Red Bull the Drink vs. Red Bull Media the marketing company

[foozhitao]

So this is an interesting Domain Bullying move by Red Bull the Energy Drink company against what seems to be anyone who uses a red bull in their business name.

Alvys.com

The WIPO details are posted here http://alvys.typepad.com/RedBullMarketing/RedBullComplaint.pdf

What are the forums thoughts, experience etc on this type of move? Both by Alvy to post and Red Bull to attack?

Are all things mentioning a red bull in the name automatically owned by Red Bull the Energy Drink of the world? or can anyone that likes red bulls as a figure of power (stock exchange bull, red fire) use the color and animal in their business, outside of the beverage industry?

 

[NameGuy]

Look at the parking page on the domain www.redbullmedia.com. Enuff said.

 

[jberryhill]

Look at the parking page on the domain www.redbullmedia.com. Enuff said.

Archive.org indicates that it was forwarding to his main site in the past, so his comment about recent misconfiguration has some objective support.

Otherwise, the typical symptoms of Domain Dispute Martyr Syndrome are present. "Alvy's Marketing Blog" doesn't seem to be much about marketing, and most of what he has to say bears no particular relevance to the substantive issues involved in his dispute, which are pretty simple.

Now, for some reason, he hired top-shelf firm Wilson Sonsini to respond to a c&d letter, but, and this is my favorite part:

But, I have high hopes that my case and blog will generate a lot of buzz in the domaining industry and media, so much so that if there is an Internet lawyer who wishes to make a name for him/herself, I'd be willing to accept their help and in trade I'll mention their role and contact info on my blog.

Every attorney in this business has more paying work than time to do it. If Alvy were running some worthy charity or non-commercial enterprise, that would be one thing. I can't count the number of folks who seemed shocked, shocked, that I don't make a living from helping other people make money for free.

As NameGuy notes - the Complainant saw a parking page, it has energy drinks, so they filed a UDRP complaint. It's up to Alvy to explain what was going on, but it is not unreasonable for Red Bull to have filed a complaint on those facts.

 

[foozhitao]

The parked page is nothing done by Alvy but is the standard GoDaddy parked page set up which just grabs keywords and best possible bid value available to godaddy. I guess my question is really more. Does RedBull the energy drink own everything about red bulls now because their energy drink is popular or can other companies be red bull related as long as they aren't energy drink companies?

Bottom line: are red bulls off limits for any type of marketing because of Red Bull the drink?

 

[jberryhill]

The parked page is nothing done by Alvy but is the standard GoDaddy parked page set up which just grabs keywords and best possible bid value available to godaddy.

Yes. We all know that. It may surprise you to know that not everyone in the world understands GoDaddy default parking pages.

Are all things mentioning a red bull in the name automatically owned by Red Bull the Energy Drink of the world? or can anyone that likes red bulls as a figure of power (stock exchange bull, red fire) use the color and animal in their business, outside of the beverage industry?

Trademark disputes are fact specific. The types of questions you are asking do not have an answer.

Bottom line: are red bulls off limits for any type of marketing because of Red Bull the drink?

Why do you care?

I mean, if you are teetering on the edge of naming your new company, into which you are going to pour your life savings, why not name it "Awesome Hot Pink Dragon"? I guarantee it will make a memorable impression.

No, Red Bull does not own a monopoly in the words "Red Bull". There is no question that, by now, it is a very well-known mark, and probably qualifies for anti-dilution protection. I don't know what the situation was back in whenever Alvy registered this domain name, and it's really not critical for the UDRP. His problem is that the domain name that he cares so much about hasn't even been pointed to his website recently, and that is clearly what inspired the complaint in this situation.

 

[Dave Zan]

I guess my question is really more. Does RedBull the energy drink own everything about red bulls now because their energy drink is popular or can other companies be red bull related as long as they aren't energy drink companies?

One unfortunate reality is some parties, especially deep-pocked ones, seem to
think they have absolute exclusivity over certain terms they have a trademark
or so for, even though they don't. OTOH, neither do registrants have absolute
exclusivity to do what they want with the domain names they register.

It just so happens the registrant invited trouble by doing what he or whoever
managed that domain name did.

 

[Raider]

Yes. We all know that. It may surprise you to know that not everyone in the world understands GoDaddy default parking pages.

If the results are generated by Godaddy, which seems to be the case here, is the domain owner really infringing on this TM? Looks to me like Godaddy is getting a free pass, cashing in on the revenue and the domain owner takes all the heat.. :veryangry:

 

[jberryhill]

Looks to me like Godaddy is getting a free pass, cashing in on the revenue and the domain owner takes all the heat..

Correct. It's nice to be a registrar.

 

[DNQuest.com]

If the results are generated by Godaddy, which seems to be the case here, is the domain owner really infringing on this TM? :veryangry:

It is the domain owner's choice to use the parking page.

 

[acesfull]

It is the domain owner's choice to use the parking page.

If someone registers a domain with the intent on developing it in the next 6 to 12 months, or longer, and godaddy puts infringing links on the "parked" page, and the registrant doesn't understand the implications, and if registrant gets into an infringement problem, shouldn't the registrant have a case against godaddy (or whichever registrar they are using)?

