Omar Epps is famous?
Just kidding. Of course he’s famous! I recognized the name, so I checked out the opinion, but I couldn’t tell you what shows he was on (not much of a TV watcher, you understand). Apparently he was on ER which ran for like 20 years so I guess that’s how he has a claim to fame. Anyway…
So you’re a famous actor. You started working in the business in 1991, and then somebody comes along and registers your name as a .com and points it at some pay-per-click ads. In 2002. At this point, I’m wondering why there was such a long delay through the “roaring ’90s” of the Internet. Defensive registrations for celebrities are a must. (I also would be curious to see if the domain owner ever made enough money off of the domain name to pay for the registration costs. I’m convinced that this “business model” can’t be profitable, but I must be wrong or there wouldn’t be so much of this activity.)
Nevertheless, in 2010, Epps hires a boutique firm to redress the wrong. He wins, of course, but there’s some interesting commentary in the panelist’s decision.
“The Domain Name is identical to the Complainant’s name, the addition of the gTLD “.com” being here irrelevant to the enquiry into identicality or confusing similarity.” (2006 WIPO case citation omitted.)
Now, granted this is just one sentence. But is this still an issue that requires being pointed out, that ccTLDs (those that subscribe to the UDRP; many do) or gTLDs are not going to save your domain name from confusing similarity? That this warranted even a sentence in the opinion is strange to me. Especially in 2010.
Tagged celebrities, common law trademarks, transferred