Go Daddy Fires Back at AMPAS

Two weeks ago Mike covered the news that The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences which hands out the Oscars had filed another lawsuit against Godaddy under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (“ACPA”). The Hollywood Reporter is out with a story now where Go Daddy claims that the Academy gets special treatment from the judge hearing the case. They go on to say that the judge has a certain affinity for AMPAS because the judge has a daughter who is an actress. From the article:

In the past two weeks, GoDaddy has filed a blizzard of papers in the hopes of knocking U.S. District Judge Audrey Collins off the case. The defendant alleges that multiple Academy officials privately refer to Judge Collins as “the Academy’s judge,” and that she has become such a favorite of the Academy that when its lawsuit against GoDaddy was originally assigned to another judge, AMPAS had it moved. “The reassignment of this case to Judge Collins continued a long and consistent pattern of ensuring that all trademark lawsuits filed by AMPAS since 1999 were reassigned to her — twenty-five (25) such cases in the past fifteen (15) years,” says GoDaddy in court papers. “This is not the result of mere coincidence.”

This is apparently the biggest case ever for the Academy, in another part of the article:

The Academy’s lawsuit against GoDaddy over hundreds of domain names is arguably the biggest one that the plaintiff has ever pursued. At a meeting between the parties in August 2012, one of the Academy’s lawyers, David Quinto, allegedly stated that GoDaddy should know that Judge Collins “is the Academy’s Judge,” before another of its lawyers, Stuart Singer, offered an eight-figure number to settle the case. According to GoDaddy’s court papers, “The presentation by Mr. Quinto and Mr. Singer clearly implied that either GoDaddy could reach an agreement with AMPAS at that time or Judge Collins would award a substantially higher judgment later.”

Read the full article here The outcome of this case could certainly have ramifications for all registrars that park names when they are expired and place more responsibility on parking companies.