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Graduate Student Defends Right To Own Chicago2016.com
Posted by
timothy
on Thu Sep 18, 2008 10:07 PM
from the but-all-he-did-was-think-of-it-first-and-register-it dept.
from the but-all-he-did-was-think-of-it-first-and-register-it dept.
An anonymous reader points to a story in the Chicago Tribune about another domain-name battle. Quoting the article: "As Chicago wages its battle to host the 2016 Olympics, it also finds itself scrapping over a valuable piece of cyberspace: the domain name of Chicago2016.com. The bid team along with the U.S. Olympic Committee are trying to wrest that online address from Stephen Frayne Jr., a 29-year-old MBA student. Frayne snagged it back in 2004, about two years before the bid was launched. ... 'We certainly see Chicago2016.com as the logical default domain for our site, and we believe having someone else control it is misleading for people seeking information about Chicago's bid,' said Patrick Sandusky, a spokesman for Chicago 2016, a moniker protected by trademark."
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Submission: NU graduate student defends right to own Chicago20 by Anonymous Coward
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Looks Legit (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Looks Legit (Score:4, Interesting)
It looks semi-legit. While it's a discussion site on the Olympics, it appears that he intentionally intercepted the domain by registering a bunch of <city><year> combos that happen to match Olympic years. Coincidence? I think not.
Generally speaking, ICANN tends to frown on such speculators. The originating entity has a right to their trademarks. Just because someone is crafty enough to beat you to it doesn't mean they should be rewarded.
This is quite different than someone like MikeRoweSoft.com; a domain registered with the guy's actual name to perform his own business.
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Re:Looks Legit (Score:5, Interesting)
The originating entity has a right to their trademarks.
And exactly where is this trademark that is infringed by this domain? If it was chicagoolympics2016.com, they might have an argument.
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Re:Looks Legit (Score:4, Informative)
According to TFA, "<city> <year>" combos have become a common method of referring to a specific instance of the Olympics. e.g. Syndney 2000 [wikipedia.org], Athens 2004 [wikipedia.org], Beijing 2008 [beijing2008.cn], etc. Such naming has all the trappings of a protected mark.
This fellow registered the domains in 2004. Which was AFTER the practice had become commonplace among Olympic cities.
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Re:Looks Legit (Score:5, Interesting)
It doesn't matter. The Chicago 2016 Olympic organising committee sought their trademark 2 years after the domain name was awarded and put into use.
McDonald's have a pattern of naming burgers with a Mc-prefix. If I started a domain named 'www.mcchocolatecake.com', and McDonald's started to offer, two years later, a McChocolate Cake, they wouldn't have a right to seize my domain. Same deal.
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Re:Looks Legit (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Looks Legit (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Looks Legit (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Looks Legit (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Looks Legit (Score:4, Interesting)
Then they'd have a legitimate argument. If they had a "discussion site" on McDonald's food, (analogous to this situation) they'd be slapped down. Also, a Scottish company cannot expect to successfully market a "McBurger" regardless of how common the "Mc" is in Scottish names. "McBurger" would be confusing with McDonald's existing marks and would have no right to ride their coattails into the market. They'll need to be more original than that. (e.g. Try "McGregor's Burger")
This is only true if you can PROVE it's a common pattern. Trademarks are industry-specific. Unless you can show that "Mc" is a common prefix among food stuffs (and not just Scottish names), a judge will be likely to find against you.
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Re:Looks Legit (Score:5, Funny)
McDowell's [wikipedia.org], maybe?
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Re:Looks Legit (Score:5, Funny)
Look... Me and the McDonald's people got this little misunderstanding. See, they're McDonald's... I'm McDowell's. They got the Golden Arches, mine is the Golden Arcs. They got the Big Mac, I got the Big Mick. We both got two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions, but their buns have sesame seeds. My buns have no seeds.
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Re:Looks Legit (Score:5, Informative)
Back in '96: http://www.mcspotlight.org/media/press/herald_7oct96.html [mcspotlight.org]
"a guy" == Lord Godfrey McDonald (chief of clan McDonald, aka 'McDonald of McDonald')
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Re:Looks Legit (Score:5, Informative)
Didnae stop the bastards suing a Mr. McDonald here in the highlands for running a café. The fat it had been running for generations, long before some Yank upstart that was started by some muppet ho wasn't even called McDonald was neither here nor there to these arses.
They lost :D
Had to pay the man damages.
Sadly they didn't lose enough that they'd have had to rename or anything in the UK. That would have been spectacular!
