This post was a class assignment and the reading materials can be found at Professor Randazza’s site. See the link on the right…
While I agree with one of my classmates that a celebrity’s name is an important marketing tool often times pursuing a suit against a cyber squatter can actually draw attention to their site. A few years after PETA v. Doughney, PETA decided to employ the same method used by Doughney when they launched a site called ringlingbrothers.com to draw attention to alleged animal cruelty in the circus. (See http://unquietmind.com/petaparody.html ). PETA was quoted in one article as being gleeful at all the publicity caused by Ringling’s complaints about the site in the media. (See http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19980424S0023). Professor Randazza stated in class that as attorneys one of out jobs is to reign in clients who are fighting on a principle that, in the end may not matter.
Take the Julia Roberts case where Russell Boyd is a creep who snatches up domain names and tries to sell them on ebay. Had Julia Roberts not taken Boyd to court what would have become of the domain name? 1) It may have been bought by someone who hates Julia Roberts and wants to critique her or malign her good name 2) it could have been turned into an unauthorized fan site or 3) Roberts could have had a representative buy it for the asking price. Though the law was on her side there could have been solutions that could have occurred out of court and would have brought less attention to the celebrity. It is possible that these types of cases are brought to send a message that certain celebrities are off limits.
I also came across an interesting article about cyber squatting double standards ( http://unquietmind.com/cybersquat.html) about how companies are launching preemptive strikes by snatching up domain names. For instance Febreze bought febrezekillspets.com. OK…what do they know that we don’t?
