Dirk Nowitzki wins case against creator of icon of his likeness.
Dallas Mavericks star Dirk Nowitzki has won a dispute against a company that used DirkSwish.com to sell memorabilia of his likeness.
Dallas based Happy Bulldawg Entertainment, which says it created the “Legendary Icon” of Dirk Nowitzki (seen here on a Sports Illustrated cover), registered DirkSwish.com on May 28, 2011. The company says it registered it to create a fan site in honor of Nowitzki.
Yet it quickly began selling memorabilia with the Legendary Icon on it. One of the site owners stated in an interview “We put up a fan site with e-commerce functionality in less than a day at www.dirkswish.com right before the start of the game in Miami. In less than 30 minutes, after a mention on The Ticket 1310am, we had 130 orders.â€
Nowitzki also pointed to the respondent’s registration of 247Cowboys.com, 247Knicks.com, and 247Mavs.com as evidence of bad faith.
Nowitzki uses the twitter handle @Swish41
A National Arbitration Forum panel ruled in favor or Nowitzki and order the domain name transferred to him.
A message at DirkSwish.com currently reads:
Down for Maintenance
Just wanted to let everyone know we are making some changes to the site. You can contact us at info@dirkswish.com with any questions or comments. Thx for the Legendary support!
Jon says
Well, well, well, putting up a fan site and promptly selling memorabilia, and then stating the fact that they made money on their orders, if that isn’t trademark infringement, I don’t know what is!.