Owner of Scratch.org domain name transfers it to non-profit as part of settlement.
Scratch Foundation has settled a cybersquatting lawsuit it brought against the domain name Scratch.org with the domain’s registrant, Ravi Lahoti.
Although full terms of the settlement have not been publicly disclosed, part of the agreement involved transferring the domain to Scratch Foundation. Scratch.org now forwards to the foundation’s website at scratch.mit.edu.
Previously, Lahoti was in discussions to settle the case by transferring the domain name for $20,000. That settlement didn’t go through.
After the previous settlement failed, the judge overseeing the case ordered Lahoti to provide extensive information about his domain name activities including a list of all domains he ever owned, how much money he made from each domains, and any allegations of trademark infringement made against him. Oh, and this information would be public!
That apparently sent Lahoti back to the negotiating table.
Lahoti registered the domain name well before Scratch Foundation existed, so his ownership of the domain name does not run afoul of the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act. However, the judge certainly didn’t approve of some of Lahoti’s alleged prior behavior, prompting his approval of the request for data and to make it public.
The settlement notice says that both parties will pay their own legal fees in the matter.
Ravi Lahoti fulfilled discovery requests in September 2019.
The sticking point was that Code-To-Learn Foundation wanted a confidentiality clause and Ravi Lahoti wanted an admission in the record that he did nothing wrong.
So it appears that the answer was a purchase agreement and a dismissal without prejudice.
The court file simply says:
STIPULATION OF DISMISSAL
Pursuant to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 41(a)(1)(A)(ii) and the parties’
agreement to dismiss this matter based on a settlement, Plaintiff Code-To-Learn Foundation d/b/a Scratch Foundation and Defendant Scratch.org, by and through undersigned counsel, hereby stipulate that all claims brought in this Action are dismissed with prejudice. The parties further stipulate that each party shall bear its own costs, expenses and attorneys’ fees.
Court: E.D.Va. | Civil Action #: 1:19-cv-00067-LO-MSN | Docket: 69
#69: Filed: 2019-10-17
STIPULATION of Dismissal by Code-to-Learn Foundation d/b/a Scratch Foundation. (Barnes, Attison)
He didn’t fulfill those discovery requests, though.
I’m sure that this Virginia magistrate knew that ‘Scratch Org’ is the name used for a huge ‘open source’ deployment of Salesforce (world’s 4th largest software company).
There are 500,000 webpages on Salesforce Scratch Orgs, it’s by far the dominant Google return, so how could he not.
https://tinyurl.com/yybzd7ro.
Anytime an ACPA hijacker shows up to steal a 20yo domain name, he is there to steal from others, not just the domain registrant.
C.S. Watch,
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What can you expect of the rest of the World WHEN
MIT – Massachusetts Institute of Technology acts like this just no to pay a
fair amount on a single word .org registered in 1998
They really need to go after shameonme.com
Their website states:
Create stories, animations etc share with other around the world, well this
is quite a story to share, please MIT share it
Blood sucking Domainer got what was coming to him.
Internet tax? You’re complaining about domain investment in an era of $100 options on BrandBucket and SquadHelp? Concede that one should not be taking people’s custom if one cannot handle this task.
It can seem gauche to trade in .orgs. We don’t. *huffs nosegay* But there are lots of clear exceptions. And these surely include names like SCRATCH.ORG, as ‘scratch’ is a word used by thousands of for-profit groups worldwide.
If some little matchgirl didn’t bother to invest in generic .orgs like this, the whole .org extension would be a puppet show run by Bristol-Myers Squibb. The courts and Congress know it.
https://www.godaddy.com/domains/domain-investing
“The sticking point was that Code-To-Learn Foundation wanted a confidentiality clause…” That’s interesting.
I wonder if MIT pushed for that, in light of the rock that’s been kicked over at the university. Their domain hijack is a violation of federal law, sure, but that’s like Dahmer worrying about his napkin game.
…Epstein’s donations to MIT flowed only through MIT’s Jo Ito, then Ito’s incubator gets over twice that directly from Epstein, then Epstein gets first access to a pupu platter of all that early startup equity–what a sweet deal. Insider trading seems so Shannon Tweed by comparison. Between post-conviction pedophiles and Saudi bonesaw money…what a petri dish for the kids.
*https://fortune.com/2019/09/09/mit-jeffrey-epstein-joi-ito/
*https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/03/magazine/saudi-arabia-american-universities.html
Glad there was a settlement, and I’m no lawyer, but…
Scratch is a great, free educational tool used by tons of schools and (I’d guess) millions of kids. It is almost a standard in public schools and after school coding clubs, etc.
He may have registered the domain before the Foundation existed, but I think this was a web site / project at MIT for quite some time prior to that. Did he register it before the educational tool called Scratch existed?
Not sure of the timing and no time to research. Just putting it out there…
Yes, he registered it well before the Foundation existed.