Australian male strippers fail to strip domain from U.S. company

It’s the second time the Australian company has tried to reverse hijack a domain name.

An Australian company that provides male strippers has been found guilty of reverse domain name hijacking for a second time.

Last month, a World Intellectual Property Organization panelist ruled that Magic Men Holdings Pty Ltd tried to reverse hijack MagicMen .com.

In a new case (pdf) published today, a different panelist made the same ruling for the domain MagicMenLive .com.

That domain is owned by a United States company that provides similar services to the Australian one. It once held registered trademarks for the term, and its use predates the creation of the Australian company.

The domain owner provided evidence that the two parties have communicated before, and that the Australian company previously offered to buy the U.S. company’s domain name and IP.

In finding reverse domain name hijacking, panelist Nick J. Gardner wrote:

The Panel has clearly not been provided with the entire picture as to the relationship between the Complainant and the Respondent. They manifestly know each other, appear to be on cordial terms and have for a number of years coexisted running effectively identical businesses under virtually the same name but in geographically separate areas – Australia and the US. Use of virtually identical names may well lead to some confusion on line but given the businesses are a form of live entertainment it is not likely that there will be any diversion of one business’ customers to the other business. It appears the Respondent in recent years has let his business lapse but still retains the assets of that business including the Disputed Domain Name. It appears that the Respondent was the first to start this business (see discussion above) and clearly at some stage between 2012 and March 2023 the Complainant and the Respondent have become aware of each other and struck up some sort of contact, the details of which are not known to the Panel.

The Panel does not see how the Complainant could have certified “that the information contained in this Complaint is to the best of the Complainant’s knowledge complete and accurate” without disclosing fully this background including the communications the Respondent has produced.