RSSiTunes Domain Owner To Appeal Ruling
By Ed Oswald | Published March 28, 2005, 1:16 PM
The owner of the itunes.co.uk domain said Monday he plans to appeal a ruling that forced him to hand over the rights to his domain name to Apple Computer last week. Benjamin Cohen, the former owner of the domain and CEO of CyberBritain, called the ruling "unfair" and "biased," and will appeal it to Britain's High Court.
The decision was handed down by Nominet, the organization that handles the United Kingdom's domain registrations. Nominet said in its ruling that "the domain name, in the hands of the respondent, is an abusive registration on the grounds of its use in a manner taking unfair advantage of, and being unfairly detrimental to, the rights of the complainant," which was Apple.
However, Cohen owned the domain name since November 2000, almost three years before iTunes was released in the United States and four years before its release in the UK.
Apple did apply for a patent on the iTunes name in the UK in October of that year; however, the details of that filing were only known to the patent office and not made public.
Cohen intends to challenge in court the way that Nominet hands down such decisions. "We feel that the procedure that Nominet utilizes to settle disputes is unfair and at the expense of legitimate small, British companies," he argued.
itunes.co.uk currently forwards to a music portion of CyberBritain's online shopping Web site, QuickQuid.com. It is unclear if Nominet will begin forwarding Cohen's domain to Apple's iTunes UK while the appeal is underway.
have done the right thing and offered the previous owner of the domain name a figure toi purchase that domain name from them. That's how it's done... you want something you pay for it. boycott apple :)
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|Cold you ask for more s*** on your s*** list? Apple has NO idea of how bad this looks on them. If Apple knew then they are stupider than the roaches that run on their floors.
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|I'm not quite sure about the laws associated with domain registrations in the UK, but if this were to happen in the US I'm sure he will have every plausible reason to keep the domain name.
He doesn't seem to be "cyber squatting", and the domain name seems relevant to the business he is running (redirecting to a page associated with portable mp3 players and music).
If Apple would like the domain name, they should do it the old fashioned way: by offering a huge cash sum to Benjamin Cohen.
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|I cannot disagree with you on that point. I could see if it was made public that Apple went after iTunes in the UK in October 2000, but it was not. I don't think this will stand in the courts.
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|Even tho I am against taking away domain names from whoever registered it first, in this case however I hope the ****er gets his domain taken away.
Its one thing to create a site with spam, porn and casinos... It becomes a much different story when you lure and cheat people into it by using something common such as iTunes.
Now if he did something usefull with that domain name I don't think apple would mind or care, unfortunetly what he is doing here is obvious.
I shouldn't have to look at his attempt to make 5 cents by showing me porn & casino banners when im looking for iTunes related material. I mean s*** at least build an iTunes parody site, where you make fun of apple and iTunes.
Whats the matter with you people? Do you like getting onto pages that offer porn and casinos when your looking for something important?
I just hate useless spam on the Internet thats all :( , these are the same people who spam your email. BURN THEM ALL!
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|You're smoking crack. He had this domain name registered and in use BEFORE apple had patenend the iTunes name.
If anything, they owe HIM money for copying HIS name.
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|If he did not get a trademark, it does not matter if he had the name iTunes first. Apple has the trademark and the patents now.
Sad, unfortunate truth.....
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|Idiot. [sighs]
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