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Re:Looks Legit (Score:5, Funny)
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Actual Caselaw Defies Your Reasoning (Score:4, Informative)
It's really funny to see people speculating on something that has been established in actual caselaw. The "Mc-" prefix issue has been discussed many times in court, though perhaps most notably in the McDental case [audiocasefiles.com].
Basically, McDonalds is considered to have a "family" of marks; short of an actual Scottish name (and even, perhaps, then, if associated with fast food), putting "Mc-" in front of your business name is a good way to bring an army of red-shoed lawyers down on yourself. Doubly so if the "Mc-" is in front of food names.
The rules of enforceability for trademarks have a tenuous connection, at best, to common sense and basic fairness. Especially when you're talking about famous marks. To say that "common patterns are not enforceable trademarks" is just plain incorrect. Although there is some statutory language limiting the use of geographical terms, surnames, and the like, it does not foreclose such use entirely and it certainly does not limit enforcement in the event that such terms reach protectably source-indicating levels of recognition.
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. I am a law student and I have done advanced coursework in soft IP. "Chicago 2016" is a far cry from "McChocolateCake," but (whether it should be this way or not) the statutes give Sandusky and crew a decent chance of winning this one.
But because soft IP legislation fails to directly affect even an appreciable minority of voters, it really has become a matter of lobbying and winning concessions--which means it skews heavily toward big business. You may rightly criticize the possibility of a stupid legal outcome, but trademark law is not as straightforward (or, generally, sensible) as you seem to believe.
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Re:Looks Legit (Score:5, Insightful)
It is a Scottish naming convention, that's where it comes from. Mc or Mac = Son of
McDonald = Son of Donald and exists as the name of a million or so people who have nothing to do with beef patties, or any other form of biological warfare
How can you argue that a word in a language which pre-dates English can become the property of a US corporation to the exclusion of the speakers of that language and/or their descendants
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Re:Looks Legit (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, they can be. It depends on the circumstances of the individual case.
The problem here is, each poster is trying to put up a simple, black-and-white rule of 'this is what will happen', and that isn't how trademark works.
Trademark isn't like copyright or patent (as if they weren't unclear enough); it's primary focus isn't to establish a monopoly, but rather to avoid consumer confusion; as such the rights reserved are much narrower.
In day-to-day use, I can throw around anyone's trademark all day long. As long as my uses don't create confusion, it's not illegal.
The largely-unresolved trouble with domain names is, while a given use of a mark in a domain name may not cause confusion, one person using it does interfere with another person being able to use it. Trademark wasn't designed to address that situation (my use of a mark in most contexts doesn't affect your ability to use it, except to the extent I use it in a confusion-causing manner), but trademark holders often expect that they have a protected right to use the mark in such a high-profile context -- and thus they think nobody else should be able to use their mark in that way.
Of course, domain names don't line up well with trademarks. They aren't specific to a particular market, or even to commercial use, in the way that trademarks are. So Apple music and Apple computer can't both have a natural right to the apple.com domain name.
I do think there's generally something shady about grabbing up a bunch of domain names matching a pattern, then using the ones that happen to be significant to active Olympic bids -- but I'm not so sure it's a trademark problem or that there's any legitimate rule in place to suppress that sort of thing.
The Big Red Flags[tm] that make me think the Chicago 2016 organization is talking out its small end:
1) They claim they have a right because it's "natural" that they'd use the domain name.
2) Even though the site clearly says it doesn't belong to Chicago 2016, the organization tries to stretch the definition of "create confusion" to cover the possibility of language-barrier-induced misunderstandings. Give me a break. By that logic, if a foreigner sees an Apple logo on an install CD and thinks it's music, that should show that Apple music's trademark has been infringed.
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Re:Looks Legit (Score:4, Informative)
I was intrigued by your assertion so I looked it up, and found this site [dochara.com] which states "It is often erroneously said the Mc indicates Irish origin and Mac Scottish origin. In fact there is no difference at all."
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Re:Looks Legit (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, they would have a right. You yourself admitted that the Mc-prefix is a common pattern among McDonald's trademarks. In effect, the "Mc" brand itself is their mark. You have no more right to infringe upon their "Mc" mark than I have a right to create a program called "Microsoft Birdhouse". Both instances would be seen as bad faith and an attempt to hang your agenda off someone else's trademark.
There is no "in effect." Trademarks must be registered. "Mc" is not a registered trademark, Microsoft is.
Post above should be modded redundant... Don't know what happened there.