At the very least, the registrant should be informed that, until he or she configures their domain, that advertising links will be placed on the domain for the purpose of the registrar earning advertising revenue - and, furthermore, infringing links may result in a domain dispute or possibly a lawsuit against the registrant. Apart from this particular case, without making this situation clear to an unsuspecting registrant, it would seem the registrant should be able to find the registrar liable for creating the problem, unless the registrant gives the registrar permission to configure the name with such content.

 

[Raider]

It is the domain owner's choice to use the parking page.

I figured it was. However many times Godaddy took the liberty of switching the DNS on my names to theirs without my authorization, they also set the Registrar Lock to ON, when I keep on turning it OFF so I can transfer out.
They are the one Registrar where I have to check back all the time to see if anything has been changed.

 

[Jacksplat]

Long ago when i had many domains at that dishonest registrar I did have to check in alot. I'd find the occasional domain parked on their personal revenue machine pages. Reading this thread I can see now what can happen.

 

[Dave Zan]

If someone registers a domain with the intent on developing it in the next 6 to 12 months, or longer, and godaddy puts infringing links on the "parked" page, and the registrant doesn't understand the implications, and if registrant gets into an infringement problem, shouldn't the registrant have a case against godaddy (or whichever registrar they are using)?

http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/legal_agreements/show_doc.asp?pageid=PARK_SA

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Go Daddy for any complications arising out of Your use of Go Daddy's Parked Page services

Other registrars have similar terms.

 

[jberryhill]

At the very least, the registrant should be informed

I was up half the night arguing about this with my wife, who is of the "GoDaddy should be held responsible persuasion".

I didn't win the argument with her, but then again, she doesn't post at DNForum, so you'll only get my side of the argument.

I agree with Raider's observation that things at GoDaddy have an odd habit of changing, and they use a number of slick techniques to present parking pages.

There are so many issues that come up from time to time where someone concludes, "Registrants should be informed of X", whether X is expiration policy, transfer policy, basic security against hi-jacking, and so on. Well, yes, registrants should be informed of a lot of things, but it all boils down to registrants should know what they are doing. People who drive cars should know what the pedals do, and we don't let people drive cars unless they have demonstrated they indeed know what the pedals do. However, the sole qualification for registering a domain name is having the ability to pay for it. It is as if we let people drive, so long as they can buy a car.

That said, I also agree with the "you don't have to use their nameservers" line of thought, and I would guess that the longer one has been around, the more weight one would put on that sentiment. After all, it used to be that when you registered a domain name, that was that. Nameservers, DNS, hosting, email... all of that stuff you had to go get on your own. Even when NSI started providing default nameservers, I can't imagine the bandwidth NSI bought in order to display the little digging man and the "under construction" page on countless computer screens.

Http queries to unused names have to go somewhere, and if you are using the registrar's nameservers, they are going to go where the registrar points them, and the registrar is paying for that bandwidth.

Now, yes, a few years ago, some guy sued Register.com because he hadn't read the registration agreement, and he was shocked to find that Register.com had put paid links on the page. Long story short, I thought it was a dumb lawsuit four years ago, and the court agreed:

http://www.icannwatch.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/20/1733243

This is more like me tying my horse to a tree in your yard, and then complaining to you that your grass gave my horse indigestion.

But, back to the situation at hand, the guy has a viable defense. Domain disputes are nothing remarkable, however, so the point of grandstanding about his case before he's even filed a response escapes me.

There's nothing particularly remarkable about this situation. It is obvious that Red Bull is not going after his other name, and if he'd pay attention to his forwarding configuration, they wouldn't have gone after this one either.

 

[Stian]

This guy would stand a much better chance if he took down the parked page pointing to energy drinks and put up his company's site instead.

 

[DNQuest.com]

This guy would stand a much better chance if he took down the parked page pointing to energy drinks and put up his company's site instead.

Nothing like having the power of obvious observations :lol::lol::lol:

But seriously, if you do not read the fine print, then you suffer the consequences. All domainers know the registrar will put up their default parking page if we do nothing. We all know we can get into trouble if our domain, which we registered freely of our own will, has TM implications. USAGE USAGE USAGE... show bad faith, you should lose.. end game.

 

[jberryhill]

show bad faith, you should lose.. end game.

He should be okay, provided that he provides a clear explanation of what happened. But a hyped-up self-righteous tirade is not going to be persuasive in this instance.

I can't find it offhand, but there was one panel that did get the point, and still said something to the effect of "we don't care if the registrant didn't put the ads there - somebody is making a buck off of the trademark".

It might have been one of those free hosting situations, which used to be fairly common, where in exchange for hosting, you agreed to have ads on the site. Geocities used to be a popular one for that. The cheesiest websites were always Geocities sites where someone had actually paid for a domain name, and then forwarded traffic to their free website. With the combined point-n-click page builders and hosting that registrars bundle with domain names, that sort of thing is a lot less common than it used to be.

This guy would stand a much better chance if he took down the parked page pointing to energy drinks and put up his company's site instead.

Yes and no. Some panelists freak out if the respondent changes anything during the dispute. However, in this instance, given the clear record in the archive, it seems he ought to change it back.

 

[namestrands]

ignorance can never be a defense

 

[foozhitao]

Godaddy automatically freezes any ability to change the domain name information, status etc. if there is a WIPO case going on.

Thank you to all who have posted. I've enjoyed the points made and I guess we all just watch to see what happens.