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Oops. If you don’t renew your domain name, this could happen

by — Policy & Law 6 Comments

A government watchdog let its domain name expire. Someone advocating for the other side registered it.

Screenshot of the website citizensforabetterkenner.com

The new message at citizensforabetterkenner.com is in stark contrast to the old one.

An advocacy group in the city of Kenner, Louisiana let its domain name expire. Now someone in opposition to the group is using the domain.

Citizens for a Better Kenner, Inc., is a non-profit watchdog of the local government. It registered the domain name CitizensforaBetterKenner.com in 2011 to promote its cause.

Then, apparently earlier this year, it let the domain name expire. Someone with a very different message registered the domain. The website now has the message:

Thank you to Mayor Zahn, the Kenner City Council, and Chief Glaser for doing an excellent job keeping our city moving in the right direction in 2019.

The overwhelming volume of Kenner residents appreciates what you do!

In a lawsuit (pdf) filed to try to recover the domain (as well as the matching .net and .org) and get damages, Citizens for a Better Kenner states that “The opinions and content as currently displayed on the website are in stark contrast to the actual opinions of the actual CFBK.”

The non-profit alleges that the new owner of the domain is cybersquatting and has “a bad faith intent to profit from the goodwill created over eight (8) years by CFBK.”

The group might have trouble proving this. It does not appear that the current owner has a profit motive. It simply appears to be exercising its own free speech with the “opinions and content,” which may be a plausible defense in the case.

Granted, it may not be clear to people when they visit the website.

Lotto Sport Italia and lotto company file dueling motions for summary judgment

by — Policy & Law 3 Comments

Did a lotto company buy domains for its business or to cyber squat?

Picture of lottery balls in green, purple, blue and red

A battle over lotto-related domain names is about two-and-a-half years old, and it’s entering a critical period.

Lotto Sport Italia, the soccer apparel company, filed a cybersquatting dispute under UDRP against the domain names LottoStore.com and LottoWorks.com at the beginning of 2017.

The domain names were purchased by a Canadian man who runs a lotto (as in gambling) business. David Dent acquired lottostore.com in September 2016 for $4,820 and then purchased lottoworks.com in December 2016 for $6,500.

Lotto Sport won the UDRP. My take at the time was that this was an end user purchase of lotto-related domain names for a lotto business, but that Dent was not represented well in the UDRP response.

Dent sued to stop the transfer. Now, over two years later, both parties have filed motions for summary judgment in the case.

Will either party prevail in their motions? It’s difficult to say, but looking at this case from the outside, I belive my original supposition was correct: a lotto business bought domain names with the word lotto in them to operate its lotto business. It had no intention of infringing the rights of a soccer apparel company. It strains credulity to suggest otherwise.

We’ll see what the judge has to say.

The soccer company is represented by Marc Randazza. Its motion is here.

The lotto company is represented by John Berryhill and Jeffrey Johnson of Schmeiser, Olsen & Watts. Its motion is here.

Judge lays down the hammer on Scratch.org owner

by — Policy & Law 22 Comments

Judge orders Lahoti to disclose lots of information about his current and prior domain names.

Picture of judge in robe

The judge hearing a lawsuit between a non-profit and the domain name Scratch.org has issued a big defeat to Ravi Lahoti, the owner of the Scratch.org.

Judge Michael S. Nachmanoff has ordered Lahoti to provide extensive data on his domain ownership, revenue, and previous trademark allegations. Perhaps most importantly, he has ruled the information should be public.

It is further ORDERED that the Defendant shall provide complete discovery responses as set forth in open court by Wednesday, October 9, at 12:00 p.m., including a comprehensive list of domain names presently and previously owned by Defendant; disclosure of all revenue derived therefrom, including from the sale of domain names and from advertisement revenue; and dates Defendant owned each domain name. Defendant shall also provide all requested underlying information, whether public or private, that Defendant received pertaining to allegations of trademark abuse against Defendant. To the extent Defendant has discarded, destroyed, or lost any information related to past allegations of trademark abuse, he must affirmatively so state.

Code-to-Learn Foundation, DBA Scratch Foundation, is trying to paint Lahoti as a serial cybersquatter. The judge has indicated that this matters. I still don’t understand how it should impact the instant case because public data indicates that Lahoti owned Scratch.org before the Plaintiff started its business. Hence, he could not have registered the domain in bad faith under the ACPA.

