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France seizes france.com from man who's had it since 1994

arstechnica.com

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Re: France seizes france.com from man who's had it since 1994

#61

Post by 49bc »

deftnerd wrote: post #44
lkrubner wrote: post #7

The courts, in the USA, have found that domain names are not property, instead they are like telephone numbers: ---------------- The court found that under the California tariffs, rules, and regulations applicable to public utilities, and under the terms of the contracts, the debtors had no “proprietary right in the number.” https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=0a84b472-c89f... Also: ...under Virginia law,…

That's a dangerous precedent. If nobody has the right to a phone number, and governments can assign any telephone number to themselves that they wish, that the Russian government can take over the phone number to the Whitehouse Switchboard? Then the Whitehouse would have to take it back and it would be the start of a perpetual tug-of-war? I assume your response would be that "no, the US has already reserved that numb…

Telephone numbers are well delineated between counties with “country codes”. I don’t think anybody is confused about which country owns what number.

Re: France seizes france.com from man who's had it since 1994

#63

Post by chimeracoder »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #28
lkrubner wrote: post #7

The courts, in the USA, have found that domain names are not property, instead they are like telephone numbers: ---------------- The court found that under the California tariffs, rules, and regulations applicable to public utilities, and under the terms of the contracts, the debtors had no “proprietary right in the number.” https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=0a84b472-c89f... Also: ...under Virginia law,…

We may argue that domain names are different from phone numbers because they are recognisable. They carry trademarks, and unlike phone numbers, are often the way we remember of an internet facing person or company. Also, the practical consequences of losing a phone number are much tamer than that of losing a domain name. I'm not sure the courts would hold the same conclusions for domain names and phone numbers. While…

> We may argue that domain names are different from phone numbers because they are recognisable. They carry trademarks, and unlike phone numbers, are often the way we remember of an internet facing person or company.

This isn't unlike how phone numbers used to be until 10-20 years ago (and still are for many people today, outside of tech circles).

Off the top of my head, I can rattle off at least six different phone numbers for businesses which I've never used (and some of which don't even exist anymore), simply because they chose a phone number that spelled out something memorable and relevant, and then used that heavily in their promotional materials and advertising, the same way you would for a domain name or app name today.

Heck Googling just one, I found a Youtube documentary that chronicles the 40-year history of jingles associated with one of those numbers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDv8zqpl8mI

> Also, the practical consequences of losing a phone number are much tamer than that of losing a domain name.

That's absolutely not true. They actually translate one-to-one quite well.

> While even if the latter is not property, the former could be treated as intellectual property

"Intellectual property" is a catchall term that conflates three completely distinct concepts in law: copyright, patents, and trademarks.

Phone numbers are obviously not patentable; the entire idea is nonsensical. And phone numbers are explicitly not subject to copyright protection, and there's case law about this exact scenario. You can copyright a particular publication of phone numbers (such as a phone book), but not the number itself, and even if you could, that doesn't mean you're actually the owner of the number (the one who holds the copyright).

You could make the argument for trademark protection, and that's exactly what this case is about. Unfortunately, it's a bidirectional application of competing marks - the man who owns France.com was already being accused of infringing French trademark law in the first place by claiming France.com as a mark.

Re: France seizes france.com from man who's had it since 1994

#64

Post by onetimemanytime »

dfxm12 wrote: post #49
themaninthedark wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps so. But how would you have the issue resolved? Should the domain go to the most well known party? The product a reasonable person expects to find when they type in the address? What happens if I register icar.com for product that syncs your car to the cloud. Then Apple decides they want to compete with Elon Musk, with their new Icar. Who will get the domain? What happens when a large company decides to rebran…

Going by iPad.com as an example, you'd play a game of chicken with Apple, because the moment you try to monetize that site in almost any way, they'll sue you for trademark infringement. You'll hope they offer you a ton of money for it, but Apple's brand is strong enough that they don't need it. Mr. Nissan is lucky that he had an existing business that wasn't car related and he only registered his name...

Very dumb of Apple IMO. Just pay the guy. So what that he wants $x million?

Re: France seizes france.com from man who's had it since 1994

#66

Post by UncleEntity »

phereford wrote: post #34

I know we are talking about this in the digital realm, but this also exists in the property realm too. Imminent Domain is used be governments to acquire land, generally below its actual valution, for building of infrastructure. I wonder if this concept will ever make it to the digital world.

Pretty sure France can't "imminent domain" property located in foreign lands -- like, for instance, they wanted 1600 Pennsylvania Ave as their new US tourism office.

Re: France seizes france.com from man who's had it since 1994

#67

Post by mc32 »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #28
lkrubner wrote: post #7

The courts, in the USA, have found that domain names are not property, instead they are like telephone numbers: ---------------- The court found that under the California tariffs, rules, and regulations applicable to public utilities, and under the terms of the contracts, the debtors had no “proprietary right in the number.” https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=0a84b472-c89f... Also: ...under Virginia law,…

We may argue that domain names are different from phone numbers because they are recognisable. They carry trademarks, and unlike phone numbers, are often the way we remember of an internet facing person or company. Also, the practical consequences of losing a phone number are much tamer than that of losing a domain name. I'm not sure the courts would hold the same conclusions for domain names and phone numbers. While…

What about the case where companies pay for vanity phone numbers that either match their business name, or approximate the business name: ex, 800 mattress or 800 eyeglasses?

Re: France seizes france.com from man who's had it since 1994

#70

Post by rrix2 »

delinka wrote: post #22
dade_ wrote: post #3

Web.com transfers the france.com they registered for their customer (since 1994) to the government of France without explanation or warning. "on March 12, 2018, Web.com abruptly transferred ownership of the domain to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The company did so without any formal notification to Frydman and no compensation." It is actually just another example proving the warning we have all known/given…

“...cloud providers owning your digital properties.” Not entirely the case. If your domain name represents a registered trademark, I think you’ll find the courts on your side should someone attempt to commandere your domain name.

I think we'll see if that's the case after this court case is closed.
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