All community objections against .music and .band have failed.
An International Chamber of Commerce panelist has denied Constantine Roussos’ community objections against competing applications for .music as well as applications for .band. The same panelist also denied an objection brought by International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies against another applicant. All of the .music objections have been decided in the applicants’ favor.
Roussos applied for .music under DotMusic LLC and filed the objections through American Association of Independent Music (A2IM).
Panelist Professor Sir Robin Jacob denied the objections on basically all counts. He determined that there’s not such “music community” or “band community”:
I do not think that there is anything which can fairly be described as a “music community”. There is a vast range of different types of music in the world. Music appeals to nearly all mankind. Just because there is one word covering all kinds of music does not make a “community” – the word will not stretch that far…
…The string is targeted at anyone interested in music – nearly the whole world.
(I wonder what would have happened if Jacob had heard the cases for .sport and .sports, as you could use the same arguments there.)
He also determined that, even if such a community existed, it would not be clearly delineated as required in the applicant guidebook. Also, A2IM “can hardly claim to be associated with it”.
Thus, A2IM did not have standing to bring the objections.
Jacob also said that the objections failed the material detriment test.
The decision is consistent with one previously decided against Amazon’s application for .music.
Roussos also filed Legal Rights Objections (essentially objections on trademark grounds) against all applicants for .music, .song, and .tunes. All of those objections failed as well.
Clearly, a travesty of a decision.
Also, this makes an interesting read: http://abovethelaw.com/tag/robin-jacob/
Because he’s Greek?
Because he has a valid trademark and he’s fighting the Goliath.
This was a community objection, not an LRO.
Why do you refer to a community as “he”?
Good question John.
I ask myself that same question. A community objection is about the Objector and the members it represents, not a ‘he’.
You can’t get any logical rationale or decision when you are focusing on the ‘he’ as opposed to the real substance or core of the issues at hand affecting a significant portion of community.
Not shocked at all. If applicant does not have any arguments to build their case, the sad tactic is to lie about facts and focus on the ‘he’ part and unrelated issues to get their ‘story’ to work.
I am a .band applicant they say. And have community support from objector too. Neither are true. How does win win any case when lies are taken as evidence for rationale?
I always try to listen to and understand perspectives from both sides of an issue. That only holds true if people have taken time to educate themselves on the issue. You wrote a blog post about the LRO decision based solely on what someone else said, and it certainly read like you hadn’t read the actual decision. That’s why I assume this is a Greek affinity thing.
It’s as much of a ‘Greek affinity’ as I would badger any Greek that were in the wrong. If you’re suggesting I am biased, well, it’s a misconception; I am simply being objectively dissenting.
Unfortunately, the big players have more time and money to spend than Konstantine Roussos, whose responses have made it clear what he stands for with regards to the .Music application and its mission.
That’s a different issue than if an objection should be one or lost.
Is this the same guy that was complaining when he didn’t win music.mobi when he bid $6xx,xxx at sedo auction for it? Doesn’t seem like he will be able to catch a break with anything dot music.
Andrew, just for clarification. Not all of the COs were filed by A2IM against all of the competing applicants for .Music. My client (Far Further/.Music,, LLC) successfully defended against a CO brought against it by The International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies (IFACCA).
Thanks Karen. I just looked it up. So A2IM didn’t file a CO against Far Further?
Good decision.
This result is a tragedy because the ICC and ICANN have created a process in which no single entity can object for a string like music. The popularity of music is substantial (e.g music has the most views on Youtube with 38.4%) and copyright infringement is still rampant. Actually no other community has suffered and experienced such a dramatic shift than the music community. Then comes along ICANN and the ICC to create policies and “agree” that the “music community” has no say in the new gTLD program (i.e no standing to object). Whether it is A2IM (which had 50% of all the Grammys this year P.S check Piratebay to see all those songs being illegally downloaded) or another objector or related -objectors of substantial size, it is clear: no single entity has standing.
So let me get this straight: ICANN created a system where the community that has suffered the most change due to the DNS and also experiencing rampant piracy has no say and once again is treated as a “second-class” citizen because only one entity (not a group of significant music community entities) is able to object at a time and hope that they alone pass the “standing” test?
