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"sucks".com Sites Win Legal Victory
Posted by
timothy
on Tue Jun 19, 2001 09:47 PM
from the doesn't-necssarily-suck dept.
from the doesn't-necssarily-suck dept.
amyandjake writes: "Dan Parisi (sucks.com) wins a courtroom battle to keep Michaelbloombergsucks.com instead of giving it to Bloomberg." I'll admit that I used to consider the dot-sucks domains to have few redeeming qualities, but the efforts to take them away have helped change my mind about them. Bloomberg can spare a few dollars to register danparisisucks.com, can't he?
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Re:.sux (Score:2)
Instead, no commercial entity should be allowed to register T.sux, and specific rules are written that .sux sites must in regard to free speech (eg critism or commentary about company/trademark T), and that the site must not be used to generate significant profit for the owner (eg I can't start amazon.sux as an complete alternative bookstore, though I could use banner ads and/or small gift items like t-shirts and mugs that advertize the site itself.
Speaking of suck related domains (Score:2)
While the market isn't what it used to be (remember the heyday of domain name buying and reselling?), I wonder what the now defunct (or rather non-updating) suck.com [yafla.com] could get for their domain from most probably the adult industry.
Re:Just goes to show... (Score:2)
Why?
It's a big world, and no matter who you are, it's pretty much guaranteed that somebody out there hates you to the core, and they feel like saying so.
Is attempting to prevent the inevitable from happening, really an intelligent strategy?
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Re:Just goes to show... (Score:2)
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Re:Rich kids (Score:2)
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Re:well... (Score:2)
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.sux (Score:4)
What the world needs is a new
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The Crucial Difference (Score:4)
I tend to agree with the distinction.
Re:Just goes to show... (Score:2)
Re:I'm SAFE (Score:2)
Full of Javascript errors, according to IE5 [hack, spit]
I don't know what wally world is, so apparently I'm a moron who should die.
Your level of literacy is about what I'd expect from a small town in Wisconsin.
If I was the kind of person who was offended easily, or could afford $30* I would be registering MinocquaSucksSucks.com.
* have you any idea how much it costs to put all your stuff in a container and put it on a boat for a few weeks? Those sailors must be making a fortune!
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Re:I disagree (Score:2)
Context is important. Duh. Using *sucks.com to make a statement of personal viewpoint - or even facts damaging to the trademark holder if you can support them with evidence - is EXTREMELY cut and dried. It's a textbook case for first amdendment freedoms. Now stop being a pedant.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
crappytire.com (Score:3)
Does anyone have a link to the text of the ruling that Canadian Tire couldn't claim that the domain "crappytire.com" was an infringement of their trademark?
I've heard a rumor the decision was handed down, but I haven't been able to hunt down exactly what resulted.
Yeah but... (Score:4)
And now he thinks he can become mayor of NY. ~sigh~
Rich kids (Score:2)
www.davisisapoopoohead.com
www.kennyhasgirlgerms.net
Re:Why doesn't the sucks.com guy... (Score:2)
Why doesn't the sucks.com guy... (Score:3)
Re:Just goes to show... (Score:3)
Just registering names for which you hold a copyright or for which no prior copyright exists and then squatting on them is not legally "cyberquatting".
(In fact the bar is slightly higher than this, if you want to read more [nolo.com])
Cybersquatting laws don't go far enough (Score:4)
What I think is lacking in current cybersquatting laws is that bad faith squatting is considered only in the case where it has already been shown that the complainant has a prior mark which is infringed upon. link [nolo.com]
I think that cybersquatting laws should be extended to any bad faith holding of domain names. Why? Because if you go to register a domain name these days you'll notice that virtually every English word and plenty of common combinations are taken. This wouldn't bother me, except that many of these domains aren't even in use...they've been bought by squatters.
