What are Laws Regarding Domain Names?

turkey3

What are the laws regarding domain names you can purchase? For example, if a company was called Fudgecow, and I purchased the website fudgecow.com could I get in trouble for that? Or like what if you purchased the website microsoft.design?

PullJosh

I'm no legal expert, but I'm pretty sure that's totally fine. You might get in a bit of trouble if you pretend to be that company, but you should be just fine taking their domain name.

turkey3

PullJosh wrote:
I'm no legal expert, but I'm pretty sure that's totally fine. You might get in a bit of trouble if you pretend to be that company, but you should be just fine taking their domain name.

I was looking up some stuff about it. Like apparently someone bought candyland.com and Hasbro wanted to sue for that, so they can take these things into court. Of course, in my case I would just want to buy the domain and then offer it to anyone who wants it. The government has 100% rights to manage ownership of domains.

jTron

Just saw the most amazing thing. The people near me at this coffee shop are having a loud obnoxious meeting (one on Skype) about their new horrible hipster business. They are mulling over possible website names. They've listed about 20 of them and laughed and patted each other on the back. Guy behind me says very loudly… “just so you know, I've spent the last 20 minutes buying all of your domain names… if you want them, I'll sell them to you.” They stopped talking and left. It was[…]awesome.

ok sorry I'm done

djdolphin

I'm pretty sure you could be sued for trademark infringement if the company really wanted the domain. Someone created the website walmart.horse, which was just a picture of a horse in front of a Walmart store. Then Walmart sent him a cease-and-desist order, claiming it infringed on their trademark. Now Walmart owns walmart.horse, and they haven't even bothered to do anything with it.

Firedrake969

jTron wrote:
Just saw the most amazing thing. The people near me at this coffee shop are having a loud obnoxious meeting (one on Skype) about their new horrible hipster business. They are mulling over possible website names. They've listed about 20 of them and laughed and patted each other on the back. Guy behind me says very loudly… “just so you know, I've spent the last 20 minutes buying all of your domain names… if you want them, I'll sell them to you.” They stopped talking and left. It was[…]awesome.
ok sorry I'm done

first saw that on Reddit I think

You probably could, but you'd have to give it up if they asked or be sued and probably lose (or just sell it to them for like $100 - still less than their lawyer fees I bet

)

turkey3

jTron wrote:
Just saw the most amazing thing. The people near me at this coffee shop are having a loud obnoxious meeting (one on Skype) about their new horrible hipster business. They are mulling over possible website names. They've listed about 20 of them and laughed and patted each other on the back. Guy behind me says very loudly… “just so you know, I've spent the last 20 minutes buying all of your domain names… if you want them, I'll sell them to you.” They stopped talking and left. It was[…]awesome.
ok sorry I'm done

Hahahaha!

daemys

They can just disregard the very existence of your site.
They can offer you money to get control over your domain.
The can sue you to get control over your domain. But the principle ‘The first to wake up gets the slippers’ is still working.

Discuss Scratch