It seems inconsistent and a punch in the face of the music communty that “search”, “polo”, “sport”, “search”, “bank”, “insurance”, “hotels”, “gay” and so many other single entity objectors all had standing but “music” does not? Not sure what is going on but this is makes no sense. Any legal music that anyone consumes through the DNS goes through a system of some sort of “fingerprinting” and association so rightsholders get paid (or not paid if they chose to offer their content for free). That means it is delineated. If you agree that it is not a delineated community then you are supporting piracy and malicious abuse. Plain and simple. This is because legal music requires “strict delineation” in order to be consumed legally on the Internet and for rights holders to be appropriately compensated.
In regards to Far Further, that is a different discussion about exclusive access and not an issue of safeguards. Again, in that case there was no opportunity to have standing. The same applied to the Amazon case. Both Far Further and Amazon have exclusive access policies in their current applications but in their GAC Category 2 advice responses have stated they will not operate as exclusive access. Lots of loopholes which we did not anticipate because ICANN does not seem to pay attention to detail and is allowing many to circumvent the process in an unfair manner.
ICANN and ICC have been quite clear:
1) no single entity in the music community has standing to object (which leads to the question why create an objection process if no-one has a voice that can make a difference to an irresponsible application?)
2) Piracy and Intellectual Property infringement prevails because no single entity in the music community has standing
3) This is a community objection but only one entity – not an entire community of entities – can object
4) material changes are fine (PICs, exclusive access position changes) even if it harms other parties
who designated this guy to ‘represent’ the music ‘community’?
Unless you are J Zee, your question qualifies as a troll post.
Anynymous jZ,
Let me clear some common misconceptions about “community” applications and objectors.
No-one can claim to representing the entire music community but a significant portion thereof. The language in the AGB says the Objector or a community applicant applying for a community string must represent or have support from a significant portion of the community. The keyword here is “a significant portion” where numbers are taken in context not absolute numbers (according to applicant guidebook).
In the case of an objector the objector must be a recognized institution and represent a significant portion of that community.
it is misleading to claim that one entity represents the entire music community (emphasis on “entire”) but this false information is being relied on by many ICC panelists. For example, the GOP or the Republican Party has 55 million members but in the case of .REPUBLICAN amazingly enough had no standing to object to .REPUBLICAN. The language of the AGB is deciphered in a misleading and false manner.
Here is my point: If the Republicans (GOP) and A2IM (with Label members winning 50% of Grammys awards and Associate members including iTunes, Youtube etc) can not have any standing in community objections, then who has standing?
Perhaps ponder on that and its repercussions.
This process is filled with misconceptions and false statements. For example, in the Donuts case (http://www.iccwbo.org/Data/Documents/Buisness-Services/Dispute-Resolution-Services/Expertise/ICANN-New-gTLD-Dispute-Resolution/EXP_459_ICANN_76_Expert-Determination/), Sir Robin Jacob (panelist) states that we are an applicant for .BAND and that the Objector is supporting our application for .BAND. Both are lies and false statements that were used by the Panelist as rationale (see Point 38 and 39). Actually objector is supporting another community application AND we have no application for .BAND. Relying on lies as “factual” rationale shows the lack of accountability and how applicants can circumvent the process. However no-one is accountable for misleading information and lies. This is the nature of the new gTLD Program. It is indeed the wild wild west.
The Panelist Sir Robin Jacob is making a mockery of the process by claiming we have an application for .BAND when we do not. This is the level of “expertise” and attention to detail that these Community Objections have been about. Furthermore, it is highly disappointing that Donuts (and other applicants) have stooped so low to be submitting false statements. When an expert, the ICC and ICANN do not care about facts and do not proof-check them and are not held accountable then you get these types of decisions.
I hadn’t caught that .band slip up. In this case it’s a bit of copy-and-paste error due to the template he used on all decisions, but it still looks bad given the amount of money (you) paid for the decisions.
Andrew,
The decision was rendered on September 23rd, 2013 by this Panelist. So why did it take 5 months to make a 17-page write-up which says there is no standing? You do not see anything fishy here?
Nearly a million dollars was spent on this entire objection process and we relied on ICANN and the ICC’s expertise to come up with rationale decisions based on facts not ies. This was not merely a copy and paste job.
