Porn-Industry Outsiders Fear 'Shakedown' In .XXX TLD
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The long-debated .XXX top-level domain opens this week; reader SonicSpike sends a snippet from the Washington Times about what may turn into a hornet's nest of anger at how the new domain is being used: "Some adult-entertainment companies are balking at the entire scheme, saying that ICM Registry LLC, which is overseeing .xxx registrations worldwide, does not have permission to sell the .xxx version of trademarked names and brands. In addition, the Florida-based company is raising eyebrows — and charges of 'shakedown' — by trying to get non-porn companies to pay to prevent their brands from being registered as .xxx sites. After all, what maker of baby food or children's movies, for example, would want to have sites such as gerber.xxx or disney.xxx floating around the Internet?"
Re:Its already agaisnt the law (Score:2, Interesting)
against the law where ? there are 192 countries on this planet
Hey, Gerber does not get to monopolize the name! (Score:5, Interesting)
Gerber means "to vomit" in french. Since .xxx is not language specific and vomit has a small but very dedicated and well-paying porn following (really, it does), I have every right to register that name and use it to sell vomit-porn to the francophone market. As long as I am not using the name in a way that would lead to trademark confusion (which would be pretty hard to argue), Gerber should just butt out.
Re:His is this any different from other TLDs? (Score:5, Interesting)
As such, if disney.xxx is reserved for Disney, *they* are the ones squatting on a potentially legitimate pornographic website. That's wrong, and shouldn't be encouraged. After all, xxx isn't intended for them in the first place, and they certainly have no intention of using the domain appropriately for the TLD's purpose.
Re:Welcome to capitalism (Score:5, Interesting)
No, it's more like, "Welcome to Florida". The level of corruption in this state is unbelievable. Lawyers mismanaging senior citizen trust funds is rampant in Florida, and there's absolutely nothing that family members can do about it. Any time a lawyer gets a hold of a senior citizens' funds because that person is incapacitated, the lawyer immediately makes up all kinds of bogus legal fees and charges them to the person's account, draining their funds in a matter of months. It's impossible to file a Bar complaint, because that will cause the lawyers to sue the complainant, and the Bar tells that to anyone who calls them to file a complaint about an attorney.
This kind of corruption is nothing new in the USA, but it's raised to an absurd level in Florida. Apparently, a lot of people are so mad about it that they're going to stage an event where they fly planes with banners protesting the state of affairs over the county court houses all across the state, at the same time.
Re:Welcome to capitalism (Score:5, Interesting)
Won't work. You can't effectively defend against a lawsuit by an attorney, because you won't find another attorney to take your case, or if you do, he won't do his job, he'll just give you bills but not actually do the work because he's really on the other guy's side. Lawyers ALWAYS cover for each other. And don't forget, the Judge in the case will be the golfing buddy of the lawyer you're suing, so he'll never rule for you anyway.
One rule about lawyers: lawyers never sue each other.