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Cybersquatter Makes Good

By Marc Randazza

p The Bush library team seems as incompetent as . . . well, as incompetent as you would imagine anyone involved with such a project would be. They procured the domain name www.GeorgeWBushLibrary.com, then they forgot to renew the registration. It got picked up by a cybersquatter, Illuminati Karate. /p blockquote iquot;It worked out very well,quot; said George Huger, lead Web developer for Illuminati Karate in Raleigh, N.C. /i(a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/121108dnmetbushweb.3d4b3ac.html?ocp=2#slcgm_comments_anchor"source/a) /blockquote p It worked out well indeed. The Bush team could have picked the domain up for a $1,500 filing fee with WIPO. Even though the Bush team was careless, that doesn't mean that Illuminati Karate had a superior claim to the domain. Seea href="http://randazza.wordpress.com/2008/03/31/finders-keepers-is-not-a-legitimate-defense-to-a-cybersquatting-claim/" ?Finders Keepers? is not a legitimate defense to a cybersquatting claim/a. Alternatively, they could have filed a claim under a href="http://randazza.wordpress.com/2005/11/26/15-usc-1125d/"15 U.S.C. § 1125(d/a) and pounded Illuminati Karate for up to $100,000 in statutory damages and reimbursement of their attorneys fees. /p p My hat goes off to Illuminati Karate. While I find their actions to be, on one level, a bit repugnant. On another, I say good for them.  Ol' Dubya scammed us for the past 8 years and Illuminati Karate scammed him back. /pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/CitizenMediaLawProject?a=30CsO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/CitizenMediaLawProject?i=30CsO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/CitizenMediaLawProject?a=oSxIo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/CitizenMediaLawProject?i=oSxIo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/CitizenMediaLawProject?a=V13ko"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/CitizenMediaLawProject?i=V13ko" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/CitizenMediaLawProject?a=neDFO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/CitizenMediaLawProject?i=neDFO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/CitizenMediaLawProject?a=BgwhO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/CitizenMediaLawProject?i=BgwhO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/CitizenMediaLawProject?a=nfkNo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/CitizenMediaLawProject?i=nfkNo" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/CitizenMediaLawProject/~4/487825958" height="1" width="1"/

Full post as published by Citizen Media Law Project on December 17, 2008 (boomark / email).