It is noted that we had a correspondence with Sir Robin Jacob in writing giving him the facts that we are not the Objector. He acknowledged this but yet wrote something different. The fact is the objector supported another community applicant (i.e not ours). And out of thin air Sir Robin Jacob relies on the words of Donuts and other Applicants assuming that anything they say is factually correct. Sir Robin Jacob even stated GAC advice was irrelevant when if one just researches the topic they would quickly discover that changes in the gTLD Porgram have been made because of this advice. How is this irrelevant? Because Applicants such as Donuts, Amazon and Google can say it is irrelevant and get away with it because they put such language in a confidential document that will never be released to the public (ie no transparency).
The other issue is the one surrounding the Panelist requiring each of the Objector’s members to send a letter of objection as well. We asked the ICC if we had to reach out to every single member of Objector and Related-Objector entities about a year ago and they said we did not. If you look at every single case that got standing (.GAY, .HOTEL, .KOSHER, .SEARCH, INSURANCE, .BANK. .SPORT, .POLO and many others), those Panelists correctly assumed that the established Objector institution/association represented the interests of its members. This is a logical fact. Members join associations to have their interests heard. However, Sir Robin Jacob in this case claims that the opinion of any association/objector does not represent the interests of its members and not aligned with their opinion and that letters of opposition should have been asked from each member.
In the panelists’ opinion a letter from each member is required to agree that piracy and copyright infringement is bad? Or that an open application without safeguards is bad? Or that exclusive access where no-one can register a .music domain is bad? The question that Sir Robin conveniently ignored is whether, in his “expert” opinion, the music community would agree that an unsafe open gTLD is a good idea or that Amazon/Far Further restricting members of the music community from registering is a good idea. I assure you that everyone we spoke to agrees that monopoly/oligopoly or a music-themed gTLD without enhanced safeguards is bad. The ICC failed to do its job once again. At least we know we had this issue in writing to both them and the Panelist and strangely enough they ignored their own statements in this decision to uphold the rules.
We had a fear that this type of problem might arise so we asked the ICC before the objections started. The ICC said that an Objector will be representing its members (emphasis added) and we would not require letters from each member. It would be madness to be getting letters from each member of any association or entity. Can you imagine an association with hundreds of thousands of members? How on earth do you get letters from each one. Then it would be regarded as “spam” if we had every member send a letter to the Panelist, ICANN and the ICC. We said we could do this if required. The ICC responded and said that only a letter from the Objector is needed not its members.
Inconsistencies are one issue but relying on lies or misleading statements in a conclusion as a rationale is another issue. Sir Robin Jacob’s pocket was enriched handsomely by us. Too bad he did not earn it and do his homework. At least rely on the rules and facts – not lies – for your rationale. We would be ok with that even if it were a negative result. Good that we have the lies in writing though. It took the ICC about 5 months to check for quality assurance on the rationale and decisions. You think they did a good job?
With all due respect, this part is sort of silly:
“We had a fear that this type of problem might arise so we asked the ICC before the objections started. The ICC said that an Objector will be representing its members (emphasis added) and we would not require letters from each member.”
Well, were the letters “required” in order for them to consider your response? No.
It’s kind of nutty to ask the ICC, who is not going to be deciding the case, “What evidence do I need?”
Imagine being arrested and asking the judge questions like, “Do I need to hire a lawyer?” or “Do I need to present evidence or call witnesses at my trial?” The answer to both of those questions is “no”. You do not need to do those things to defend yourself in court, but you’d be crazy not to, despite the fact that neither of those things is “required”. You could have all or a representative number of the membership sign on to one letter, for example. It’s not rocket science, but nobody is going to tell you in advance of any sort of proceeding what sort of evidence is “required” or “not required” to prove your case.
They aren’t there to help you build your case, and it is self evident that the objection was received, considered and adjudicated. Hence, no, letters or even *a* letter from the membership wasn’t “required” for that to happen. If you were asking them “what do we need to do to win” versus “what do we need to do to file an objection and have it adjudicated”, those are two different questions. Obviously, nobody is going to answer the first question for you, and the second question was indeed correctly answered.