It's simple math...when you can buy in bulk, you can register 428 domains for about $3000. Since the going rate for even crap domains seems to be above this (what is $3k to a company?) even one hit in 400 is a net profit. (example: "dot-diddly-dit-dot.com" is on the block [greatdomains.com] for $99999)
This is terrible, because in its original form the domain name system was available to anyone. With "deregulation" consumers can now purchase domains as cheaply as $10...only problem is, big companies have bought most of the useful ones up, so if you aren't another company with a few Gs in your pocket you can forget about most of the names out there.
Sure, new TLDs addresses the problem. But really, why should one settle for i-friable.com, or friable.info, when the owner (houseofdomains.com) is just sitting on them? Shouldn't they go to someone who can contribute something to the Internet? What is to stop someone with a few million in capital from buying a large swath of useful names in every TLD, and waiting for the cash to roll in? (especially since some registrars are giving businesses the first crack [slashdot.org] at new names)
Opening the door to any bad-faith challenge certainly opens up a can of worms, but wouldn't it be nice to have a web where sushi.com [sushi.com] actually led to a sushi site, and thousands of other dead, unused names were being put to good use and making it easier to find information in the billions of web pages out there?
General Motors cases ..... (Score:2)
Didn't Ford win a case against 2600-guys and got their fordsucks.com back ?
It's funny to see same kind of conflict resolved in two different ways...
Re:General Motors cases ..... (Score:5)
Ford sued 2600 for redirecting visitors of FuckGeneralMotors.com to Ford.com. Apparently visitors to the site might think that Ford is trying to harm GM. Ford's customers are stupid, I guess. They [2600.com] even have the transcript [2600.com] available on their website. However, the case is still pending.
According to Emanual Goldstein (aka Cereal Killer
Oh, and if you're feeling generous, you can donate [yahoo.com] from their online store. So far (11:45PM EST 19/06/01), donations have taken care of 23% of the fees.
kickin' science like no one else can,
my dick is twice as long as my attention span.
Re:Just goes to show... (Score:2)
--Fesh
Re:Just goes to show... (Score:2)
Doh. Forgot. Big company registers tons of domains in every possible spelling or misspelling of their name = good. Person registering a site of their own that happens to resemble a company slightly = bad.
Sheesh. Ever been to mattl.com [slashdot.org]?
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Re:Just goes to show... (Score:2)
Not fair use! (Score:4)
I chatted with Aurbach on it and he pointed that *sucks.com is not fair use -- Its proper use!
The purpose of a trademark is to identify a company, product, or service. You are identifying it as sucking. That is what prompted me to register mattelabuse.com [mattelabuse.com]. It has also been ruled In Mattel v. MCA Records -- the Barbie Girl case that trademark cannot be used to silence critics or satire.
Of couse, some large companies will use the courts to bankrupt a critic. Those the case frivilous, they count on the expense of litigation to scare and crush the little guy.
Good ruling, but not great. (Score:3)
The decision says:
A majority of the Panel agrees with the holding in Cabela's and concludes that the Respondent's domain name is confusingly similar to the Complainant's marks.
This is bad, even though other issues let Parisi carry the day. If -sucks sites were decisively ruled not to be "confusing similar" to their prefix, then they'd all be in the clear forever. As it is, survival of a particular site depends on the makeup of the arbitration panel.
The rationale for saying that -sucks sites are "confusingly similar" is that the name similarity will confuse a search engine. You type in Bloomberg, and you get directed to Bloombergsucks. Clearly, there has been confusion. But there are overwhelming arguments that this is nonsense:
An earlier ruling addressed the "confusing similarity" of sucks sites much better: "Both common sense and a reading of the plain language of the Policy support the view that a domain name combining a trademark with the word "sucks" or language clearly indicating that the domain name is not affiliated with the trademark owner cannot be considered confusingly similar to the trademark".
Common sense is so refreshing!
This whole issue is grey (Score:4)
On the other hand, we have the deliberate misuse of a trademark name for the purposes of degradation and or maliciousness intent (Forwarding fordsucks.com to chevrolet.com or whatever that past issue was).
