Thread: Domain name ownership question...

If this should be moved to the legal forum, by all means move it....


So I'm working with a band and we're having a bit of an issue with their website name.

We had started working with a very small record label and in the beginings the band, which is a self titled project named after the lead singer, didn't have their own website/domain name, just the myspace type pages. The label offered to register the .com name for her and she didn't realize that meant they own it. She thought they were just helping her out. The domain name is just redirected to the myspace page, which we run and update.

The label is now using this as a "bargining chip" in all negotiations ("if we break up this deal, we still own your website name which people will try to enter to find you and direct them to our site. We'll use it however we choose to use it."). Neither the artist or the label are very big (the artist is bigger than the label actually), but the artist is on the verge of breaking into being something, so we want to get this issue resolved before we have to dish out thousands of dollars to buy this domain name. We are the largest of only 3 acts that this 'new/young' label is currently working with, so if this becomes a major issue for them as it would cripple their reputation of 'being in it for the bands and developing them, not the money'.

While the artists name is not a registered trademark, this artists name/domain name is very unique and specific (If you google search her name in quotes you will get 1840 results, all of which directly relate to her and her music, not one exception....if you search her first name + her last name, you will get 86,000 results and the only ones that don't relate to her in the first 10,000 results or so, are the ones where it is her first name being matched with someones first name in a Isreali government and her last name that relates to someting to do with some a nickname for a jewish organization fighting with this goverment official abotu something...no direct relationship/association between the first and last names in the search results) and this domain is not a general term. The only reason to own this name or domian name is to use it to either profit from her success, or defame her name.

They only have the .com to our knowledge, so we can still register the .ca's and .net's and all that, but .com is the one everyone tries first and the one that we've been marketing for the last 6 months.

Is there anything that can be done about this? Didn't Xerox.com have the same issue before or something? If they keep the ownership of the domain name can we take legal action and have a solid case, or can we limit their use of the name because this name can not be mistaken for a general term or anything like that?

Any help or suggestions would be wonderful!

Register all the rest of the extensions and then do as you mentioned.

If they threaten you with keeping her name, threaten back with publicizing their threat.

Hopefully they will see how silly they are being and "let go" since there is very little for them in keeping the domain once she is gone.

If it doesn't work out, they will certainly lose a court battle for ownership of the name:

- it has been tried many times to register someone else's name and the courts will always give it back to the rightful owner, the only exception is if the current owner has a legitimate reason (one of the only valid ones being that it is also their name.)

Don't get too hung up on it. The domain name in this case (the business of her career) is not a determining factor.

It is possible to get any site to rank well in Google when someone searches on her name, and that is much more important than owning her exact name.

my 2 cents, I'd certainly call a domain name lawyer and get a real opinion.

Originally Posted by Jonleehacker

Register all the rest of the extensions and then do as you mentioned.

If they threaten you with keeping her name, threaten back with publicizing their threat.

Hopefully they will see how silly they are being and "let go" since there is very little for them in keeping the domain once she is gone.

If it doesn't work out, they will certainly lose a court battle for ownership of the name:

- it has been tried many times to register someone else's name and the courts will always give it back to the rightful owner, the only exception is if the current owner has a legitimate reason (one of the only valid ones being that it is also their name.)

Don't get too hung up on it. The domain name in this case (the business of her career) is not a determining factor.

It is possible to get any site to rank well in Google when someone searches on her name, and that is much more important than owning her exact name.

my 2 cents, I'd certainly call a domain name lawyer and get a real opinion.

Sweet...thanks! It's not a huge deal. This guy just uses this at every chance he gets and it would be nice to shoot an arguement back at him with some proof that it's not a real bargining chip. He's a decent guy and I can't see this being an issue legally, but he's just very arrogant about things without anything to back it up. I've also looked at the Keithurban.com case and there's a lot of stuff in that case that would give us the upper hand if it went to blows. Using the name with the intentions of causing confusion that the artist endorses/works with the label.

Bands frequently change names before hitting big, is that an option?


Also, you might want to try derivatives of the name ...

If the band name is Kickner ... you can try KicknerOnline.com or KicknerRocks.com or KicknerBand.com or KicknerMusic.com

There are lots of alternatives if the main domain name can't be negotiated at a fair price. Try to get the main name at a fair price. If the price is extortive, move to derivative .COM's. Please don't try .net/.org's.

Changing the band name is always an option...like I said this is a self titled project with the lead singers name...she started out as a solo artist and added the band of hired musicians, so it's really her that's the focus and not the band as a whole. It's also a pain to change all the marketing and merchandise and scrap all the old stuff and start over type of thing. She's not well known enough yet for it to be an easy transition and get it publicized enough so everyone knows type of thing. Kind of like the Avril Lavigne's and Alanis Morriessette's of the world...they've got a band, but no one really focuses on any of that.

Basically, all we want to do is make sure that there's not going to be a problem with the domain name in future in these guys profiting from her own given name. We'd like to buy it from him at cost but if he's a jerk about it, we'd like to fire it back at him and have our own bargining chip so to speak.

Originally Posted by Z5 FILMS

As mentioned, I would get an alternative domain name similar to what MJ said. Best case you end up owning both, worst case end up owning one.

It's not too hard to get certain domains to come up when people search for certain keywords. You don't need the exact name, you just need to do work.

For example, Rich Jerk. He threatened to sue somone for using the words "Rich Jerk" in their domain name. So they changed the domain to circlejerkclan.com, and now that domain is #1 on Google and comes up higher in the results than the Rich Jerk website itself!

So if her name is Amy Smith and the record label owns the domain amysmith.com and wont give it back, it's not impossible to get the website amysmithonline.com to rank higher than the website amysmith.com


All the marketing material and such might say amysmith.com and the fans are used to amysmith.com, but you can slowly ween them off of it. The domain you want is currently pointed at YOUR MySpace page. You can mention on your MySpace page about the "new" domain name.

Either way, it's pretty easy to circumvent the record label's dirty tactic.

I am constantly amazed at your RichJerk knowledge ... what gives?