Cyber Police Spoil Internet Land Run
My co-worker Don Mecoy and I had a lot of fun buying the domain name okc-sonics.com and holding it for the past couple of years just in case the NBA franchise with the name “Sonics” comes to town.
It was fodder for a couple of columns and a lot of laughs around the office about just what rewards we might get from the Sonics ownership in exchange for relinquishing that name if they came to town.
The gag finally ended this week when the NBA team’s ownership told the city of Seattle it can keep the name when the team moves to Oklahoma City. It might end up as the Oklahoma City Thunder or Lightning — anything but Sonics.
Anyway, a spoil-sport e-mailed a response this morning to our ploy to buy and hold the okc-sonics.com domain name. He suggested that the tactic could actually land us in court.
Money quote:
I am wondering if you going on public record might lead someone to get themselves in trouble. The intent to gain is one of the criteria that would used against you. Anytime a person or business creates value in a word or term they have the right to that domain name. Coke, Holiday Inn, Microsoft etc. belonged to those companies whether they were the first to buy the name or not. The courts always took the names away from the squatters and often the squatter paid the legal costs. However, generic words in the public domain, e.g., auto, computer, tennis, were a first-come, first-serve entitlement.
The e-mailer said he wasn’t an attorney but had some experience in the area of cyber squatting.
And I thought the Internet was like the Oklahoma Land Run where as long as you were the first to arrive you could stake your claim to the name. Guess not.
Jim Stafford
Business News Reporter
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