Posted on 07/25/2007 8:30:15 PM PDT by hedgetrimmer
Woo-hoo! "The Simpsons Movie" has won its name back on the Internet.
A UN agency has ruled that ownership of the domain name thesimpsonsmovie.com must be handed to News Corp.'s Twentieth Century Fox, which owns the rights to the film and the popular TV series.
Twentieth Century Fox complained to the World Intellectual Property Organization over the use of the film's name in the Internet address of a site registered by Keith Malley of New York.
Fox lawyers claimed Malley was using the address to divert Internet users to a website that included sexually explicit depictions of several characters from "The Simpsons" and, later, to his "Keith and the Girl" website. He was demanding a $50,000 fee from Twentieth Century Fox for the domain name, according to the July 22 ruling of the WIPO arbitration panel.
It found that Malley "has no rights or legitimate interests with respect to the domain name" and ordered its immediate return.
In an interview, Malley said that Fox lawyers never contacted him and that he learned about the case after the deadline had passed. He said his contact information was available on his website and through his lawyer, although he hadn't updated the official registration records for the domain name, which he bought in 1999.
"I found it bullying," Malley said, adding that he would speak with his lawyer about challenging the decision. Malley could appeal by filing a lawsuit in a court.
The arbitration system, which was set up in 1999, allows those who think they have the right to a domain to gain control of it without having to fight a costly legal battle or pay large sums of money. Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman and Madonna are among the Hollywood stars who have previously won rulings against so-called "cybersquatters."
"The animated television series 'The Simpsons' debuted in 1989, and has become one of the longest-running network series in television history," the ruling said, noting that Friday's release of the film has generated huge public interest on the Internet.
WIPO said Malley's "aim in registering the disputed domain name was to profit from and exploit" Twentieth Century Fox's trademark to promote and sell his own products and merchandise.
Malley, 33, who produces an Internet radio show, said he obtained the domain name with intentions of creating a parody of "The Simpsons." He said the amount Fox offered for the domain name, $300, wouldn't cover time spent developing ideas for the site; he would not elaborate on those ideas.
Finally, you are the one that appeared on this thread and began throwing insults in my direction. So take your U.N. Peacekeepers and sod’ off.
Please tell me what insults I began throwing at you. Be specific or be silent.
Cute.
Please tell me what insults I began throwing at you. Be specific or be silent.
Exactly...
Do I have your expressed permission to post the private FReepmail I sent you on this thread?
A simple YES or NO, please. I’ll assume any other response means no.
So considerate of someone you don't want posting to you ever again.
Get this. I don’t care. If you post it here, I may even read it.
It’s called courtesy. I try to treat others as I like to be treated. It takes a lot of effort but I make an extra effort if I expect them not to have the same manners.
If I am only kind to people who act as I wish what is the value? If I can show everyone the same courtesy I hope that each individual notices it. It may lead to a common ground for understanding in disagreements.
Is my behavior really so bizarre? Sad world we live in, isn’t it?
Anyways, it’s too damned easy to be rude and insulting. I try to leave that for lesser people to enjoy. Sometimes I'm even successful.
So all extradiction treaties we have made are null and void?
That’s an interesting point, and one I hadn’t thought of . . . under the pseudo/hybrid form of legal anarchy being discussed here, I (being a U.S. citizen) should be able to commit murder in the city of Toronto, and claim protection from prosecution under the U.S. Constitution.
In order for someone to be extradited, the matter is first heard in a United States Court of law. I assume you are referring to the prosecution of a person who committed a criminal act/capital offense against a person while outside the United States. That is not a comparison to a foreign entity having jurisdiction over a person whose legal squabbles concern something over which the foreign entity has no jurisdiction and no ownership.
Criminal laws of the United States do not afford de facto protections to U.S. citizens who commit murders or crimes while outside the United States, except for those already held for any U.S. citizen who is accused of committing a crime. All persons are afforded due process protections but must be held to account for their criminal acts, wherever those may occur. The United States does not have jurisdiction to prosecute criminals for acts that occurred outside of the United States.
In fact, travelers are warned that they will be subject to the laws of the country to which they travel for crimes they may commit while in that country. Due process requires that before a person can be extradite, the case must first be argued before U.S. authorities.
OTOH, the internet, which did not even exist in the 1960’s when the treaty was written, allegedly binds users of same over to the jurisdiction of the U.N. for arbitration and/or legal disputes. The internet, which is not owned by the U.N., which is not the property of the U.N., cannot legally be under the jurisdiction of the U.N.
Just because congress writes a law doesn’t make it constitutional.
If you think that a treaty signed by this government which cedes the people’s rights, protected by the Constitution, over to the U.N., in direct violation to the Constitution, is binding and legal, it’s obvious you believe in a “living Constitution”...but that is no constitution at all.
The Founding Fathers did not craft such a document for the purpose of removing the peoples’ rights and protections found therein to ultimately place them with a foreign country, much less a foreign entity, which holds no allegiance to the people of this country or this country’s sovereignty.
It is not the laws or the treaties to which one looks as what reigns supreme, it is the Constitution. Anything which violates Constitutional rights and protections is by definition un-Constitutional.
Pro globalists and one worlders should keep that in mind.
They have no right. But the anti-Americans in our government will use their positions as a means of force to appease their anti-American friends in the international institutions such as the UN, or foreign governments such as Mexico, China, and Saudi Arabia.
Assuming that Belarus is a party to the Hague Convention (which I sort of think that it is), your U.S. judgment is enforcible in Belarus just as it is here. The Hague Convention requires that legitimate judgments obtained in member countries be enforced in all other member countries.
So the answer to your question is simple: you take your U.S. judgment to a Belarus court and then Belarus enforces it.
I'm guessing that when you register a website, you consent to binding arbitration in this forum. It is a contract, like any other.
Nothing to see here, folks. Move along.
Where do you register websites?
Parties always agree to arbitration, so he consented to the jurisdiction. End of story.
Used to be, Network Solutions was the only place where you could register a domain name. Now, you can do it any number of places, like Network Solutions, Register.com, GoDaddy.com, 1and1.com, etc.
When you register your domain name, you click through all sorts of electronic agreements, and then “sign” them by clicking “ok.” I’m guessing that in those agreements, you consent to arbitrate such disputes in this forum. Don’t like it? Don’t register a domain name.
Hooray! We have a winner! I’m not sure to what degree the Hague Convention is implicated (that would require the level of legal research I’ve discussed above), but your answer is correct because both Belarus and the United States are signatories to the Convention establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization.
Globalist! LOL!
No UN vans? Idiots all over this thread are deeply saddened.
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