A lot of points of view will depend on the general outlook of the trademark process to begin with...Is a name really worth that much? If the product isn't good enough without the name attached to it, why is it being purchased?
But, we have the slippery slope with suing out of existence the *sucks.com domains...Who's next? The deliberate misspellings, the last names that are too close to corporate trademarks, the .org's vs the .com's. There really isn't any one solution...my best guess for this is to have a domain set aside specifically for JUST trademarked corporate names (.tm) If you access a .tm domain, you know it's a valid trademark for a valid product...play first come, first serve with the rest of the domains, you lose it, you sucks.com
How long until they go after fuck* names? (Score:3)
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for now, anyway (Score:2)
damn sheep - parading this noise. (Score:4)
This guy owns over 700 domains with the suffix sucks. That means he pays $28,000 just for the domains, plus whatever he pays for hosting. Every year. Mind you, thats more than I and quite literally, tens of millions of americans made last year.
If we want to factor in hosting, this guy is probably looking at a $100,000 bill each year.
Added to that - he's probably not making a profit
Even if he is buying names in bulk - for $10 a piece, that's still 7 large plus hosting - Lets not mention the fact that the legal fees associated with this must of have been quite a nice sum.
There is no victory here for the "little guy", the "little guy" doesn't have the backing to blow money defending him/herself against a corporation that literally has billions to defend itself.
The basic issue is that even frivilous lawsuits, legal challenges, etc.. are enough to either make the little guy capitulate or run out of $$.
Eventually the *sucks sites are going to be controlled by big business, or by "business interests" (i.e. the competition) - not by independent people who are the majority of the american public.
This victory is a hollow and false one - fuck you sheep who are parading this like it's the best thing since the toilet.
The slashdot 2 minute between postings limit: /.'ers since Spring 2001.
Pissing off coffee drinking
Re:SO how long before... (Score:2)
Sounds like a money maker to me.
Re:.sux (Score:2)
http://softwarepatents.areverybad.org [areverybad.org]
http://scientology.isverybad.org [isverybad.org]
http://amway.isverybad.org [isverybad.org]
If you have a suggestion for redirection (or even IP pointing like I do for the LPF in the softwarepatents case) feel free to contact me.
700 urls (Score:4)
As much as I dislike this, I can see it as a business plan, to drive traffic to his "sucks" themed websites.
This must annoy the big players no end, so he gets bonus brownie points just for that.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire [eplugz.com] comic strip
small victory (Score:4)
Saying "McDonalds sucks" or "GM sucks" is free speech. That's all there is to it. And all this talk about extortion and why or why not someone owns a domain is nonsense. If these corporate retards had understood the internet instead of just spending the late 80s/early 90s getting drunk at the golf course, this wouldn't be an issue in the first place.
GM/Disney/AOLTW/Fox aka Murdock now control the media. The last vestige of free speech is the net, which is exactly the reason it is under attack. Its kind of shocking to read wishy-washy posts on this issue on slashdot. Imagine if this site were moderated by AOL or MSN.
ps, *nix rules, microsoftsucks.com [microsoftsucks.com]
Re:Not very telling... (Score:3)
The article isn't very telling with regard to the factors contributing to the inconsistant decision with regard to the domain ownership. This is a cop out really:
I think it's sufficient. Actually, though, if you go read the entire decision [sucks.com] you'll find that they did dither a whole bunch before deciding that this was pretty much all it took.
What I really liked, though, was the other opinion. There were three judges on the panel, and two of them wrote this long, tortuous analysis of the application of the domain name registration policies, complete with cites of relevant cases and analyses of how they applied. The third judge agreed with their conclusion, but his analysis was much simpler.
He just pointed out that the first requirement of the policy that allows a domain name to be cancelled or transferred was that the name must be confusingly similar to the complainants domain (meaning someone might think that michaelbloombergsucks.com is an official Bloomberg site), and then noted that:
It's so nice when you see legal minds following rational paths...
