I suppose under the universal principle of justice you set forth below that
if you didn't lock your house and somebody came in and stole your stuff,
that you wouldn't consider it theft because, hey, you weren't prudent.
At 05:33 PM 8/11/99 -0700, you wrote:
>
>> maybe, maybe not. I don't know if Brown would prevail on those theories -
>
>It certainly seems to me that my internal sense of justice is pretty well
>defined by those existing theories.
>
>I would hope that the answers we are looking for are "justice", not
>"commercial advantage over non-commerial use."
>
>> I only attempted to rebut a single assertion - the assertion that it was
>> "impossible" to cybersquat a common name.
>
>I happen to agree with that assertion... but my reason is pretty
>straightforward. I deny that "cybersquatting" exists. I believe that
>speculation is a time honored tradition and that if somebody loses the
>race to acquire, then they lose.
>
>A few years ago I might still have had some residual sympathy for those
>who went through the effort to coin names. But anybody who now coins a
>name and then discovers, oops it's been taken. Well, too bad. The
>Internet has been here for several years now.
>
>I noticed for example that this lesson has been learned and incorporated
>into naming practice. For instance, Hewlett Packard, when thinking up the
>name for their new company registered all the domain names under
>consideration before they went public with anything. I call that
>prudence.
>
>Overall I submit that it is better let those who aren't prudence operate
>at their own risk rather than punish those who engage in otherwise
>permissable speculation.
>
>Somehow I don't consider those who are asserting trademark rights to be
>the kind of naive, innocent person who we need to protect from themselves.
>
>Willy Brown has been in politics for as long as I can remember. It's too
>bad he just realized "hey I could'a had a V8, I could'a been a contender,
>or I could'a had my own domain name in .com". He still can build his
>domain in "sf.ca.us" (which would be more appropriate anyway.) Nobody has
>stale URL's pointing to his never-yet-existed web site in .com.
>
>And does the mayor get this power to exclude over other TLD's? As I
>mentioned "williebrown.sf.ca.us" would have been my first thought for
>domain name, does that give Willie the rights to exclusionary powers there
>too.
>
>I hope not, as it is too unconstrained, too unlimited, to vague.
>
>
>
>> If we utilize a temporary
>> definition of cybersquat here - "the commission of a tort aimed at an
>> identifiable entity through the registration of a domain name"
>
>I'd prefer it if any definition stated clearly what specific legally
>cognizable harm is being defined.
>
>The definition above simply makes it a tort to commit a tort. It is
>redundant law.
>
> --karl--
>
>
>
>
>
>> - then I
>> believe that it is possible to "cybersquat" a common name such as willie
>> brown.
>>
>> It's been too long a day for me here on the East Coast to get into arguing
>> the merits of the anti-cybersquatting act just now.
>>
>>
>> >
>> >> Willie Brown possibly has superior rights to williebrown.com,
>> >> williebrownjr.com and damayor.com vis a vis Andy Hasse because Mr. Hasse
>> >> appears to have obtained domain names likely to be associated with
Willie
>> >> Brown, the mayor of San Francisco, possibly in a way calculated to harm
>> >> Mayor Brown (Mr Hasse's employment by Mayor Brown's rival is relevant to
>> >> this analysis). Possible theories include rights of publicity,
common law
>> >> trademark, false advertising, interference with prospective
advantage, and
>> >> unfair competition
>> >
>> >In other words, Mayor Brown has lots of rights under existing law to go
>> >after the other person. He needs no assistance from anything new in the
>> >domain name space, existing law provides more than adequate protection.
>> >
>> >So if Willy can demonstrate under existing laws that there is a violation
>> >to his right of publicity, common law trademark, that the other use is
>> >false advertising or interferes with a prospective advantage, or is unfair
>> >competion, then fine.
>> >
>> >It appears that we need not add any special new rules in the domain name
>> >arena to deal with this situation.
>> >
>> > --karl--
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>>
>> @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @
