I'll freely admit...Kevin Mittnick I'm not, and I will go on record as saying I
am NOT MafiaBoy. That much I know is true. And yet in my own little
insignificant way, I too was once regarded as being guilty of cybercrime. Yes,
yes, I know...these days no one pays for anything, and it would be a gross
exaggeration of the truth if I said that every single application installed on
either here on my workstation in my office or at home is completely and
legitimately paid for and registered, so sue me. My point is that if you want
to...you'd best get in line.
In 1999, I was investigated for alleged “cybersquatting”,
which is the coin termed for illegal use of a domain name that is the implied
and/or inherent intellectual property of an existing entity. The general theory
is that individuals not associated with an organization should not have the
ability to use or obtain ownership in any form of established trademarks,
whether their legal owners choose to use them, or not. Any violation of this is
an unethical intrusion on an organization's intellectual property and ergo
against the law.
However, a major clothing corporation wanted my ass bad a couple years back for
something quite trivial, and comical when I think about it now. One of the major
manufacturers of clothing who I had idolized in my formative years as a
volleyball player was now looking to take me to court over infringement of their
copyrighted namesake. Well, I guess if you're gonna get sued, it might as well
be by friends, right? My friends and I had formed a volleyball club while
attending Simon Sanchez H.S., dubbing ourselves "Sideout". We did this not to
rip-off the multimillion dollar clothing and apparel company formed by the
legendary volleyball player Sinjin Smith, and most definitely NOT after the
lame-ass 80's movie of the same name with C. Thomas Howell and Courtney
Thorne-Smith...more a tribute to the volleyball term referring to the regaining
of possession.
How fitting that would turn out to be.
A simple project
At any rate, we had formed this club and for at least five years had been
entering local tournaments and playing under that moniker, and innocently so. No
one complained...yet. So, when I decided to make a career out of this Internet
thing, I legitimately and legally paid for and gained ownership of the domain
name "SIDEOUT.ORG". At that point in time the Internet's history (circa 1998),
you would still have to prove existence as a non-profit organization at the time
of registration with the InterNIC to get
a .ORG domain name...whereas now any schmo with a credit card can get
practically anything...with any classification. As a logical progression, I set
up and managed the domain's Web presence - www.sideout.org, with my
friends, for a self-gratifying waste of Webspace.... used to plan my high school
class' reunion plans, pix of chicks, shareware, coding examples, useless jokes,
you know the deal.
Six months after registering the domain name, I was called at work by an
attorney representing Sideout Sport, to
find out who I was and why I was using the trademark "Sideout" (Sideout Sport
being a registered sports clothing company, already owning the domain name
SIDEOUT.COM). I mentioned my intent and that we did not have any connections to
the established company, and that I had already included a legal statement in an
include throughout the site claiming that the content in the site did not intend
to harm or intrude Sideout Sport in any capacity. I made sure the attorney
understood that I was no threat nor did I intend to become a threat to Sideout
Sport. Nonetheless, Sideout wanted its name back...which was funny...considering
in the light of domain name ownership...they never had it to begin with.
I proceeded to have a chat with the legal counsel representing Sideout Sport (a
trendy LA attorney...a nice guy, actually, if such thing as nice LA lawyer can
in fact, exist), who informed me that while he was acting as the harbinger of
bad news, he admittedly wasn't too familiar with online law and only had a
couple of rough examples from which to draw. I immediately donned my consultant
cap and informed him that the reality of the entire situation was that if
Sideout Sport was really concerned about the use of their trademark, they should
have bought the rights to the domain name SIDEOUT.ORG (and further, SIDEOUT.NET)
initially, to avoid such an issue. I coulda/shoulda/woulda have been a real jerk
about it and demanded $15,000 for it, eh? I likely would have been able to get
away with it, too. Nevertheless, I just put on my Good Samaritan pin and turned
it over without a squabble. I had a stable job and decent pay...no need to get
involved a sticky legal mess. I still continue to use the company's products
(I'm wearing a Sideout Sport shirt right now...really!).
However, it was not even two weeks after my own escapade that the domain name
DRUGS.COM was sold by 21-year-old Web Dev
Eric MacIver for $823,456 to the co-founder of
LinkExchange (which has since become
Microsoft’s bCentral). Completely
legit...and legal. Argh.
A growing legal concern
As the power of the Internet has now become a critical means to compete,
understanding its implications on business and rights and privileges associated
with it are key. Then, after more laws are implemented extending copyright
protection, a deeper sense of security can be felt. When President Clinton
signed the Digital Millenium Copryright Act in 1998, my main interest was the
Act's impact on me as an ISP (where I worked at the time). The Act basically
stated that I could not be held responsible should a user of mine be found as
the originator of illegal content, as I was merely a conduit for the
information, and not necessarily an endorser of it. It would be unconscionable,
both in terms of cost and system performance, if I was to implement mechanisms
that would scan through each packet and bit passing through my network.
Companies have secured protection by buying up in bulk all of the relevant
domain names and variations of them, to ensure their complete ownership and
control of their namesake. Amazon.com bought
over 88 variations of the name AMAZON.COM at its onset, spending in excess of
$6,000 on preserving their namesake online from cybersquatters. The Committee to
Elect George W. Bush bought several domain names, such as BUSHBLOWS.COM,
BUSHSUCKS.COM, BUSHSUX.COM and BUSHBITES.COM, in addition to their formal domain
name, to rule out any slanderous attacks by would-be naysayers.
And the ball just keeps on rolling...
Another form of intellectual property clause, contributory infringement, exists
to check if an errant party in question (such as an organization owning a Web
site hyperlinking to an infringing site) actually had pre-existing knowledge
about an infringement prior to linking, and whether it deliberately did so while
knowing it was in the wrong. This was brought to light (pun intended) by
the Church of Scientology in
1999, after becoming involved in a landmark judgment that ruled that any Web
document being associated to another document which infringes on copyright
violations by means of hyperlinks is also guilty of infringement by association.
This marked the first time that hyperlinking had been ruled upon for its
relationship with existing copyright violation legislation.
The Church has since been an active player in online copyright law, helping to
author a number of new laws involving the Internet, as it has long been
aggressive in arguing its case for the protection of its copyrighted materials
and the distribution of them.
Dianetics, anyone?
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