URLs Aren't Property?

stevarooski writes "I saw this over at Ars. Apparently a judge ruled in a lawsuit about the alleged illegal transfer of the domain name 'sex.com' that URLs do not qualify as property, at least under current law. They are instead a "designation for a service -- akin to a phone number." I dont know if I buy that. . .People very much treat domain names as property--buying and selling them on the web all the time. (Examples from Ebay and Yahoo.)"

Re:Stealing Microsoft.com?

The one thing noted in the wired article about this was that the plaintiff still has recourse because a fraudulent act was committed, so he WILL get some money eventually. It sounds like his lawyers were just arguing it in the wrong way to begin.

The fact this has taken 5 years is ridiculous though, and if it was Microsoft it definitely would have all been over and done with by now. For proof, look at how NetSol did an emergency update of the root nameservers last year when AOL.com's name was hijacked. They would definitely never do that for any company smaller than MS or AOL. But then when there is provable fraud going on, they just drag their heels and let the court take care of it? sick.

sig:

NSI holding domains

If domains aren't property, will InterNIC/register.com/etc. still be able to keep them away from customers as they have been doing?

=================================

Sell != Property

Just because something is sold does not mean it is 'property'.

Consider a software liscence. You 'buy' that. Do you own it? [0]

A car registration plate can [1] be sold, and bought. You definitly don't own those, they are 'owned' by the govenment, but that doesn't stop you paying extra fo a 'personalised' plate.

You can purchase a liscence to use a patent. The patent does not become your propery.

The term property is used here in a fairly strict legal sense, not in an everyday sense. It's as per the law of 'conversion', whatever that may be.

[0] I'll leave the whole 'is it legal question to the side here'

[1] At leat, you can in the UK

IP == Designation

IP == Designation for service (like phone number).

URL == property. They have become so valuable in today's world that they can easily be considered similar to a great big sign signifying who you are and/or what you do.

Btw. . . this is a pretty old case . . .

--

Domain resolution is a service.

You pay these people to resolve a domain name to your IP address. The address is like the phone number (that's the only analogy I can use to explain it to people anymore anyway), and a company provides a layer linking your friendly name to an address.

Therefore, how NSI runs its business should be entirely up to NSI. I'm not against a little intervention; after all, the Internet is well on its way to being a utility similar to the phone system, but it doesn't mean that they aren't property. They're just the property of NSI.

do they sell 800 numbers?

Let's say that 1-800-mattress decides to close up shop....

Can they sell the 800 number, or does it have to go back to the telco?

The paradigm seems to fit, despite everyone's arguments that it's a "mew thing" from the "new economy."

Huge contradiction here...

On one hand URLs aren't property, thus can't be stolen. (US court)

On the other hand, URLs can be forcibly reassigned from one party to another. (ICANN)

URLs aren't like software licenses. They aren't fungible assets, they're unique. Can a court rule that your phone number will be taken away just because it's 225-5288 (CALL-ATT)? Can they decide to transfer that number to AT&T in every area code that contains an AT&T office?

Now, if it's a trademark issue, then a legal ruling entity should be able to order the cease and desist of the use of a specific domain name, but shouldn't be able to order the transfer to another party. The trademark namespace is not exclusive. Just because there's a Ford Motor Company doesn't stop there from being a Ford Bookstore. It only stops there from being a Ford something-or-other in the auto industry. The Internet in not an industry that umbrellas over all trademark namespaces. A good case in point is Nissan Computers [nissan.com]. They're being sued by Nissan Motors [nissandriven.com] because they want the domain. This is clearly not a case of trademark infringement, as both companies have the registered trademark "Nissan". What right does Nissan Motors have over the domain?

So when would trademarks apply, and how should it be dealt with? If, for example, I had the domain name ford.com and started a car company I would get sued for trademark violation, and rightly so. After I received a judgement forcing me to abandon the name ford in conjunction with my car company, I should be free to market the domain name ford.com to anyone who can legally use it, not just the one who was fastest to sue. Ford Books should have just as much right to purchase it as Ford Motors. It's unlikely that they would, because in an open market Ford Motors would pay me more, but this is an economic issue, not a legal one.

Just one more hypothetical: Say 'Orange' is a small organic farm in Idaho, been in business for decades. Orange.com is registered by someone else and they set up shop as an organic farm on the net. Say the original Orange goes to ICANN and asks for the domain, because of a trademark violation. The company wins and Orange.com is now in the first person's name. then Orange Computers, a multi-billion-dollar company comes along to ICANN and says Orange.com needs to go to them because they have a stronger tie to the name in the internet space. Shopuld it just get passed up the chain? Is this right?

Property is what this is all about. We have far more laws over property and posession than we do over 'name assignments'. The telephone number analogy is full of crap. My 'net telephone number' is my P address and you can do whatever you want with it, I don't care. When you choose a domain name from a mutually exclusive 100+ character namespace you're creating a brand, an identity, and not just a choice between THE-KING (845-5464) or THE-BING (845-2464). When is one of these cases going to make its way up the chain of appeals?

