We grew up being told by our parents that crime doesn't pay, yet after today's report, sometimes it does. ThePiratebay.org, a huge file sharing site, reportedly sold today to a Internet gaming software company for $7.8 Million dollars. Swedish software company Global Gaming Factory X (GGF) has signed a deal to acquire The Pirate Bay for 60 million Swedish Kronor ($7.8 million), including … [Read more...]
eBay.com Is Allowing & Profiting From The Sale Of Trademark Infringing Domains
eBay.com has been active in defending its trademark filing and winning at least 3 UDRP in just the past year including on the domains: ebaycatwalk.com; ebayip.com and ebayofip.com; watch-ebay.com; While spending fees and costs to go after trademark infringing domains, its allowing domains that infringe on its own trademark to be sold on its own site. eBay.Hu.com is proudly listed for … [Read more...]
Download “Free” Music? Guess Its Not Free If It Costs $80K Per Song
Outside the world of domains, but right up the alley of intellectual property, a federal court just issued a judgment against a "free" music file sharer for $1.9 million dollars or $80,000 per song. Jammie Thomas-Rasset, was found guilty of willful copyright infringement today and was ordered to pay the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) $1.9 million dollars for illegally … [Read more...]
Microsoft Sues 3 For Click Fraud
According to the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft filed a lawsuit on Monday against three people they allege committed a form of "click fraud" by improperly manipulating Microsoft's online advertising service for profit. Microsoft filed the suit in federal court in Seattle against Eric Lam, his mother Melanie Suen and his brother Gordon Lamand all of Vancouver and several corporations under their … [Read more...]
Hate UDRP’s: Say Hello To Something Much Worse, The Uniform Rapid Suspension System (URS): Get Ready To Lose Your Domains
Trademark holders, unhappy with UDRP's, a system under which they already have over a 85% win rate, formed a group, The Implementation Recommendation Team (IRT), which was given committee status by ICANN's Intellectual Property Constituency "to give additional protection to trademark holders in the implementation of new gTLDs". If you want to see a list of members of the IRT click here. The … [Read more...]
Google Sued Again: This is Going to Be A Huge Issue
Google has been hit with another AdWords-related lawsuit, this time by a Connecticut law firm.The personal injury firm Stratton, Faxon filed a suit in the New Haven Superior Court alleging that its name was being used to trigger ads for the rival law firm Silver, Golub and Teitell. Stratton, Faxon causing confusion and endangers its reputation. The firm has asked for an injunction and for a … [Read more...]
“The Privatization of the English Language” & Why That is Very Bad News For You
Over at ZenHabits, a insanely popular blog with an Alex Ranking of 15K , Leo Babauta, the author talked about what appears to be the privatization of the English language through trademark and copyrights. This is an important article for all domainers to read. Ordinary words, terms and phrases long used in the English language are now the subject of trademarks, copyrights and other claims of … [Read more...]