In other words, yes the ICC was correct that the organization was allowed to file the objection for adjudication without any evidence of support by the membership. But it goes without saying that had you decided to show, in your substantive case, indications of the support of the membership, then you would have at least had that part covered.
“In the panelists’ opinion a letter from each member is required” – no, and that’s not what the panelist said. But again, how freaking hard is it to post the text of a letter, send an email to your membership, have them type their name on a form, and send that in?
” because they put such language in a confidential document that will never be released to the public” – Balderdash. What restriction is there on you against releasing any document in the proceeding. All of the documents in the National Association of Realtors community objection to .realestate TLD’s were released (http://domainincite.com/14051-realtors-withdraw-five-gtld-community-objections). What sort of omerta was placed on this one? Yes, the ICC holds the documents in confidence, but there is nothing binding on the participants, should they choose to publish them.
John,
In fact we did add Related-Objector Entities in addition to the Objector in the cases. That was completely ignored and not even mentioned.
If you look at the other decisions, Objectors were not required to ask individual members for letters supporting the mission of the association they joined and the causes that are common e.g competition and abuse relating to their sector. Do you have doubts any member from the music community would say monopoly and intellectual property abuse is a good thing? In fact all Objectors did send messages to their members on the topic (these are public as well)
Members join associations because they have aligned missions and goals. Piracy, protection of intellectual property and competition is one that all do and will agree. So you suggesting that it was up to the Objector to have each member send letters to the Panelist for something so obviously “agreeable” and aligned with the core mission of protecting intellectual property and not have a monopoly is a bit unrealistic. Actually, the Objector(s) did in fact let members know about the Objection and were not acting alone (http://a2im.org/2013/02/04/call-to-action-please-write-icaan-about-how-music-should-be-administered/ and http://www.a2im.org/downloads/Music_US_Objection_Letter_Template.pdf and http://www.ifacca.org/announcements/2013/02/27/express-your-view-applications-new-music-domain/). The main Objector(s) alerted all their members in a newsletter and online publicly and everything was transparent and consistent with their Bylaws to serve the best interests of their members. No-one objected to the contents of the letter because everyone agrees on protecting IP and promoting competition. The Panelist knew this and it was presented in the submission given. Bottom line, If any member disagreed they would have made their voice heard. But they did not. Did they know about it? Yes. No-one objected to the action of the institution represented by their membership consistent with their Bylaws and Mission. In short, the Objectors did their part and everything was well communication, included the serious subject matter of promoting competition and protecting intellectual property and fighting piracy..
If the route was taken that you suggest then you would need potentially hundreds of thousands of letters from members agreeing to the association they are represented by for common issues such as piracy, intellectual property protection and competition. Then things get complicated. Let me explain why. We all know the legal consumption of music is pretty delineated. Artists/Rightsholders make the music, label/artist promotes it legally on legal stores such as iTunes (or streaming via Spotify or viewed on Youtube etc) and then fans consume it legally and rightsholders get paid (emphasis added). This is part of a whole delineated system. Under your rationale does the association/objector/community applicant have to ask its members for a letter of support, who in turn get a letter from the artist, the artist’s manager, who in turn must get a letter from the consumer who wants to support the music in this clearly delineated manner?
Nevertheless, we did in fact add Related-Objector Entities in the Appendix (Annex) but they were ignored by Panelist as mentioned earlier. In another process – CPE evaluation – we have supporting members with over 3 million constituents. Does this mean we need to get 3 million letters from each supporting organization’s members to be sent to the EIU to support the supporting organization that supported us? Where do you draw the line? You know for a fact millions of letters is an impossibility and never required by the other Panelists that found standing for tens of Objectors in the other cases.
In perspective, ICANN itself acts on behalf of the best interests of Internet users as the co-ordinating body of the domain namespace. In regards to the .COM gTLD, it does so without any signatures from .COM registrants. Does ICANN ask .COM registrants (i.e who pay the bills) whether Verisign should continue to run the .COM registry and for extension of their contract(http://www.icann.org/en/about/agreements/registries/com/agreement-01dec12-en.htm)? How many public comments has ICANN received from the 112 million .COM registrants? Less than 50 comments were made (http://forum.icann.org/lists/com-renewal/) and most were from insiders. Not voicing an opinion from the 112 million .COM registrants means there is “no problem” and ICANN is free to do what it wants right (Silence means consent?)?
