The ICM Registry has just issued a statement indicating that an anti-trust lawsuit will be filed by Manwin against both ICM Registry and ICANN in conjunction with the .XXX domain Top Level Domain.
Manwin is the company which owns many highly visited adult sites including, YouPorn.com, Brazzers.com, PornHub.com and Xtube.com
The statement reads:
“Our public relations company alerted us to the probable filing today of an anti-trust lawsuit by Manwin against both ICM Registry and ICANN in conjunction with the .XXX domain name.”
“As we have proved time and again, ICM Registry has taken extensive measures to ensure it is being launched in the most lawful and responsible possible way:
“ICM Registry will vigorously defend their position against any merit-less claims such as this one.”
According to Greg Dumas of ICM:
“It’s also important to know that we had been previously engaged in negotiations with Manwin on domain names and other things that they had requested.
“I’d think a phone call would have worked just as well because litigation is never good for anyone.”
It seems that this suit maybe along the lines of what a newly formed trade group CRIDO is threatening to file against ICANN to stop the new gTLD process.
Stay tuned
Is this suggesting that owning a gtld with no alternatives may be considered a monopoly?
If so, that’s very interesting.
Interesting. This is a preview of things to come.
ICANN opened pandora’s box, now they better set aside even more for legal fees.
Organizations like CRIDO have the potential backing to easily dwarf ICANN’s entire budget.
Brad
“because litigation is never good for anyone”
how about the .xxx registry?
without litigation or the threat of it, would they have convinced icann to include them in icann’s zone file?
greed is good. until it brings down an entire industry. icann greed. registry greed.
Occupy .XXX
With threat of legal action, it may be a good idea to skip the land rush. I think all registries
should suspend selling them until this matter is cleared up.
We are suspending all land rush activities until this is cleared up – the buzz I’m hearing sounds very, very bad.
We haven’t even seen the lawsuit yet guys or know what’s in it.
Great PR for .xxx.
– So Youtube feels .xxx is “monopolizing” Free Speech – i.e. Adult is the backbone for virtually all new technologies, graphics, 3d, holodecks, virtual whatever, audio and orgasmatrons – ironic in a way – or an oxymoron of sorts.
Will .porn and .sex serve as manufactured competitors ?
First of all, ICANN’s defense is covered by ICM. That was part of the agreement.
Secondly, and having had very close and personal experience with suing ICANN and a registry on an anti-trust theory, let me say this:
If you are looking to “suspend” anything “until this is resolved,” then make sure you get the extra long suspenders, because you’ll be in suspense for quite some time.
There is about as much threat here as India’s announcement that it wants the UN to take over for ICANN. And let’s not forget that all .com names exist because of a contract between you the registrant, and a registrar. And why is that registrar a registrar? Because ICANN accredited them.
So if you want to talk about risk and, say, a registrar in India that actually has to deal with that government, let’s talk.
But there may come a point where ICANN, along with Verisign, Afilias, Neustar, some ccTLDS, ISP’s and registrars, all decide to proceed as the first alternative root operators fully equipped to do the job.
There is hardly a TLD yet that someone hasn’t tried to sue out of existence. If you think a district court is going to order the NTIA to pull a name out of the root, then I’ll take that bet with you and give you any odds you want. NTIA is not even a party, and ICANN can’t take it out. Smart money beats scared money every time.
And Mike, I didn’t chime in on the anonymity thread, but someday I’d like to buy your IP address book of blog shills, just for the chuckles.
so icm agreed not to sue icann and icann in return asked for icm to indemnify them. result: .xxx gets a license to print money.
was there some other important element of the agreement we don’t know about? otherwise this sounds like litigation, or the threat of it, does have some weight even if the chances of success are remote.
using litigation to get an entry into a zone doesn’t necessarily mean it can also work to get entries removed.
doc/ntia can’t have entries in zone files deleted.
but what’s to stop congress from giving copyright holders the power to have domain names blacklisted?
that’s effectively the same result. theoretically this could be done for trademarks in any new registry hoping to profit from defensive registrations.
and what’s to stop them from giving the government a cause of action to go after any alternative dns provider that serves up records for blacklisted names to us-based users?
this lawsuit will fail. .xxx is safe.
but icann is not in the clear yet.
isp’s don’t answer to icann.