Kevin Fox

Re:What makes U.S. law final authority?

If that's true

It's not, never has been.

ICANN Sez: [icann.org]

The domain name space is constructed as a hierarchy. It is divided into top-level domains (TLDs), with each TLD then divided into second-level domains (SLDs), and so on. More than 200 national, or country-code, TLDs (ccTLDs) are administered by their corresponding governments or by private entities with the appropriate national government's acquiescence. A small set of gTLDs do not carry any national identifier, but denote the intended function of that portion of the domain space. For example, .com was established for commercial users, .org for not-for-profit organizations, and .net for network service providers. The registration and propagation of these key gTLDs are performed by NSI, under a five-year cooperative agreement with NSF. This agreement expires on September 30, 1998.

Then again I guess for all intents and purposes...

Reckon US voting should be opened internationally as the laws seem to be, or at the very least the pretence of being a democracy should be dropped.

Seems reasonable...

From the article:
The judge acknowledged that it's not totally clear whether property law should or shouldn't apply to Web domains, but emphasized that the job of clarifying the law rests with the legislature, not the courts. Legal experts seconded his opinion.

It seems the judge simply did not want to set a bad precedent and instead decided that congress should write laws that specifically govern "virtual real estate" instead of the pseudo-laws being created as the side effects of various lawsuits.


(-1 Troll)

Re:What makes U.S. law final authority?

• That is a United States top-level domain suffix, as decided by ICANN.

False

Check out the FAQ [internic.net] at Internic.net. To quote from it:

• Are .com, .net, and .org domain names available for registration on a global basis?

  Yes. The .com, .net, and .org domains are available for registration by Internet users across the globe.

The US has its own ccTLD (country code top level domain - shockingly this is .us), and anything else is international.

However, Harrison Ford would probably be able to take the domain for a different reason. They generally get you with the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy, paragraph 4(a)(iii) (here [icann.org]). This is the bad faith clause, i.e. even if you are called Harrison Ford, few people who go to the site www.harrisonford.com are likely to be going there to see you. They would claim that you registered the domain name to either capture people who wanted to go to the site of the actor of the same name, or that you hoped to sting money out of him. They would say that one of these circumstances are more likely than you needing the name for yourself. [I'm trying to stay neutral - though in this circumstance I'd agree with them.]

cheers,
G

Re:What makes U.S. law final authority?

ICANN/IANA and NSI are incorporated under U.S. law.

Nothing's stopping anyone else, in any nation, from setting up their own alternative root server. However, as long as the only existing, generally accepted root servers are controlled by organizations incorporated in the U.S., U.S. law will be the governing authority for domain names.

Steven E. Ehrbar

No matter what he does, he sets a precident.

And he set one here.

Makes me wonder if we shouldn't go about creating another option for judges to exercise: "No law for this" which punts the decision straight to the appropriate legislative body to create a law.

--
Ben Kosse

Well,

If I gave you a phone number to call to get some crack, I bet I could end up in jail.

Linking to a site with illegal content is certainly different than linking to yahoo. Especially if I knowingly do it (i.e. the link say "go here to get your kiddie porn/warez/etc.")

cot

Non-Techie Legal System

I think this is yet another example of the legal system not understanding technology, mainly the net (OMG, its a new and scary thing). For some odd reason, the system continually treats anything Internet related differently than if a law was to be applied to any other subject matter. Courts just don't get it. For instance, a court ruled in 1999 that domain names are property [cnet.com]. What to do? I graduated law school, worked for a federal judge and became extremely frustrated -- I returned to tech. A significant number of attorneys continue to utilize WordPerfect for DOS. Most judges do not know how to use a computer. The vast number of 'high-tech' lawyers are in it for the $ and are clueless. It is interesting that a system which is suppose to apply precedent to all legal matters has, with the Internet, not applied precedent. Rather, new rules have been written for application to anything Net-related. This is great material for conspiracy theorists. However, is it simply a problem of techies unable to communicate to the legal community (i.e.: "Open Source = Anti-copyright")? Even if it was, how could techies communicate with the legal sector? Free luncheon conferences? Campaign donations? ABA and state bar advertisements? Frustrating.

So?

Just because people 'treat' somethign like property doesn't mean it is.
Had any of them READ their contract when they 'registered' a domain, they would clearly see that they do not 'OWN' it, that this is merely a registration of a name in the DNS, and all that that implies.

IT's companies that started treating them like comoddities that have made idiot people think they are 'property'.

Stealing Microsoft.com?

What shocks me is that the URL here was stolen which was the whole point of this case. If I were to go and hijack microsoft.com, would the judge rule in my favor as well? Heck no, because Microsoft is a big company. Network Solutions would yank the domain from under me before I could say "hypocrisy". The little guy once again loses out to the law, and the most important thing to have when it comes to the internet for most companies is now subject to an EULA.

P.S. This is the second story in a day that I submitted well in advance. (2000-08-25 19:08:15 Judge Rules Domains Aren't Property (articles,doj) (rejected)), note that it has a more correct title, since this applies to domain names and NOT URLs.