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Re:Looks Legit (Score:5, Informative)
You think so? Then, my good sir, could you please explain the difference between (TM) and (R) markings [wikipedia.org]?
Let me just nip this in the bud right now. From Wikipedia:
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Re:Looks Legit (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Looks Legit (Score:5, Interesting)
So if McDonalds named a product the McHammer, they get to forcibly take MCHammer.com on the basis of they own mc*?
And when Apple gets to forcibly take www.ink.com, and any other site that begins with "i" just by introducing a product with that name, since they introduce i* naming.
Here's an idea... perhaps I can trademark ".COM" and forcibly seize any domain ending in ".COM" since it contains something that looks like part of my mark.
What the heck is more generic than a random city name followed by 4 digits?
If I ever lived in Chicago; I might want Chicago2016.com. Perhaps to plan a party, unveiling of a new project, or event of some sort in the year 2016.
The Olympics are not the only event of interest to a city. City names and year numbers definitely shouldn't belong to the IOC.
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Re:Looks Legit (Score:4, Insightful)
*Go to Australia, 4 digit zip codes. Trivia: Sydney has an area with zip code 2000
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Re:Looks Legit (Score:4, Funny)
Its Chicago, they should make him an offer that he can't refuse.
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Re:Looks Legit (Score:5, Funny)
Nope. MC Hammer's lawyers would be on the case right away. They'd tell McDonalds that he is the rightful owner of the domain, and that they CAN'T TOUCH THIS!
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Actually, not necessarily (Score:4, Interesting)
Now if you created a parody site called "mcchocolatecake.com" and testified that you had used the term with the belief that it was so outlandish that McDonald's would never use it AND that any onlooker would see the name as a parody rather than a legitimate name, then you might have a case. But if McDonald's did come out with a McChocolateCake, you might be screwed anyway. It would be up to the ICANN panel to decide.
Not necessarily.
There was a very similar situation with Malcolm McBratney, who's nickname is McBrat. He sponsored a Rugby team an put his nickname on the shorts. McDonalds tried to sue him, partially based on their plans for a childrens clothing range. Although their planned name was McKids, NOT McBrats.
Anyway, they lost. It probably didn't help them that Malcom is an IP lawyer.
You can read more at: http://www.lawyersweekly.com.au/articles/McBrats-wins-in-IP-lawyer-vs-Maccas-case_z68530.htm [lawyersweekly.com.au]
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Re:Looks Legit (Score:5, Interesting)
ICANN frowns on it, but doesn't do shit about it. I HATE cybersquatters. My own domain was stolen in my opinion due to a glitch on Network Solutions part which allowed it to lapse before they even removed my name servers from the root servers, for this I am very mad. Even worse is that it is now parked, by some jackass who refuses to sell it back to me at a reasonable price. Feel free to mailbomb him, the domain is schizo.com and his information is accurate in the whois records ...
The point to my rant anyway is that, while squatting pisses me off, it would appear that this (and other domains like it) were registered by someone who thought ahead, more than 12 years ahead in fact. He IS using the domain, and what he's using it for doesn't matter. The fact that its used for Olympic discussion doesn't matter either. He had the forsight to register it before they did. Business is all about getting the right idea before someone else, and the name really is essientially a vanity domain, they can come up with plenty of other names to use.
So ... he's not really squatting, he's using it, and for a good purpose I think.
To me, the name isn't something that can be considered a trademark or any thing, I can't see how a city name can be considered property and more than the word 'shoes'. A post below this as I write says 'if it was chicagoolympics2016.com they might have an argument' ... I can't see how any of the parts of the name can possibly be considered a registerable trademark, I'm not saying they aren't, I don't know, they probably are.
But they olympics have been around far longer than trademarks and copyrights. If anything Chicago should be considered public property at best.
While he might be taking advantage of the situation, thats all the Olympic committee does anyway, they pull shit like deals with Visa so no other cards work, which is just ridiculous and in no way something that can be considered for the good of the sport, spectators or anyone other than those who get paid by the Olympic organization.
So in short, as someone who has been screwed out of his own domain, I cant' really say I'm sorry they were screwed out of it. He took a gamble on many names, if they really were concerned they should have registered the possiblities themselves long in advance like everyone else does. Google owns wwwgoogle.com, microsoft owns wwwmicrosoft.com, many companies have the insight to think ahead on things like this. They didn't, fuck'em.