“get the extra long suspenders, because you’ll be in suspense for quite some time. ”
I will take that one as my thought for the day
I’m an adult webmaster and I’m glad the ICM Registry is finally getting sued.
I never supported the creation of a .xxx domain. When ICANN requested comments on the .xxx tld proposal I emailed them to explain why imo the creation of a .xxx tld was a very bad thing.
To protect my trademarks, I did defensively preregister the .xxx versions of my trademarks. Only because Stuart Lawley of the ICM assured us that defensive preregistrations would not be used as a sign of support for the proposed .xxx tld.
I later found out that Lawley broke his word when the ICM did present the defensive preregistrations to ICANN as a sign of support.
No matter what the outcome will be of this lawsuit, I will never spend a single cent on a .xxx domain or any other tld Stuart Lawley or the ICM is involved in.
Marcus provides some candid remarks that will squeeze out the smaller adult publisher who cannot pay the “special” tax (domain renewals) each year – and is forced to consolidate his empire into less domains.
Unfortunately – in this case I am a free enterprise bigot – as I am most of the time. In this case the consumer benefits from .xxx – and will not be confused by .xxx
Business should be protected and in this case ICM Registry and ICANN are not doing a favor to big businesses and their domain names!
The new gTLD would not do any good to the domain name business and to the businesses itself!
@Top Domain Deal –
Big Business is afraid of the 1st amendment – adult being part of the 1st amendment – and they have more money – so who do you think will win – big business – not the consumer.
@BrianWick
I agree that consumer never wins in the big game but it depends on what side you are in the big business – business owner or consumer!
If you do dceide to sell your IP address book of blogshills you should auction them. I think there would widespread interest.
@Top Domain Deal –
There is no similarity between Big Business and Business.
On one side you have monopolistic international diversified mismangement companies with 18 layers of mismanagement that promote mediocrity as an unachievable dream and do everything they can to kill the 1st Amendment and on the other side you have new ideas, open minds and creativity as well as risk from individuals and small and medium sized business – ie. the fundamentals of free enterprise.
Are seriously supposed to believe that running the .XXX registry is tantamount to an international monopoly on adult entertainment? This lawsuit is just lawyers billing a bunch of hours and big entrenched interests trying to stifle competition. Literally the worst hallmarks of using meritless litigation to hurt your perceived opponents. For shame!
Gosh – I once heard the first thing a lawyer is tought in law school is “Follow The Money” – is that really true ?
@cancel –
“but what’s to stop congress from giving copyright holders the power to have domain names blacklisted?”
– well that is probably the jest of all this – but where do you start – and where do you draw the line as to who gets the free black listing of the .XXX counterpart of their .com (brand) and who still has to pay the $150 or whatever each year ? – well that would be “big business” because they can afford all the justice they need !!!
It’s all about manufacturing legal fees as stated by L. Asher Corson
http: //judiciary.house.gov/hearings/hear_05242011_2.html
The title of this one up to the colon made me laugh.
“Gosh – I once heard the first thing a lawyer is tought in law school is “Follow The Money” – is that really true ?”
I must have missed that class. That explains what I’ve been doing wrong.
BrianWick –
Gosh – I once heard the first thing a lawyer is tought in law school is “Follow The Money” – is that really true ?
No its the second thing, the first class is always “Chase the ambulance”
“I must have missed that class. That explains what I’ve been doing wrong.”
Those classes are taught by Hothead Computer Programmers -you are correct – I do not recall you in any of my classes.
@Back in the real world –
“No its the second thing, the first class is always “Chase the ambulance””
Not a very nice thing to say on “Hug a Lawyer Day” !!
hi sorry to interrupt but i couldnt find a question section
my question is:
im trying to buy a domain name but it is already owned by somebody and they dont have website on it. i looked at whois.com and it only had a name but no contact details
can someone please help me and lmk how i could fid the owners contact information?
thanks
can someone please help me and lmk how i could fid the owners contact information?