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The Courts Government Your Rights Online News

Still More Sex.com 29

Posted by michael from the ran-out-of-sex-jokes-many-updates-ago dept.
mark_wilkins writes "This morning the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a district court's dismissal of his claims against Network Solutions as a part of Kremen v. Cohen, Et Al.. This is the case in which Gary Kremen, the original owner of sex.com, sued Stephen Cohen and Network Solutions for transferring the sex.com domain to Cohen in response to Cohen's obviously fraudulent letter. While Cohen has fled the country, Network Solutions is still very much here and available to offer up any damages that might be rewarded. The case is going back to the district court for further hearings."
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Still More Sex.com

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  • Yes, but... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by dacarr ( 562277 )
    Let's never mind that this could set a precedent in naming standards, can't we just watch this fscking case end? NS is not responsible, the perpetrator is. Send the award to the federal level, let the Internal Revenue Service [irs.gov] hunt him down and levy his check as if it were taxes. If he wants to protest, too bad - he may be out of the country now, but he was in the US then, IIRC, and that is how you base the penalty part.

    • Re:Yes, but... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MImeKillEr ( 445828 ) on Friday July 25, 2003 @03:27PM (#6535141) Homepage Journal
      IIRC, NS didn't bother contacting the original (read: rightful) owner of the domain before transferring to Cohen. As such, NS *is* responsible.

      To put it another way: You drop your car off at a mechanic. Someone comes in claiming to be you and wants to pick up the car. A second mechanic doesn't bother verifying the identity of the person picking up the car & hands over the keys. Wouldn't the shop be at least partially responsible to make restitution?

      • Re:Yes, but... (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Randolpho ( 628485 )
        Given that the letter was forged with Gary Kremen's stationary, a better example would be the second mechanic being handed a fake ID and being unable to determine that it was fake.

        Under different circumstances, I'd be inclined to agree, but in this case, I'd say NS is not responsible.

        One thing I'm concerned about... I was unable to determine if sex.com was actually returned to Gary Kremen. Was it? Network Solutions should certainly be able to take care of that.

        • Re:Yes, but... (Score:3, Informative)

          by MImeKillEr ( 445828 )
          Under different circumstances, I'd be inclined to agree, but in this case, I'd say NS is not responsible.

          How do you figure? They didn't bother to verify the change in ownership.

        • Re:Yes, but... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by dozer ( 30790 ) on Friday July 25, 2003 @09:09PM (#6537585)
          Given that the letter was forged with Gary Kremen's stationary, a better example would be the second mechanic being handed a fake ID and being unable to determine that it was fake.

          That's a terrible analogy. Letterhead != Authorized ID. It's like the second mechanic being handed a letter on the original owner's stationary, and then NOT so much as calling the original owner before letting the car go.

          Hell yes you'd hold the garage accountable for the loss of the car.

        • Registrant:
          Kremen, Gary (SEX452-DOM)

          Yep it was
        • IF Network Solutions had corrected the problem immediately after being notified that they should not have transfered the domain name, THEN I think they should be in the clear. BUT, they didn't. After being told that the domain transfer was fraudulent, it appears to me that they did nothing to correct the problem. As I recall, it was like this for YEARS while it worked its way through the courts. No reason NS couldn't have investigated the original transfer order and properly returned the domain to its r

    • Re:Yes, but... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by crow ( 16139 ) on Friday July 25, 2003 @03:49PM (#6535377) Homepage Journal
      Network Solutions may be responsible for two reasons:

      First, their security may have been so poor as to be considered negligent.

      Second, they appear to have failed to take corrective action upon being notified of the problem.
    • I'm sorry if this Internet TV show is so boring for you... why bother commenting?

      When ISPs shut your service down when you aren't even distributing DeCSS (there was a stylesheet remover by that name as a way of protesting the DeCSS lawsuits.) without proper notification even though the DMCA requires it, you'd probably hold the ISP responsible.