And really, I can't imagine they can't afford to buy it from him, they'd just rather try to strong arm him into losing it rather than dealing with the fact that they weren't planning far enough ahead.
Evolution, business, and pretty much everything else in nature disagrees with you. Craftiness is a very GOOD reason to be rewarded, its part of what drives innovation. Next you'll be telling us that the runner who is faster in a race than everyone else shouldn't be the winner, because its not fair to the slower people.
I'm tired of all this 'its not fair' crap. Lifes not fair and no one even cheated the system on this one.
Good for him. I hope he makes a fortune from it.
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Re:Looks Legit (Score:5, Insightful)
Did you even go and look at the site? This guy did not know they would definitely want this domain, he wanted to start a site that was for discussion of the economics behind a bid for the Olympics. He's a student at a very good business school and that seems like a perfectly reasonable site for him to have created. Just because you think he wanted it for no good reason doesn't make it so.
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Re:Looks Legit (Score:4, Interesting)
thing is Chicago2016.com is an obvious choice for a name for his own site.
Think of it like this-
You start out wanting to make a site discussing the costs in the case that chicago hosts the olympics in 2016.
Should you choose adsjhasduh32432432.com for fear of someone confusing your site with another?
Or should you choose a name which hints at the sites purpose.
You could try chicagoolympics.com or chicagoolympics2016.com or even chicago2016.com if you wanted to be sure of being done for using the word olympics in your domain name.
That-thing-that-might-happen-in-chicago-in-2016.com isn't really going to get many visitors and Trade-marks-can-be-restrospective-now?.com probably isn't a valid name.
You want your name to be a decent one.
That means it has to make sense.
That means it has to have some relevance to the subject.
He has a perfectly valid reason for having that domain.
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Re:Looks Legit (Score:5, Funny)
It looks semi-legit. While it's a discussion site on the Olympics, it appears that he intentionally intercepted the domain by registering a bunch of <city><year> combos that happen to match Olympic years. Coincidence? I think not
Great idea, I just picked up Baghdad2018. I'm going to be rich when hell freezes over and they get the Winter Olympics.
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Re:Looks Legit (Score:4, Funny)
Or even worse, what could happen if he were to lose his domain name?
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Re:Looks Legit (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, if the Olympic Committee gave him and inkling of an idea that they might try to wrestle control of the site from him around a month ago, and all of the sudden a site pops up at that address to show that the domain is "in use" in preparation for whatever legal action might come about. Well, let's just say that I'm a bit skeptical. Besides, I haven't met a Kellogg MBA student that wasn't out looking for a quick buck (not that there's anything wrong with that per se), and I've met quite a few. I guess that's an admission of my being biased here. (Fucking Evanstonians)
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Sandusky? (Score:3, Funny)
Disconcerting. (Score:5, Insightful)
The notion is awfully close to essentially saying that anybody who can't afford a stable of relevant lawyers can have domain names taken at the whim of those who can, which is rather an ugly idea.
Re:Disconcerting. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not necessarily. Let's say I participated in a survey from a company attempting to decide on a new product name. (My wife actually does surveys like this, so it's not far-fetched.) Let's also say that some unscrupulous individual notes all the names, then goes to register ALL of them. The company then chooses a name based on the survey feedback, only to find that every one of their choices has been locked out. Does the company have a right to demand their domain back? (Especially if we're talking about made-up words here.) Do they have a right to demand it back if the person starts a "discussion site" on the upcoming product?
You can see the difficulty.
Nearly the same sort of issue happened here. This MBA speculatively registered a whole bunch of (city)(olympic year).com combinations. Unsurprisingly, he got lucky on one of them. Does that make what he did right? Does it make it right because he added a "discussion site"?
Food for thought, anyway.
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Re:Disconcerting. (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmm.
Datsun became Nissan in 1983. If someone managed to register nissan.com "long before" then, then I say he and his flux capacitor deserve the domain name.
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Re:Disconcerting. (Score:4, Informative)
His company however WAS named nissan looong before the car company. And he got the domain name 1st....
Nissan Computer Corp was incorporated in 1991. Uzi's Nissan's first business in the US was Nissan Foreign Car founded in 1980. Nissan Motors (the car manufacturer) was founded in Japan 1934 and their US subsidiary Nissan Motor Corporation USA was founded in 1959. I don't see any way you can claim that Uzi Nissan was using the name for a company before the Japanese company.
However, the case was ruled in the favour of Nissan Computer: Nissan Motor's trademarks are related to cars and Nissan Computer was found to not infringe those trademarks.