An organization has bylaws that members agree to and rely on the organization to represent their interests for those Bylaws. If the organization’s mission and bylaws are to protect intellectual property and promote competition then members that join that organization as member agree to those Bylaws and ideals and expect their interests in those areas be protected. This is how the real world works. Some things are practical and logical and be taken within context.
In regards to keeping documents confidential I am unsure whether there is a clause in the ICC proceeding which requires those documents be kept in a confidential manner. We obviously would share them if we could. Would shed a lot of light on the topic and hold Applicants accountable to what they say. I will look into this. Thanks for letting me know about this John.
Constantine, I’d be happy to publish the documents here if you’d like.
Andrew,
Let me verify that we can actually release these confidential documents without any unintended consequences with respect to ICANN gTLD Program rules. John Berryhill might have a good point here on getting documents out in the open. As you may know I am in full support of transparency and the facts to be made public.
Constantine, you made no confidentiality pledge with respect to any document in the dispute process.
But your hyperbole about the question of showing substantial support really misses the point People join organizations that do all kinds of things for all kinds of reasons. Take the RNC’s objection to .Republican, for example. Now, in the US, there are tens of millions of registered Republicans. How many of them know what a TLD is, knew the RNC was objecting, or gave a shit about it one way or another?
There are ways of determining levels of support among large numbers of people. Based upon reliable statistical principles, it is possible to obtain and sample the opinions of the people in that group to accurately predict the response of the entire group. It is called polling. No, you don’t need a note from each member to conduct a poll and show the result. Stop being silly.
Does it automatically follow that every member of every group is in lockstep with the leadership of the organization? No. Just ask someone who favors handgun control, but joined the NRA for discounts on hunting supplies; or ask the politically conservative service worker whose workplace is an SEIU union shop. It is simply not true that every organization speaks for every member on every issue. The ICANN environment itself is filled with posturing representatives of organizations whose members wouldn’t know a TLD if it bit them in the ass.
So the level of engagement by members with an issue is a relevant question.
John,
It is safe to say that Republican voters and party members would have an issue with another “unrelated” 3rd-party applying for .REPUBLICAN because you have to agree the level of confusion would be quite high.
How on earth did the republican party (GOP) with nearly 60 million members not have standing for .REPUBLICAN?
They have certainly done a lot of polling over the years and they are globally recognized. The role of the Republican party is to do what is in the interests of its members and the Republican party. In this case why allow an “unrelated” party run their “brand” and create confusion? I would assume Republicans registering for a .REPUBLICAN domain name are registering it because they are members of the Republican party. Correct me if I am wrong here.
So isn’t this a landgrab based on manipulating the Republican party’s name (as a generic term) for the objected-to Applicant to monetize i.e by marketing .REPUBLICAN to Republican members to spur domain registrations? Call it “legal” cybersquatting or unfairly exploiting the GOP’s brand name for gain. I truly do believe this is the business plan behind the applicant that applied for the GOP’s Republican name. I am sure most would easily bet on this unless one can show that people that are part of a Republic (e.g the Republic of Cyprus) would be the majority of registrants. I doubt this was the goal since there was also an application for .DEMOCRAT. It is safe to say .REPUBLICAN is focused on domain registrations from GOP Republicans. In spite of all of this the GOP/Republican party does not have standing in their objection either according to another so called ICC “expert”.
This is unfortunate and unacceptable in my opinion.
Wait. Who paid for the objections – The “community” or “Mr. Roussos”, also known as the competing applicant?
The loser in the disputes has to pay the fees, although each party is responsible for their own legal fees.
Thanks Andrew. I know. After reading the arguments from the respondents, I realized that the A2IM objections were paid for by Mr, Roussos (there is a wire proof at the end of the objection, apparently)
Also, I just spoke to a chanting Tibetan Buddhist monk (who doesn’t plan to release an album, either independently or through a major brand) and he said that he never cohesed with anyone and wasn’t aware of a “music community”. I think Mr. Roussos .. Apologies .. A2IM should reach out to him and address his concerns.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIKQkJz-C5k
hahahahaha!