      Why not Network Solutions?

  • stillmoresex.com? (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by Alethes ( 533985 )
    Most of us would be happy to just get started with anysexatall.com.

  • hehe (Score:3, Funny)

    by Dave2 Wickham ( 600202 ) on Friday July 25, 2003 @04:18PM (#6535616) Journal
    Your Rights Online: Still More Sex.com


    ( Read More... | 6 of 9 comments | yro.slashdot.org )


    Yeah yeah, not funny, I know. No Karma Bonus for me!
    • Not a great loss. It wouldn't do you any good even if it WAS funny, so says the almighty FAQ [slashdot.org].
      • I meant as in posting at +2 (like this post will be as an example) when you have excellent karma. Yup, this karma is going to burn ;).
    • Being Funny doesn't help your karma now: read the FAQ [slashdot.org] lately?

      Note that being moderated Funny doesn't help your karma. You have to be smart, not just a smart-ass.

      Answered by: CmdrTaco
      Last Modified: 6/03/03

      I can see where Taco is coming from: (Score:5, Funny) comments are often unoriginal and unintelligent. But some of them are outstandingly funny, AND Insightful/Informative to boot, so I still think it sucks.

      We moderators can, of course, mod up these hybrids as something other than Funny, if they a

  • Decision has interesting implications (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Beryllium Sphere(tm) ( 193358 ) on Friday July 25, 2003 @04:21PM (#6535639) Journal
    The 9th Circuit only reversed one of the district court's conclusions. The district court said that a domain name wasn't property because it's intangible. The appeals court said that intangible property is still property (leaving out some legal byways involving documents). If a domain name is property, then the good guy can sue for having it mishandled.

    I'm sure an actual lawyer would have a dozen reasons for disagreeing, but as I understand "conversion" is the civil law's equivalent of theft.

    What did the 9th Circuit cite as precedent for considering something intangible to be property? They used some copyright cases.

    In other words, they're telling us that "intellectual property" will get treated under the law like physical property.

    I hope there's a real lawyer reading this who can tell everyone how far off I am.

    • "In other words, they're telling us that "intellectual property" will get treated under the law like physical property."

      In this case, intellectual property has the same restrictions as physical property. Excluding non-standard name servers like OpenNIC, there can only be one "sex.com".
    • The district court said that a domain name wasn't property because it's intangible

      Damn, coulda had interesting ramifications for the RIAA...
    • Well, IANAL, but I am taking the bar exam tomorrow :) I should be studying, but ya know, I'm burnt the fuck out at this point, so I'm just gonna relax today and screw around on the computer, eat twinkies, and smoke a few cigars.

      The district court nevertheless rejected Kremen's conversion claim. It held that domain names, although a form of property, are intangibles not subject to conversion. This rationale derives from a distinction tort law once drew between tangible and intangible property: Conversion
  • I wonder how many people are rushing to register www.StillMoreSex.com right now?
    • Well, I took your suggestion. According to whois.sc [whois.sc], nobody has ever thought of "stillmoresex.com" as their dot-com brainstorm idea.

      I couldn't resist the temptation... I went to Gandi [gandi.net] and registered the domain. How could I pass it up?

      I'll probably redirect it to the URL of this thread. I've registered it with a unique Gandi ID, so it's up for grabs for whoever wants it. Mention Slashdot, and I'll let ya have it pretty much at cost. Send a note to robert b at dixie dash chicks dot com and we'll go ove

  • Boring or not, this is a *major* setback for NSI (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mark_wilkins ( 687537 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @06:35PM (#6542001)
    To the poster who said that this was just another stop along the way in a multi-year court case, that's not true -- the case would be DEAD except for this. Honestly, as a domain name owner myself, I have a great interest in seeing NSI held accountable for this. Domain name dispute and transfer procedures, including NSI's implementation of them, are nutty and need fixing, and only this kind of case will make it happen.

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