Re: [ICANN-EU] first penal court ruling

["Andreas Fügner" <Andreas.Fuegner@lizenz.com>]

Dear Christofph


>It would be nice if you could add some more detailed info,


Here are three links to German court decisions re domain names
Of course they are all in German. :-(

http://www.ecin.de/recht/allgemein/grabbing.html

http://www.afs-rechtsanwaelte.de/urteile2.htm

http://www.netlaw.de/newsletter/news0004/urteile.htm


>Right now from the article I don' understand what he
>was exactly convicted for.


Following the link below you will find a longer article
on the court decision from SZ.

http://www.sueddeutsche.de/dyn/index.php3?r=computer&rs=thema&rss=actual&id=
4242

Here is a rough translation:

27-year old convicted
An unemployed from Ingolstadt registered internet addresses of well known
companies and tried to sell the internet addresses to the same companies/ by
Robert Jaquet

The Landgericht München II on Thursday handed out a ruling against internet
piracy, that will find attention all over Germany. The commercial chamber of
the court sentenced a 27 year old web-surfer to 22 months of jail time on
probation. He had registered 22 company names in the internet earlier than
the mostly German companies did.
According to the judges the business man already broke German trademark law
by registring domain names like daimlerchrysler.org, bitburger.com und
tagesschau.com at Network-Information-Center in the USA.

History of the case:

Extortion via Data Highway
27 year old cook accused of repeated breach of trademark law.

The court, presided by Judge Walter Weitmann, saw this case in accordance
with other civil courts as a classic case of trademark piracy.

Some companies only learned about the blockade of their names, when they
unsuccessfully tried to register their names themselves. The companies
started civil court proceedures to put pressure on the 27 year old.

He claimed to then not get impressed by this. Because some companies
signaled willingness to buy the domains, he felt encouraged to carry his
piracy to extremes.

He offered the addresse daimlerChrysler.org for 14900 Mark to the company.
Other companies the 27-year old threatened, to sell the domain to third
parties abroad.

"This has to be considered attempted extortion", the presiding judge
Weitmann is quoted, following a recent ruling of regional court of appeal
Munich.

In three cases the judge speaks about accomplished extortion. It seems, the
three companies Brauereien Bitburger, Licher and Weka were impressed by the
almost open threat of the 27 year old to get television involved, if his so
called offer was rejected.

All three paid up to 4000 Mark for transfer of their internet address. The
comprehensive guilty plea of the man from Ingolstadt stands somewhat in
contrast to the persistance with which he tried to justify his actions.

"One could have come to an agreement" he responded to the judge's
explenation how law was broken.

"What would you say, if your neighbor blocked your garage with his car and
asked 5000 Mark? For such a blockade there is no justification, neither on
the street nor on the data highway. Thus it is punishable", said Weitmann.