MADDIE'S RAY OF LIGHT October 17 2000 dotmusic.com Cybersquatter ordered to hand over Madonna.com Madonna has won the right to the Internet domain name Madonna.com after a long arbitration process handled by the United Nations copyright bureau. Web developer and cyber prospector Dan Parisi had paid $20,000 for the URL when he bought the name from its original registrant in 1998. He first pointed Madonna.com towards a porn site but later used it to vent his spleen at the singer and defend his position: "This case was about whether big business has the right to claim exclusive ownership of common words in the English language and to take them out of the public domain." But a three-member panel at the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), based in Geneva, ruled that Parisi owned no trademarks in the word "Madonna" and was using the domain name in bad faith. Indeed Parisi has become well-known for registering famous names, presumably in a bit to profit from them in some way, building the smut portal Whitehouse.com alongside a host of anti-corporate pages such as Microsoftsucks.com. In her filings, Madonna is reported to have accused Parisi of "holding the domain name hostage", saying that his ownership of the name tarnished her image. Several major stars suffering similar cybersquatting problems - including hippie rock act Jethro Tull and the family of Jimi Hendrix - have taken their cases to WIPO and won. And with 80% of the big name complainants being awarded the domain name it is quickly being established that the more famous you are, the more likely you are to win your "dot com" URL. But not all stars have succeeded, with ex-Police frontman Sting being denied his domain name by WIPO because sting is "a common English word." comment on this article e-mail this to a friend start a discussion [about i-drive] writing index thoughts dotmusic index Problems? Questions? Suggestions? Contact me: mail@tobyslater.com back to top back to home page

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