Please Help! CyberSquatting?

Sizart

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Hi everyone,

I'm new here and am truly loving the environment and have learnt a lot. I honestly didn't want my first post to be asking for help, but I'm genuinely in need of some guidance from u smarter marketing wizards here.

So i bought a .tech domain at only 0.45cents a few weeks back with a celebrity's name in it just cuz it was available.

Fast-forward to today, i get an email from said celebrity's lawyer in USA stating i infringed on the celebrity's intellectual property and that i'm essentially "cybersquatting."

I live in Canada as a reference.

Wondering if anyone has any experience in this matter whatsoever?

Any help would be appreciated u genius wizards.
 
Thread moved to the "Business & Tax Advice" section.
 
Last edited:
Ah of course.
Yeah for sure, my apologies for posting in the wrong section.
 
Were you cybersquatting? Yes, you were. Is it illegal? Yes, it is. Jurisdiction is a question, but:

There's a precedent case which applies exactly to your situation: "Jurisdiction is an issue, as shown in the case involving Kevin Spacey, in which Judge Gary A. Feess, of the United States District Court of the Central District of California, ruled that the actor would have to file a complaint in a Canadian court, where the current owner of kevinspacey.com resided. Spacey later won the domain through the National Arbitration Forum."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybersquatting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anticybersquatting_Consumer_Protection_Act
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Domain-Name_Dispute-Resolution_Policy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forum_(alternative_dispute_resolution)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Intellectual_Property_Organization

Probably i wouldn't give a rats ass, if i were living in a third world country (no offense), worst case scenario that the domain could get taken down. But living in the US or in Canada puts these things into a whole different perspective.

So what they can do to you?
They can file a complaint in a Canadian court or they can get the domain back via NAF or WIPO.

I'd drop the domain.
 
@HoNeYBiRD

Thanks for the reply.
I followed your advice and got rid of it yeah.

Just ended up tossing it to the law firm that contacted me. honestly not worth all the hassle for just one domain.
Appreciate the response man, thanks :)
 
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