

4chan demands 4chan.com domain name - sp8
http://domainnamewire.com/2014/03/28/4chan-demands-4chan-com-domain-name/

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Shinkei
Let's say I run a town with shopping centers. Both are called Main Street
Shopping but one is located on Main St and 1st and the other is located at
Main St and 120th. When you show up at Main St and 1st, is it a bussling
shopping center filled with stores of all kinds. When you GPS Main Street
Shopping Center and accidentally arrive at the other location, you just find a
parking lot with an empty field with a "coming soon" sign that's been up for 5
years. The site is undeveloped, commercially zoned and represents essentially
a burden for the community from both the unrealized tax revenue as well as eye
sore and lower local property values. Plus the brand confusion, misdirected
out-of-towners, etc.

So take this analogy to the internet, admittedly the 'real' costs may be lower
--transmitting a few billion bytes is cheaper than road maintenance, fire and
police protection to the unused property--but the societal cost is the same.
The property should be fully realized and transfered to someone who will use
it. This is the whole 'eminent domain' debate in a nutshell. Just because you
own something DOESN'T give you impunity to 'waste' it as you see fit. There is
a public interest that is ethically sound. But at its heart, the people who
cybersquat are a nuisance. They have no bona fide interest in the domain name
and likely acquired it just to 'own' a property that they think they'll be
able to flip one day.... it's the same sh*t as the real estate bubble, heck...
bubble of ANY KIND. Fact is, I am glad this system of arbitration is in place
because if I was Bill Gates and some guy named Joe Smith bought my name.com
and didn't have a fan page or other relevant property, but just intended to
sell it to me for a 10,000% return on his 'investment,' I would be pretty
pissed off. I really don't see the other side of this debate. These are greedy
people just speculatively buying stuff without any real interest. It has
created all kinds of negative effects like shotgun domain bidding, poaching,
pricing bubble, artificial scarcity, ID theft, the 4chan.org issues mentioned
in this article.... need I go on?

~~~
Lambdanaut
> Just because you own something DOESN'T give you impunity to 'waste' it as
> you see fit

Under US law you sure do.

You also have to define "waste". The owners of 4chan.com are obviously holding
onto their domain because they see it as a valuable asset. I doubt they'd see
this as wasting their property. They're watching it grow in value.

Your argument would virtually have us outlaw anyone from holding onto an asset
if it could immediately be used better by somebody else.

As a counter-example: Why should anyone be allowed to horde gold? There's a
gold shortage and it would be of much more use in computer manufacturing.

That's obviously insane, and yet it's essentially the same scenario.

I understand that it would be better for the common good if 4chan.com was
owned by 4chan.org, but if we're playing the game of Capitalism, then these
are the rules.

~~~
dsego
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102)

~~~
Lambdanaut
Haha interesting side-case. Well, I will say that it certainly wasn't an
example of Capitalism, and I don't condone something as silly as the
illegality of owning a specific element like gold.

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ds9
It would be a very bad precedent if an owner of a domain name can gain rights
to the same name in another tld just by his own site becoming popular.

US trademark law is limited to (a) commercial context and (b) possibility of
confusion. If you aren't selling anything, or even if you are commercial but
are in a different line of business, you should never be troubled by any
trademark claims. This is how the old Beatles record label and the computer
company can coexist with the 'Apple' name.

Probably many of us here are in similar situations - I have a domain name for
example in .net and .org, but someone else has the .com. I don't want to take
the .com from whoever it is (not without their consent, that is), and I
shouldn't to have to pay for lawyers to fight them off if they make the name
better known for their unrelated site.

~~~
Shinkei
It's not that it's 'more popular.' That's not the debate. The debate is that
the .com site is being squatted. If it was some 4chan interior design company
with even some legitimate business, then the debate would be over. Do you
think it's a bad precedent if Google becomes popular and you can show that a
person subsequently registered all the single permutation misspellings of
Google and then tried to sell them back to Google? Or even worse, told them
they would post porn redirects at all the sites if they didn't buy them at
huge markup? Go read about the Whitehouse.com history.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Define squatted (or define legitimate use) - if the owner is using the domain
for email and simply finds serving advertising provides some income, is that
squatting; given there is no confusion issue. If they have a project in hand,
or bought it to give to their child when they're 18, or ... are all those
squatting?

How about, as for me, they renewed for a client and then the client didn't pay
but now wants "their" domain back. Is me having that and serving ads to recoup
costs (rather than wasting time on courts), is that squatting?

> _Or even worse, told them they would post porn redirects at all the sites if
> they didn 't buy them at huge markup?_ //

Extortion and practices intended to affect the business of a RTM are already
unlawful of course.

~~~
Dylan16807
It's less about what you do with the domain and more about the method of
choosing the domain. If your domain is blatantly copying a company name, and
it's not your company name, you're not in a strong position. By copying I mean
something like paypa1.com, not something like paypalsucks.com.

If you have a domain where you do nothing on it, but it's not copying anything
either, that's squatting but nobody is going to care.

If you hold a client's site hostage for not paying, yeah that sounds like
squatting. So what, that's not a value judgement.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _If you hold a client 's site hostage for not paying, yeah that sounds like
> squatting._ //

Am I supposed to give them product without receiving payment?

