277 'Kazaa' domains; is that a UDRP record?

[dtobias]

This case involves a whopping 277 domains that are variations, phrases, and typos of "Kazaa". The result was a split decision because the panelist (subjectively) found some of them not to be sufficiently similar to the trademark. The respondent defaulted.

Is this the most domains that have been involved in a single UDRP case?

Kazaa, a popular file-trading system, is facing litigation over allegedly existing primarily as a medium for violating the intellectual property of others, so it's interesting that they're so vigorous in protecting their own intellectual property; this is one of many UDRP cases that they've filed and mostly won.

I also can't quite understand the mindset of all of those "typosquatters" that register any name they can think of that contains "Kazaa" (which they also do to "Google", "Yahoo", and any other famous name on the net). Do they really expect people to type in "downloadmusickazaa.com" (one of the disputed names in this case) instead of simply "kazaa.com"? Well, I guess the common use of stupid unnecessary domain names by legitimate companies, like sending people to "buyatoyota.com" instead of just "toyota.com", encourages such activity.

 

[Dave Zan]

I was just about to ask that question after just checking my email, Dan. My
first reaction after seeing that was to simply whistle. :-D

It'll take a while searching thru the previous UDRPs to see if that's the record
holder. Perhaps JBerryhill or others can provide the link to the most number
of domains involved in a UDRP, or is this it?

 

[Ovicide]

Do they really expect people to type in "downloadmusickazaa.com" (one of the disputed names in this case) instead of simply "kazaa.com"?

I've often wondered about that too.

Maybe they hope that words like "download", "music", and "kazaa" in the name will give it a higher search engine ranking. Registering a large number of those names might increase the chance of people finding the names in search engine listings.

That's the only explanation I can think of. Most of those names probably have no type-ins.

 

[dtobias]

Maybe they hope that words like "download", "music", and "kazaa" in the name will give it a higher search engine ranking. Registering a large number of those names might increase the chance of people finding the names in search engine listings.

That could be done just as well with subdomains, like download.music.kazaa.example.net, which would require no new domain registrations and not be subject to UDRP action.

 

[Ovicide]

That could be done just as well with subdomains, like download.music.kazaa.example.net, which would require no new domain registrations and not be subject to UDRP action.

Well, darn! I'll admit that has never occurred to me.

 

[Domagon]

If IDNs ever become popular, expect to see THOUSANDS of domains listed in many UDRPs...

Reason is that often many hundreds to even many thousands of nearly identical looking domains to well known ones can be derived by using IDNs ... below is an excerpt from a message I posted awhile back regarding domain spoofing with IDNs...

Here are some examples - please check my math; even if I'm off, there are still a lot of combinations nevertheless.

amazon.com = 588 combinations with IDNs

dnforum.com = 60 combinations with IDNs

ebay.com = 210 combinations with IDNs

google.com = 180 combinations with IDNs

yahoo.com = 756 combinations with IDNs

And one of my domains tops them all with 3920 combinations with IDNs; only 8 characters in length. One of those times in which pursuing legal action as needed is likely much cheaper than trying to register the other 3919 domains upfront.

And keep in mind my numbers are based only on the characters in one character set ... see url below:

http://www.blooberry.com/indexdot/html/tagpages/entities/charentity224-255.htm

Other character sets exist, some of which also contain similar (possibly even exact!) looking characters.

If IDNs ever become all the rage, one can expect much larger UDRP filings ... and likely as a consequence, a push for changes in the UDRP filing fee-structure.

Ron

 

[dtobias]

Other character sets exist, some of which also contain similar (possibly even exact!) looking characters.

I know that the Greek and Cyrillic alphabets, at least, have some letters that look just like Latin ones.

 

[jberryhill]

a push for changes in the UDRP filing fee-structure.

Good point. While NAF and WIPO will negotiate the fee for large cases like this one, it would have been tremendously cheaper to file an ACPA case, get a default, and then get the names.

I really wonder why they do it this way.

The US Olympic Committee just keeps one catch-all ACPA action going, and they amend the complaint from time to time in order to add more names and collect them on a rolling basis.

 

[Steen]

That could be done just as well with subdomains, like download.music.kazaa.example.netand not be subject to UDRP action.

Still could be deemed trademark infringement though :undecided

 

[Theo]

I know that the Greek and Cyrillic alphabets, at least, have some letters that look just like Latin ones.

In upper case only.

--: Α,Β,Ε,Ζ,Η,Ι,Κ,Μ,Ν,Ο,Ρ,Τ,Υ,Χ (greek)
--: A,B,E,Z,H,I,K,M,N,O,P,T,Y,X (latin)


These are the only common letters of the Greek and Latin alphabets, however not all the letters from that list correspond. For example, Ζ (zeta) is the 6th letter of the greek alphabet.

 

[FineE]

That could be done just as well with subdomains, like download.music.kazaa.example.net, which would require no new domain registrations and not be subject to UDRP action.

Yes subdomains can also lead to some humourous legal moves. My favorite from 2001 was the domain yahoo.sex.com and the following article

http://hardware.silicon.com/servers/0,39024647,11026856,00.htm

When you buy example.com you also get among other things

www.example2.example1.example.com

Where example2 and exmaple1 can among other things be replaced by any trademark famous or not and also by any obscene word. The possibilites are endless, and also if you use a wildcard DNS they will all resolve to example.com.

If example is a very common word on the web well one gets the picture...

 

[Steen]

Lol @ yahoo.sex.com wildcard DNS issue.