A World Intellectual Property Organization panelist has found (pdf) Music Together, LLC guilty of reverse domain name hijacking.
The case followed a surprisingly common fact pattern: a company registers a domain name in good faith as a licensee of the Complainant, and the license is later terminated.
In this case, the registrant of MusicTogetherofMarin.com was a licensee of Music Together, LLC. The license was later terminated, and the domain owner continued to use the domain name.
Although it’s possible that the continued use of the domain is in bad faith, it’s clear that the registration of the domain name was not in bad faith at the time of registration. To win a UDRP, you must show that the domain was registered in bad faith, not just used in bad faith.
This means the case was dead on arrival, and UDRP is not the appropriate venue for a case like this.
In finding reverse domain name hijacking, World Intellectual Property Organization panelist David H. Bernstein wrote:
Given that the Complainant knew that the Respondent was its licensee at the time that the Respondent registered the Disputed Domain Name and the inference, based on the record – notably the lack of Complainant’s provision of the relevant license, which it is therefore assumed does not operate to its favor in this case – and arguments presented, that the Respondent was authorized to register the Disputed Domain Name at that time, there could not have been bad faith registration. That means that the Complaint was doomed to failure. That the Complainant was represented by counsel only heightens the bad faith conduct that underlay the filing of this Complaint.
Riker Danzig LLP represented the Complainant and Kinney Law, P.C. represented the domain name owner.
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