new.net: yet another dns namespace overlay play

Thu Mar 8 06:14:14 UTC 2001

On Wed, 7 Mar 2001, David Schwartz wrote:

>     Surely owning a domain is more like naming a book or magazine article
> than naming a business. After all, businesses are not the only Internet
> sites.

Well, that is up for debate (which is why the laws need to be clarified).
Personally, I think the name of a website publishing articles is more like
the name of a magazine than the title of an article.  Ie, if you have
www.companiesihate.com and you have an article under that /walmartsucks.html
that you publish, the domain name could not infringe on Walmart's trademark
and would not be the subject of any action with NSI/etc (of course you
might get sued for slander/libel/etc depending on the content of the 
article).

So under that analogy, if a magazine was started up called "Walmart Sucks"
I am pretty sure Walmart would go after them and win.  If you disagree with
that analogy, then we are each entitled to our opinions until the law is
clarified.

Reminds me of the latter days of Usenet usefulness when the name of a 
newsgroup was a statement itself rather than any articles posted under it.

John A. Tamplin					jat at jaet.org
770/436-5387 HOME				4116 Manson Ave
770/431-9459 FAX		 		Smyrna, GA  30082-3723