It says everything... (Score:2)
Sure it is. Free Speech and the 1st amendment was created for this very reason. Free Speech is about protecting unpopular speech not popular speech, which doesn't need protection. What can be more unpopular to the people in control then saying they suck?
Re:This whole issue is grey (Score:2)
The idea for trademarks is that they're supposed to protect the consumer; basically, the holder of a trademark is allowed to sue people who use trademarks that are really similar, so that consumers don't get confused about what they're buying. So typo registrations (yahooo.com for example :) are obviously confusing, and fall in the area of black-letter law.
The last names are a thorny part of trademark law. I'm not going there now, 'cause it's too late and I have homework to do for tomorrow. :)
The degradation issue is where you get really thorny, though. That's a place where lots of countries have no rules at all... but the US has a system for protecting the trademark holder's investment in the mark, and so do quite a few other countries. Again, I'm not goin' there... ;)
Not vary telling... (Score:3)
--CTH
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The published ICANN Decision for this domain (Score:3)
The Dispute Resolution Comittee Decicion [sucks.com]
--CTH
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It was proposed & shot down. (Score:2)
Re:SO how long before... (Score:2)
I'm SAFE (Score:2)
A while ago a rumor got back to me that the town was going to try to sue the domain back from me but now with this ruling I feel much safer. Considering I had a 'sucks' site before i got the domain and I'm not offering it for sale I feel much more confident in it. Now if I can just get a TradeMark on it.
The site is MinocquSucks.com [minocquasucks.com]. Go and be amazed at how much 10 square miles of town can really suck.
Now if I can just get the lawsuits to go away I can just worry about finding a good cheap host.
Peace and Love, Inc. (Score:2)
I was talking about this not long ago with a friend over corporate fast food in a corporate department store chain in the trendy little college town in which I live:
Most companies create for themselves and image. They build a face, maybe a logo, a mascot, a color scheme, a tagline, whatever, and they associate this image with their name. Most companies work so that their name and image (and sometimes catchphrase) far overshadow their product. Why? Because people are bored by details. Soundbites, hot logos, and "the idea" are what sell things.
Examples: Tony the Tiger has NOTHING to do with Frosted Flakes, and neither do those little guys on the Rice Crispies box have anything to do with their cereal. McDonalds doesn't care if we smile or not -- they lie about what they cook their fries in.
With companies, it's all buzzwords and ideas that "make ya feel good about the product." IBM isn't going to bore end users and PHBs with jargon and technobabble. No, they'll play up the B2B angle, show pictures of sleek machines (and people) working hard. They play up the power aspect. Who cares that the whole tech crew might have to make a shift from Solaris to AIX, or from BSD to NT, or whatever. It's the CONCEPT that they feed us, the associations that they attach to their name and image, that is important.
That's why (whatever)sucks.com is such a big issue with these people. It's hard to put on the hard sell when Joe Sixpack in Blindpossum, OK can just surf over to (whatever)sucks.com and instantly see a negative view there.In the thread about teaching seniors about the Internet, concerns were voiced about being savvy enough to tell the shysters from the experts. After all, a lot of people really do believe everything that they read, and anyone who represents himself as an expert.
That's part of what motivates companies to sue (whatever)sucks.com webmasters: it interferes with the picture they paint. Whether or not the material that appears on the site is true is immaterial, because either way, it's bad for the company.
Americans especially are used to being told how to think, what to buy, etc. Our entire society is very neatly designed for us, from what our families should be like, how we interact, all the way to what to wear, eat, drive, etc. In a modern age of media, those with broadcast control have the power.
The Internet is a unique media where the common man can expend very little money and effort ($35 to buy the domain, about the same monthly for a cheap-midrange hosting package, and a few hours) to create something just as publically available as microsoft.com. If Joe Sixpack from Blindpossum, OK decides that some company or another has given him a raw deal, the Internet can provide a perfect forum to voice discontent (although I will say that this forum is also a great place to spread disinfo, and I'm suprised rival companies haven't snatched up (whatever)sucks.com domains, started hosting them in South Korea, etc).Companies aren't used to the little guy having so much power, and react the way they always do: by crushing their adversary.
