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Adobe is really annoyed by this Dominican man’s “photo shop”

by — Policy & Law 13 Comments

Photoshop maker takes another stab at getting his domain names. It fails.

Screenshot of PhotoshopCaribe.com, a domain name that Adobe says is cybersquatting on its Photoshop brand

A Dominican Republic photographer has had to defend his domain names twice.

Photoshop publisher Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE) has tried (and failed) for a second time to take away the domains of a photographer in the Dominican Republic.

The company first filed a cybersquatting claim against Photoshop del Caribe, S.R.L in 2016, claiming that its use of PhotoshopCaribe.com was cybersquatting. The Dominican Republic company successfully defended that case because Adobe didn’t show that the domain was registered in bad faith. Adobe failed to show that its Photoshop mark was well known in the Dominican Republic when the photographer registered the domain in 2006 and chose his company name years before that.

Fast-forward to 2019. Adobe filed another cybersquatting dispute against both the original domain PhotoshopCaribe.com and PhotoshopdelCaribe.com. Since the original case was filed, Adobe has successfully gotten Photoshop del Caribe’s tradename registration in the Dominican Republic canceled.

The owner of the domains said he had no idea about the tradename cancellation until it received the new cybersquatting complaint. It is appealing the cancellation.

The World Intellectual Property Organization declined to hear the case on PhotoshopCaribe.com since Adobe already lost a dispute against the domain in 2016. It did consider if PhotoshopDelCaribe.com is a case of cybersquatting, but decided that Adobe didn’t show it was registered in bad faith.

Panelist Adam Taylor noted that Adobe didn’t remedy its shortcomings from the first case it lost.

Photoshop is powerful software, but it can’t manipulate old cybersquatting cases to make them look like they never existed.

.NZ domain manager sues Whois API

by — Policy & Law 4 Comments

Company goes after another Whois record seller.

Logo for Whois XML APIDomain Name Commission (DNC), which manages New Zealand’s .nz country code domain name, has sued Whois information provider Whois API. The company is also known as Whois XML API.

The lawsuit is similar to one it filed against DomainTools last year.

DNC alleges that Whois API has accessed and stored .nz Whois records in violation of its terms of use.

The group sent a cease & desist letter to Whois API on December 17, 2018, the lawsuit states. At that time, it also revoked Whois API’s limited license to run any .nz Whois queries. It says it didn’t receive any response after multiple attempts to contact Whois API and its CEO.

Whois API originally sold a lot of data to people that used it for marketing purposes, including Whois database downloads, but has shifted its messaging to security over the years.

The lawsuit filing is here (pdf).

Addicting.com domain lawsuit settled

by — Policy & Law 14 Comments

Addicting.com owner keeps domain and pays token amount to Addicting Games.

Picture of judge's gavel

A lawsuit over the use of Addicting.com has been settled.

Addicting Games sued Addicting.com in an in rem action, claiming that the domain name was cybersquatting.

While the domain name indeed showed ads related to online games, it appears that the owner of Addicting.com owned it before Addicting Games gained any rights in the Addicting mark. That means the domain owner didn’t violate the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) and transferring the domain to Addicting Games would be an inappropriate remedy.

Instead, Addicting.com’s owner Federal Investment Group, LLC has agreed (pdf) to pay $7,500 to Addicting Games and to refrain from using the domain in a way related to games. It has agreed to a $1,500-a-day penalty if it does, plus the potential to have the domain transferred to Addicting Games.

Federal Investment Group has smartly removed parked ads from the domain.

Both parties will pay their own attorneys’ fees.

A Post-GDPR model for domain name investors

by — Policy & Law 1 Comment

A model that might make domain investing easier under GDPR.

Graphic with the acronym GDPR for General Data Protection Regulation

A lot of processes domain investors and marketplaces use have become challenging thanks to the European Unions General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Most of this has to do with registrars blocking access to information in Whois.

This makes it difficult for marketplaces to verify a domain was transfer. It makes it hard for brokers and buyers to do due diligence on domain ownership. And as a journalist, tracking down domain ownership is very tricky.

World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), which handles cybersquatting complaints under the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), has also had to change its procedures because of GDPR. Many Complainants are filing blindly, not knowing who owns the domain name.

WIPO is working on a possible solution with some other industry participants. They will share what they’re thinking as it relates to domain investors in a webinar in conjunction with Internet Commerce Association on Wednesday, July 10.

Registration is free and currently open.

Michael Jackson estate gets KingOfPop.com domain name

by — Policy & Law 37 Comments

Estate owns domain name two years after entering into a settlement agreement with popcorn seller.

Screenshot of KingOfPop.com from 2016. It now forwards to MichaelJackson.com.

Sorry, no more popcorn at KingOfPop.com

The estate of Michael Jackson now owns KingOfPop.com after a legal battle.

It sued Gourmet Gift Baskets in 2016, alleging that the company’s use of KingOfPop.com for a website selling popcorn infringed on the late musician’s famous moniker.

According to court records, the two parties settled in 2017. But Jackson’s estate just got control of the domain name in recent days.

This suggests that the confidential settlement had about a two year transition period to allow Gourmet Gift Baskets to transition its use of the domain. The domain resolved to its former website until about the middle of 2018, at which point it began forwarding to gourmetgiftbaskets.com/popcorn.

Changing a site’s domain name is hard; changing an entire brand is even more challenging.

KingOfPop.com now forwards to MichaelJackson.com

(Hat tip: Jamie Zoch)