But publicly disclosing the information the judge has demanded will certainly put Lahoti at risk of future cybersquatting claims and potentially provide evidence of bad faith that can be used in those claims. It could also be bad for people who have purchased domains from Lahoti and don’t wish for the sale prices to be made public.

Lahoti may wish he had gone through with a settlement agreement in this case.

Tina Dam sues over .Music, reveals investment

by — Policy & Law 2 Comments

Dam, who worked on new TLD applications, claims she has been cut out of equity ownership of .Music top level domain.

.Music top level domain logo

Former ICANN staffer Tina Dam, who left the non-profit to work with Constantine Roussos on new top level domains, is now suing Roussos and related companies.

Dam claims that she owned half the shares of MYTLD, a company formed with Roussos, which in turn was due to own a portion of DotMusic Ltd through an agreement between the companies.

The lawsuit alleges that Roussos later tried to renegotiate the deal but Dam didn’t sign the updated agreement.

Roussos later claimed that he considered MYTLD inactive and dissolved.

DotMusic ultimately prevailed in the heavyweight battle to get .Music, defeating companies including Amazon and Google.

Dam believes she has been cut out of ownership of some of the DotMusic equity. Her lawsuit (pdf), filed in Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles in July, states 15 causes of action.

The lawsuit also discloses how DotMusic might have managed to stay in the hunt against big companies for so long and ultimately prevail. It includes a signed investment agreement between one of Roussos’ companies and Tudor T & Credit Union Societe. Under the terms of the agreement, Tudor T would invest $5 million in DotMusic for a 10% share in the company, valuing it at $50 million. [Update: Lawyers representing Roussos and the related companies told Domain Name Wire that no investmetns were ever made and the agreement was not fully executed.]

Tudor T also bought a majority interest in DotSong and DotOnline for a combined $5 million, according to the agreement. Other companies won those contention sets.

The DotMusic valuation was based on lofty expectations that many new top level domain applicants had at the time. Roussos forecasted $62 million in revenue from the first year of .Music including over $35 million of sunrise revenue.

Lawyers for Roussons and related entities released the following statement to Domain Name Wire:

Mr. Roussos intends to vigorously defend against the allegations set forth in the complaint.  These claims have no merit and we are confident the case will be resolved in our favor.

Court rejects France’s appeal in France.com case

by — Policy & Law 4 Comments

Court of Appeals rejects France’s motion to dismiss on grounds of sovereign immunity.

Picture of Eiffel Tour in France

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has rejected an appeal by the country of France in a dispute over France.com.

Here’s the background:

Jean-Noël Frydman, who registered France.com in 1994, lost control of the domain name to the country of France after France intervened in a court case. Frydman was in a legal battle with an unrelated entity over trademarks when the French government intervened in the case and convinced a court to transfer France.com to it. Frydman sued in U.S. court to get the domain back.

(Hear about the saga directly from Frydman in DNW Podcast #184.)

France and its related entities filed a motion to dismiss Frydman’s lawsuit on three grounds:

1. It had sovereign immunity
2. The plaintiff was seeking to re-litigate a judgment rendered by a competent foreign court
3. The case failed to state a cause of action

United States District Judge Liam O’Grady granted (pdf) the motion to dismiss for several of the French entities (including the French Republic) because the Complaint lacked sufficient factual allegations to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. He gave Frydman’s company 30 days to file an amended complaint.

O’Grady said the issue of sovereign immunity would best be raised after discover has concluded.

France appealed the decision on immunity. It seemed odd to me that the country would do that given the state of the case and the win it just got.

Now the Appeals Court denied (pdf) the appeal because of the current status of the case:

This court may exercise jurisdiction only over final orders, 28 U.S.C. § 1291 (2012), and certain interlocutory and collateral orders, 28 U.S.C. § 1292 (2012); Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(b); Cohen v. Beneficial Indus. Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 545-47 (1949). The order Appellants seek to appeal is neither a final order nor an appealable interlocutory or collateral order. Accordingly, we grant the motion to dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction.

Of course, the case is far from over. And while it works its way through the courts, France retains control of the domain name.