I don't think it's ever been about confusion. It's companies defending their carefully wrought, expensive images from Joe Sixpack of Blindpossum, OK's untrained hand.
"Because the truth is available in limited quanitites."
Re:Bad publicity is better than.... (Score:2)
Just goes to show... (Score:5)
1) 'Your company's name'.com
2) 'Your company's name'.org and
3) 'Your company's name misspelled'.com/org/net
4) 'Your company's name'sucks.com/org/net
5) 'Your company's name permuted'.com/org/net
6) 'Your company's name backwards'.com/org/net
7) 'Your company CEO's name'.com/org/net
8) 'Your company CEO's name'sucks.com/org/net
And so on and so on...
It's a wonder anyone wants to get online these days.
Dancin Santa
Read a little closer (Score:2)
Even if he is buying names in bulk - for $10 a piece, that's still 7 large plus hosting - Lets not mention the fact that the legal fees associated with this must of have been quite a nice sum.
Most of the sites point to the discussion boards at sucks.com. So whatever you estimate for hosting, you don't need to multiply it by 700. Besides, I suspect the traffic to the sucks.com discussion fora is negligable next to the bandwidth from his porn properties.
As for this being a vistory for big business: while porn may be a big business, it is hardly in the same class as the corporate intersts that are typically accused of running things.
Re:Cybersquatting laws don't go far enough (Score:2)
I get pissed too at seeing a domain name not being used, especially as my name.com [colinmacdonald.com] goes to an AOL 404 (should I sue for defamation? ;) ).
But let's not forget that domain names can be used for things other than web sites. Anyone remember the fight over mypalm.com [mypalm.com], where the owner was using it only as a mail address, and Palm thought they could just demand because there was no port 80 server? They got burned, and eventually agreed to buy the domain but forward email to the old owner. Ironically, they're not even using it now (follow the link above and see), they just wanted it and thought that they were entitled to it because they had lawyers.
Re:Bad publicity is better than.... (Score:2)
And that's actually a good thing, if you look at it from a taxpayer point of view.
Bad publicity is better than.... (Score:5)
Eventually I go look at their website for the positive stuff, then I tag on the word "sucks" to their URL to see if there's an opposing viewoint. But a funny thing has happened in the year that I've been doing this... when I first started, I treated finding a "vendorsucks" website as a deficit. But lately, if I don't find a "vendorsucks" site for a bidder, I wonder if they're a serious contendor in the marketplace.
In other words, if they're not big enough to have pissed somebody off, somewhere, do I want to deal with them?
The old adage about bad publicity being better than no publicity seems to make sense.
danparisisucks.com is already registered... (Score:4)
Guess he got Bloomberg there.
Then again, danparisisucks.org, or even danparisiisthegoatseman.com are both available, ready for Bloomberg to register.
SUch domain names still in question - for now. (Score:4)
The new legal approach for pursuing the *sucks* domain names are to (1) pretend that such *sucks* domains could have a positive business value for the trademark holder, and (2) Those who originally own and register the *sucks* sites are merely squatting on a piece of realestate.
Of course, we all know it's far from that simple - "Oh, explorers-suck.com helps us relate to our customers". Yeah, right.
In our capitalist economy, every domain name is for sale for some price. And if Ford wants and can buy "explorer-sucks.com", that's well and good. But to proclaim that such domain ownership is squatting unless proven otherwise is the current trend of the lower courts.
Happily, the supreme court may thing otherwise. In Amptron vs. Amptronics, the court determined that there is the reasonable concept of so-called "Dualistic Trade Rights", where the trademark holder was found not to have automatic rights over a similar name. Proof that not guilty unless proven innocent still exists.
If and when one of these cases makes it to that court, it'll be interesting to see if they equate the outcome of this kind of case with the Amptron case.
I'd bet that they will, and all these "*sucks*" cases will be history. Only after it gets that high up in the courts will we have a final answer