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guess they should have investigated the trademark (Score:5, Insightful)
a spokesman for Chicago 2016, a moniker protected by trademark.
Awww, isn't it too bad that trademarks don't give you retroactive ownership of whatever you like? Next time, check BEFORE you secure the trademark to see if it's already available. In fact, I bet they did- and just assumed they could take it over, just like how the IOC and USOC shut down everything named "olympic", even stuff that was named because said business was near a (different) Mount Olympus.
Raise your hand if you're completely fed up with the Olympics. Raise your hand if you think it's time that the IOC/USOC-bought legislation "protecting" the Olympic "trademark" was repealed.
Re:guess they should have investigated the tradema (Score:4, Funny)
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chicago2016.org (Score:4, Insightful)
It's Corporatism (Score:5, Insightful)
The old rules basically were: if you registered a name first, it was yours, unless it could be construed as misleading or confusing to consumers (i.e., confusing one product for another), based on someone else's EXISTING name.
This might not be the best example, but a rocket and a tennis shoe could both be called "Nike", even though they were otherwise unrelated, because there was little possibility of confusion.
Chicago did not have the name first. If the goddamned business people would have some foresight, they would have grabbed such names when they started thinking about bidding for the Olympics... not years later after someone beat them to it. I do not see where there is any legal principle that says, "We didn't think of it then, but it obviously should be ours, so we want to take it now!"
I call "sour grapes". They fucked up, and now want to take advantage of someone who was smarter than they were. That does not a legal case make. If they want to make money on the name, then grab the name first! Why should they take precedence over someone with more business-savvy then they have?
A fair middle ground solution (Score:3, Interesting)
Whilst it is true that
(I realise some will say he doesn't deserve to lose the
I got two possible solutions! (Score:5, Funny)
b) Chicago gets a new name!
Solution (Score:4, Insightful)
The IOC or Chicago 2016 should hire this kid. He's clearly quicker than their people, and if he's getting an MBA he's probably qualified to do _something_ in their organization (like "supervise" a project completely outside his realm of competence). Make one of the conditions of his ludicrously high contract payments that he surrenders the domain, everybody wins (except for people who want the Olympics to be about something other than corruption and greed, but that's already a lost cause).
To the City of Chicago (Score:5, Funny)
Dear City of Chicago,
We regret to inform you that we have voted our 2016 Olympic Games be held at the fine city of Amsterdam, and not Chicago, IL.
Our decision was based on many factors, and your city scored quite well on all criteria of the selection process.
But when it came down to it, Amsterdam2016.com was actually registered to the right people.
Sincereley,
The Olympic Planning Task Force
Small world... (Score:5, Informative)
Why don't you listen to someone who knows (Score:4, Interesting)
Well that would be me. To avoid being slashdotted to hell I'm not posting the link to my blog but you can figure it out if you try hard enough.
In 2000 I purchased the .net domain of my site intentionally avoiding the .com since I'm not a commerce site. Fast forward to 2005 when some wrestler named Raige came into being. On top of that I was sent a notice to immediately surrender my domain to this douche bag.
I actually was lucky enough to have college legal resources available to me and brought the issue to them. Fact is, since he didn't exist when I purchased the domain he had no standing what so ever. I replied to the letter with some legal mumbo jumbo and they replied with a threat of a lawsuit. I told them to go ahead but that I was willing to fight all the way.
The issues that come with this guys site are the following .com site... that means it commerce... if it's not he might be in trouble. However all that he would have to do is sell a T-shirt through www.geekstuff.com or something.
1) Did he create the site knowingly of previous site names the olympics used?
Does NOT matter. You cannot trademark a naming scheme. You CAN trademark a name. So while a symbol, or McChicken can be trademarked... "Mc" cannot. It could be argued in court if someone made a McChickenWafer...
2) Is this guy a commercial entity? He has a
3) Does he actively use the site? If he didn't... he would be viewed as a squatter and smished. However, the site is actively in use... meaning that this isn't a problem.
In short, ICANN will not be able to take the name and the Olympics will have to create another site or purchase it from him.
Re:Add a Hyphen (Score:5, Funny)
It's an under-appreciated punctuation mark anyway.
Fixed. Sorry, I just couldn't resist. ;-)
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Re:this is nothing more than cyber bullying (Score:4, Funny)
What's next, grant the patent to the large organizations simply because they're large?
Watch yourself, son. You're dangerously close to infringing my patent on "a method for granting patents to entities using a relative comparison of the size of entities."
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