com.
As the tablet market heats up, companies will be suiting up to duke it out with owners of domain names.
But there’s one domain owner who won’t have to worry about a battle – he’ll just have to worry whether to turn down huge offers or to develop the domain name into the top online tablet destination – Aron Meystedt of XF Investments who owns Tablets.com. As I first reported in the beginning of November 2010, Aron who also owns the first .com domain ever registered (symbolics.com), acquired Tablets.com for an undisclosed amount.
If you’re actually curious about the Blackberry Playbook which is expected to be forthcoming in Q1 of 2011, here’s a preview of its features.
TechCrunch is reporting that Twitter is going after the domain name Twittersearch.com, that was registered by its owner in March 2007. Twitter launched its popular micro-blogging service a year before, in March 2006.
Twitter late last week filed a UDRP complaint, notably its first ever since the company was founded, in an effort to obtain ownership over the (currently parked) domain name twittersearch.com – as you can see here.
Obviously, Twitter is right to do this, since the domain is likely to cause some confusion, although we should note Twitter hasn’t managed to secure a trademark for the term ‘twitter’ in the United States so far, despite multiple attempts.
A look at a rough traffic estimate provided by Compete, shows TwitterSearch.com receives several thousand visitors per month.
To avoid a trademark issue, other sites like TwitterCounter.com, a site which receives over 1 million visitors per month and provides stats, graphs and widgets for Twitter users, licenses the Twitter name from Twitter, Inc. Probably a smart move short term, but long term it might be in the company’s interest to re-brand. The company also owns Twittermail.com.
Oddly enough, Twitter Inc hasn’t gone after the owner of Twiter.com (a popular typo of Twitter), who is obviously trying to trick unsuspecting visitors into clicking on ads, but as TechCrunch points out: ” Twitter hasn’t managed to secure a trademark for the term ‘twitter’ in the United States so far, despite multiple attempts.” So winning a case for Twiter, might be a lot harder than winning a case for TwitterSearch.com.
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