Re: [ICANN-EU] first penal court ruling

[Marc Schneiders <marc@venster.nl>]

On 18 Sep 2000, Lutz Donnerhacke wrote:

> * Marc Schneiders wrote:
> >On 15 Sep 2000, Lutz Donnerhacke wrote:
> >> That reasoning is bad. Sending him to jail for grabbing is ok, but this
> >> court also considered only the trademark laws. So this reasoning allows
> >> grabbing naming domains in order to sell them to the person with this
> >> name as long as it is not a registred trademark.
> >
> > So, now you show it clearly: You are a friend of WIPO. You are supporting
> > censorship.
> 
> Why do you think so? Applying trademark laws to this case will come up with
> a consistent but wrong public right for the future: You will ever lose
> against a trade mark holder but never against a non trade mark holder. THis
> implies, that trade mark owners have more rights than ordinary people.
> 
> I oppose that.

Well I oppose far less than you do, because I think that a lot of
so-called protection of names, is a form of censorship. I also do not
oppose the trading in domain names, as you seem to do (I am getting more
careful :-)

Extortion is a reason to send someone to jail. Not speculating in domain
names. Unless "society" outlaws *all* speculation.

The depiction of those who trade in domain names as villains, originates
with those large companies that discovered the internet late, and now find
that names they want are taken. Bad luck. Let them pay for what they want,
like when they want to take over something else: at the market price, not 
for the WIPO fee.

As for personal names: it does not make any difference whether another
Lutz has registered lutz.de or a speculator. You can't get it anymore.
However... You won't get it from the other Lutz. But perhaps you may get
it from the speculator. In fact your chances are better to get if from the
speculator. This does not make speculation good. It indicates that
speculation is not the root of all evil in domain names.

People who speculate in domain names pay for it, you know, every
year. Hardly a reason to jail them.
--
*-------------------------------------------* 
 Marc Schneiders (the rest is in the header)
*-------------------------------------------*