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Apple in battle over iTunes.co.uk domain name

updated 01:30 pm EST, Mon December 6, 2004

iTunes.co.uk domain battle


Apple is fighting for the , accussing the owner of being a cybersquatter and demanding that the domain be returned to Apple by the UK registry Nominet, according to an article in The Register: "the owner happens to be one Benjamin Cohen, the "dotcom millionaire" of lore, whose father is a solicitor, and Apple doesn't have a leg to stand on. As a press release put out by Cohen makes clear, he registered the domain "itunes.co.uk" on 7 November 2000, and two days later made use of it by forwarding it to a music search engine service at his CyberBritain site. Apple, on the other hand, only had trademark for "iTunes" published in the Trade Marks Journal on 6 December 2000. It was granted a limited trademark that did not cover music products on 23 March 2001, and eventually went live with its iTunes offering in June this year - four years after Ben Cohen first registered iTunes.co.uk. Cohen claims he had no idea that Apple was planning to build an iTunes service, and that he has been using it legitimately all that time."


by MacNN Staff

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  1. macmad

    Mac Enthusiast

    Joined: Dec 2000

    0
    12/06, 01:56pm | report spam | Reply |

    Apple

    must be getting pissed with the UK giving them so much trouble.

  1. TRRosen

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: May 2002

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    12/06, 02:01pm | report spam | Reply |

    legitmate use

    I didn't know using a name as a redirect was a ligitamate use. Its clear from his site that he is only using it to profit by trading on the itunes name promoted by apple.

  1. TRRosen

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: May 2002

    0
    12/06, 02:05pm | report spam | Reply |

    yeah right

    he's a dot com millionare that had no ideal that itunes.com had been registered by Apple 2 years earlier. I highly doubt that one.

  1. auxarq

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Dec 2002

    0
    12/06, 02:41pm | report spam | Reply |

    Well . . .

    Apple could follow the British manner of speech and register "meTunes" or maybe even add a more British accent and call it "meTewnes" - just involves a couple of minor html programming changes! ;-)

    This kind of stuff goes on all the time - like Oil of Olay is called Oil of Olaz in other parts of the world.

  1. ParkgatePete

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Oct 2001

    0
    12/06, 02:46pm | report spam | Reply |

    Further

    Oil of Olay, is, as every schoolgirl knows, really Oil of Ulay.

    If he had the name before Apple, then surely it's a done deal. If Apple want it, they should have to pay for it.

  1. ThisGuy

    Mac Elite

    Joined: Oct 2001

    0
    12/06, 02:56pm | report spam | Reply |

    Hehehe

    more power to that guy. stick it to the man!

  1. FireWire

    Mac Elite

    Joined: Oct 1999

    0
    12/06, 03:56pm | report spam | Reply |

    will they battle for...

    iTunes.ca too? For now, the domain is still owned by some moron and used as a link portal.

    Fortunately, I think the law is on Apple's side. A few years ago, there was a dispute around the domain name of our largest airline, Air Canada. A few people had already registered many variants of their name, including aircanda.ca, which can be a common mispell of the said name. (as of today it's still redirected to an ad site, so I don't know what happened between now and then).

    Air Canada went to court and actually won their case! Here's an extract of the ruling:

    " Paragraph 4(a) of the Policy requires that the Complainant must prove each of the following three elements to obtain an order that a domain name should be cancelled or transferred:

    (1) the domain name registered by the Respondent is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the Complainant has rights;
    (2) the Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name; and
    (3) the domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith. "

    In short, they found that:
    - "Respondent has not demonstrated any rights to the domain name in question."
    - Redirecting the domain name to advertisements does not constitute a bona fide offering of goods and services [...]
    - There is no evidence in the record, and Respondent has not come forward to establish that it is commonly known by the name “aircanda,”
    - Because Respondent attracted Internet users to a series of advertisements using a domain name confusingly similar to Complainant’s famous AIR CANADA mark, Respondent’s actions constituted bad faith registration and use [...]

    Of course, this is only valid in Canada, but it's a good foundation for future cases. Good luck! :P

    for the whole case:
    http://www.worldlii.org/int/cases/GENDND/2001/1106.html

  1. macintologist

    Professional Poster

    Joined: Apr 2002

    0
    12/06, 03:58pm | report spam | Reply |

    bla

    Apple hegemony at its finest. If Microsoft was doing this you'd all be having a fit.

  1. JohnnyFive

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Feb 2003

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    12/06, 04:24pm | report spam | Reply |

    re: bla

    Actually, we'll still think it's wrong. We just won't be as vocal and supportive about it. In fact, we'll probably just ignore it.

  1. jpellino

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Oct 1999

    0
    12/06, 04:27pm | report spam | Reply |

    see...?

    ...this is what happens when Eddie Haskell gets a web browser. "Gosh, Mrs. Cleaver, I didn't know we weren't supposed to . Gee, Wally, nobody told me ."

    Anyone know when the rumor sites first spake the term "iTunes"? Sure that would be a leg to stand on...

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