Ravi Lahoti says he has owned the domain since 1998.
Earlier this year Scratch Foundation, a non-profit that started at MIT, filed an in rem lawsuit (pdf) against the domain name Scratch.org claiming that the domain is cybersquatting.
In the complaint, Scratch Foundation said it reached out to the owner of the domain name in 2015 and offered under $5,000 for the name. According to the lawsuit, the owner asked for $450,000 and shortly thereafter started showing ads related to credit repair.
The owner of the domain name is now defending the domain name in court. Ravi Lahoti says (pdf) he registered the domain in 1998, which is well before Scratch Foundation was created in 2007.
If the name Lahoti looks familiar, that might be because Ravi Lahoti is the brother of UDRPSearch.com owner David Lahoti. A third brother, Raj Lahoti, runs DMV.org.
Last year, UDRPSearch.com forwarded to information about a lawsuit filed against Ravi, making it clear that his brother David took sides with the plaintiff.
In a filing yesterday, Ravi Lahoti asked that the Scratch.org lawsuit be transferred to California.
Ravi updated the site at Scratch.org recently to includes news articles and videos with the word scratch in them. It also has a notice that the domain was registered in 1998 and includes the dictionary definition of scratch.
C.S. Watch says
The defendant uses ‘Scratch Team’ as their name for selling their merchandise. Yet SCRATCHTEAM.ORG still remains unregistered?
There’s a huge, global DJ community using the generic word ‘scratch’–companies, schools, social. This registrant will have turned down high offers for his asset. We’re not talking about a domain like ‘helpkids.org’ or teachchildren.org.’
The registrant of SCRATCH.ORG is out thousands of dollars and months of productivity. The defendant’s donors won’t appreciate the 100K+ they now owe for breaking federal law, and we the taxpayers don’t appreciate the wrongful burden on our courts.
Andrew Allemann says
You mean plaintiff?
C.S. Watch says
I did accidentally invert plaintiff/defendant—thank you.
Putting the court before the horse. 🙂
C.S. Watch says
That list of Lahoti’s domains posted on DNW made me think he could be Larry Flynt, but I went back a decade, and had to go through dozens of domains to even find an old link farm page. Something like “free escort” has over a million Google returns, but his freeescort.com was positively arid. (Is there anyone who does not know that kids have zero difficulty locating smut online? They do not need the aid of a link farm, and would not suffer such a delay.)
I wonder if Lahoti would have done well to send an unsolicited assurance to ScratchFoundation.org when they opened shop in 2014. Just to get ahead of any strategic panic artistry. Something to the effect that ‘no pornographic content/links will appear at this site.’
Absent that, one would worry that someone like Lisa O’Brien (founding Executive Director of ScratchFoundation.org), whose background is fine arts/teacher’s college, is a mark waiting to be played by thirsty lawyers. You can bet that casting aspersions, and casting bones about what the domain’s future ‘might hold,’ was a free legal consult. The attorney could have just contacted Lahoti and put OBrien’s fears to rest, but no billable hours in that. And no free blue chip 1998 domain asset, either.
If Lahoti does get the transfer to California, he’ll benefit from an informed view of sexier income streams. The 9th Circuit won’t override the Fifth Amendment just because something is giving you the vapors. (The first lady has done porn shoots…are we allowed to seize StopBullying.gov? Amazon Video streams The Handmaiden, and Rope…are we allowed to seize ScoutAndRo.org?)
Also, why doesn’t someone clue in ScratchFoundation.org that if they had the bad luck to build on SCRATCH.ORG, they’d only hemorrhage prospective STEM students to SCRATCH.COM, a 2002 VC-backed company with 50-100 employees, and a perilously fun DJing career path for kids. Now that’s stranger danger.
David Michaels says
The Complaint says that:
– Ravi asked for $450,000 in response to an inquiry from the Scratch Foundation in 2014 and
– Scratch Foundation counter offered $10,000 in 2017.
Did Ravi feel insulted by the counter-offer? In response, they allege that he raised his price to $650,000.
The Scratch Foundation should have just made a serious offer for the domain.
I am sure that the case will cost them more than $200K in the end. And if Ravi sees the case to the end, he should win. It seems more like an RDNH case since he registered the domain in 1998, the Scratch Foundation started funding the Scratch Project in 2014 (while claiming rights back to 2002), and it’s a Plan B attack.
It’s interesting that paragraph 49 of the Complaint says that the domain scratch.org is worth only $880. Meanwhile, the GoDaddy Domain Appraisal Tool says that it’s worth $10,624 USD – which I take is a wholesale/quick sale price.
Comparable domains sold:
scratch.club $399 (USD)
scratch.io $3,350 (USD)
scratch.net $1,988 (USD)
It’s even more interesting that the case is “in rem” because they complain that they don’t know the identity of the owner. Yet they received a counter-offer in response to their offer in 2017.
The Scratch Foundation should pay damages, costs, and attorneys fees plus $100K in ACPA damages.