~~~
Dylan16807
There's a reason I put the 'not a value judgement' comment. You have
justification, but you are still _doing it_.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Alright but if the definition of squatting doesn't help with the value
judgement, ie some squatting is justified, then that's no great help towards
deciding how to delineate allowable behaviour wrt domain holding, is it? I
considered the purpose of the definition of squatting was to define behaviour
which was considered unhelpful and was to be discouraged in some way.

~~~
Dylan16807
It's still ICANN's right and responsibility to get that domain back to the
business the site is actually for.

You might have a moral justification in witholding the domain until you're
paid, but it's not _yours_.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _get that domain back to the business the site is actually for_ //

Surely, the domain is for the business - or other entity - who pays for it.

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Havoc
I wouldn't want to be on the receiving side of this request. If its approved
then it creates a bad precedent (as ds9 indicated). If its rejected then the
person rejecting it is likely to piss of the 4chan crowd - and unlike many
other 4chan attacks this is a cause the entire 4chan user base can get behind.

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izzydata
The word "demands" is probably very unfitting. Moot doesn't seem like the
person who would "demand" something. He would just do it and not take it very
seriously and hope for the best. There is no reason to not at least try to
obtain the name.

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ChuckMcM
Interesting, I've never met a domain squatter that didn't have a price, but
setting that aside for now, is the word '4chan' trademarked? Ahh I see it is
[1] as of March 5th of this year. This will be interesting to see how it plays
out.

[1]
[http://trademarks.justia.com/858/67/4chan-85867485.html](http://trademarks.justia.com/858/67/4chan-85867485.html)

~~~
trentmb
4chan.com was created in 2003. Does 'prior art' exist for trademarks?

~~~
w0rm
yes, trademarks do not need to be registered and can be used before filing for
it.

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binarymax
Is the name 4chan trademarked? It doesn't seem to be. Would it be easier to
secure the .com if they trademarked the name first, then went after oversee?

~~~
chimeracoder
Trademarks in the US don't need to be registered to be protected, like
copyright (but unlike patents).

If you have established use of a mark before the registration (or use) of a
competing/conflicting mark, you can defend it.

In fact, registration arguably provides no protection other than the fact that
it makes it easier to search for your mark in the USPTO registry.

~~~
wdewind
> In fact, registration arguably provides no protection other than the fact
> that it makes it easier to search for your mark in the USPTO registry.

Isn't the trademark legally yours if you register and no one challenges for
some period of time (I want to say 7 years)?

~~~
Perdition
It is also legally yours if you use it and no one challenges for a long period
of time. Trademarks are based on use.

Massive corporate behemoths have lost local TM use because some mom-and-pop
store was using a trademark first.

~~~
theOnliest
My favorite example of this is the Waffle House (24-hour dive). In Indiana,
"Waffle House" was already taken, so the national chain had to use "Waffle &
Steak" instead. Of course, since we used to call the Waffle House "WaHo," this
leads to the MUCH better name "WaSte"!

[0]:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffle_house#Waffle_.26_Steak](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffle_house#Waffle_.26_Steak)

~~~
jamestnz
Another interesting example is the fact that Burger King is known ubiquitously
as "Hungry Jack's" within Australia (but here in New Zealand we get the real
BK branding).

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungry_Jack's#History_of_.22Bur...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungry_Jack's#History_of_.22Burger_King.22_in_Australia)

"When Burger King moved to expand its operations into Australia, it found that
its business name was already trademarked by a takeaway food shop in Adelaide.
As a result, Burger King provided the Australian franchisee, Jack Cowin, with
a list of possible alternative names derived from pre-existing trademarks
already registered by Burger King and its then corporate parent Pillsbury that
could be used to name the Australian restaurants. Cowin selected the "Hungry
Jack" brand name, one of Pillsbury's U.S. pancake mixture products..."

~~~
huxley
An important US trademark case (Burger King of Florida, Inc. v. Hoots (1968))
also involved Burger King:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burger_King_(Mattoon,_Illinois)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burger_King_\(Mattoon,_Illinois\))

The court ruled that federal trademark registration had priority over state
law, and that the big chain Burger King had rights to the “Burger King” name
everywhere except in Mattoon, Illinois. Since the Hoots family had prior
actual use there, they retained the name for the Mattoon area.

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SworDsy
I bet all the traffic to 4chan.com is from people mistaking it for 4chan.org
as all it says is 'inquire about this domain'

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skrebbel
Is this just to troll? Even if someone looking for 4chan.org enteres 4chan.com
first, isn't close to 100% of the target audience able to figure out what went
wrong and fix it within seconds? (either by trying .org and co, or by dropping
the tld altogether to trigger a web search).

~~~
iSnow
If I were to guess then I'd say that the chance to file a WIPO complaint is
just too juicy to let it pass. For the lulz and all that.

~~~
thrillgore
Delete system32

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spiritplumber
Domain squatting is so 1999 anyway.

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jitendrac
if 4chan.com is not cheating or bluffing with 4chan.org, it should not be
handed over to 4chan.org.

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teemo_cute
Quick 'hackernewschan.com' is still available. Someone here please buy it
(seriously). It would be a troll-site for highly intelligent people that will
bring forth a new age in humanity. Before you down-vote my comment brother...
please consider the possibilities... they once thought that flying in the air
impossible... what could be next?

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Camillo
Guys, this is serious. .org is for non-profit organizations. .com is for
commercial purposes. This is why moot had to beg for donations for years while
helplessly watching everyone and their cat monetize "his" "content" on a .com
domain.

~~~
walshemj
Nope .org is for things that didn't fit into the big 5 one of the other
bidders for .org tried to run this line and restrict .org to US style non
profits freezing out charities an NGOs like Oxfam and the Red Cross - they got
shot down in flames.

You going to tell JWZ (one of the early netscape developers) that hes going to
have to give up jwz.org good luck with that .

