Comedian Kathy Griffin filed a lawsuit against a company that owns KathyGriffin.com, claiming they are making money off her name and image.
The lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on September 16 seeking $100,000 in damages and the domain as well as an injunction to enjoin the defendants from further using her name, pictures and likeness for the Web site.
Griffin said she was contacted in July by the owners offering the site for sale for $3,500.
Since then, Griffin claims, the site is composed entirely of commercial content and is operated through a portal that generates revenue through click-through advertisements.
The site, using a Trafficz.com landing page, featured the words “Kathy Griffin standup comedian” and “My Life on the D-List.”
The site, however, has already been changed. Pulling it up now, it reads, “Are you looking for Kathy’s official website? It’s located at KathyGriffin.net.”
The domain has privacy protection.
The lawsuit alleges that the “Defendants are also trading on plaintiff’s good reputation and recognizable name for a commercial purpose, converting the potential economic value in plaintiff’s identity to their advantage and reaping the uncompensated benefit from the unauthorized use of plaintiff’s name and identity”
I find it hard that the owners of KathyGriffin.com contacted Kathy Griffin and asked if she wanted to buy the name for $3500. What probably happened is that Kathy Griffin’s people contacted them first and they replied with a price.
The owners of KathyGriffin.com registered the domain on 2008-07-27 and they have privacy protection on their ownership information. Kathy Griffin is a famous name and the only way these new owners could possibly retain ownership is if one of their own names or clients names is “Kathy Griffin”. I don’t find it hard to believe at all that they could have reached out to Kathy to buy the domain. I read about that bad tactic all the time in the forums. This will all come out through discoveries and or depositions. If the defendant decides to default on their response to the court they will lose by default and the judge will award the damages asked for. Unless the owner is an individual and can represent themselves pro se this will cost them, at the very least, three times the original asking price, unless they settle up front. Kathy is a tough woman, I wouldn’t want to go against her in court and it’s been well established in law the ownership rights to a famous name. The law is clearly on Kathy’s side with this one.
Kathy Griffin does not have a trademark on her name, as opposed to some other famous people like Oprah or Johnny Cash or Adam Sandler. Will that make a difference here? Where’s a lawyer when you need one?
David
Famous people do not need a trademark on their domain to win.
According to the complaint they might have actually had her picture (s) on the site and information on her, including ad links back to her career.
And to My friend Mr. Castelo, these people who are so stupid to use the domain and put up her picture, would be stupid enough to contact her and ask for money.
Interesting article, especially since this name was sold at the end of July on NameJet
It would have been cheaper to purchase the name for $3500 rather than pay excessive legal fees. ‘There is a difference between laughing at you and laughing with you.’
Jedi
Cheaper yes, but many people and companies would rather spend 100K to fight someone they think is taking advantage of them, rather than giving someone $3,500 and reward them for there misconduct.
We have talked about these crap registrations for a long time and on too many instances to mention.
It gives the industry and legitimate domainers a black eye and hurts our bottom line.
It increases the negative view that the general public has of people who own domains.
Anyone placing this game should expect to lose and they should expect I will cheer when they do.
id love to see a web site that profiled a blatant cybersquatter or TM infringer every day. Bad domainer of the day or something.
Publicly exposing the infringing domains, even if the WHOIS is masked, will bring more heat on the infringers in a short period of time.
Maybe i will start a blog and have a daily feature in the format of..
Blatantly infringing Domain – .com
Registrar:
WHOIS:
DNS servers
Screen shot of the web site / parked page.
it’s pretty easy to find a new one since i accidentally stumble on such blatant ones several times a day.
I totally agree. I never said it was the wrong or right thing to do.
Everything is negotiable as far has the $3500.
There are better ways to spend your money, on both sides. Like, stop world hunger or just feed a homeless person for the cost of registration fee. The only ones benefiting are the lawyers. What a waist!
I personally practice safe registrations myself. I go out of my way to ensure that the name does not violate any legal or moral issues.
Having said that, where do you draw the line. The gray area is far too broad. Like, I’m sure there is another person out there named Kathy Griffin. Should that person have the right to the name as well? Or is it only for the rich?
Here is another point. Does fictional characters count? Maybe we should start worrying that a large corporate company like MGM or Universal, will come after us.
Your always going to have a bad apple in the bunch. Every industry has those who will try to exploit the system. I don’t think that has any reflection on those of us who are practicing with integrity and I don’t believe the “general public” really cares.
We all need due diligence, the gavel and justice scales should be well balanced and fair. Or we might as well live in a communist country. Perhaps, we should register our names offshore.
Overall I still believe this could have been settled behind closed doors in a fair way, without the media hype. Unless that is what you really wanted.
PS: a generic term like apple is also a trademark.
Nice post – great resonse – Kathy Griffin should buy the domain name KathyGriffin.com and save herself the legal expen.
Many of the so called stars are not “bright” – they like to take legal actions against others – looks like they get paid toooo much money
i am starting a site to showcase these bad apples on a regular basis. badappledomainers.com.
Thanks for your support, Damir. For a moment I thought I was the only one in the world looking out for the domainer’s interest.
Nice site by the way. I see you understand the importance of developing your domain. There is some interesting domain articles there.
Going back to the Kathy Griffin issue. The original post says:
“Defendants are also trading on plaintiff’s good reputation and recognizable name for a commercial purpose, converting the potential economic value in plaintiff’s identity to their advantage and reaping the uncompensated benefit from the unauthorized use of plaintiff’s name and identity”
Are you kidding me!
In my opinion – What good reputation?
She does a pretty good job of screwing up her own “potential economic value”. She sure doesn’t need a domainer’s help.
Contrary to belief, the domainer may actually be helping her identity with a free plug.
Like Howard Stern says “good publicity, bad publicity, it’s still publicity”
You might as well start a site named:
StarsWhoGetPaidTooMuchMoney.com
Jedi
You said:
“””Like, I’m sure there is another person out there named Kathy Griffin. Should that person have the right to the name as well? Or is it only for the rich?”””
The problem is the domain combined with the content which allegedly contained this person’s picture and other content related to her.
It would be a completely different deal if the person who owned the domain had the name Kathy Griffin and she had he own picture on the site and her own story rather than that of the celebrity
BTW I always stand up for the true domaineers.
MHB
You make a good point.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the law states that you have to formally request for the site to remove all copyright and TM materials before taking any other legal action.
I understand these are different circumstances with personal content being posted, but I’m not sure it warrants a $100,000 law suit. She could have simply asked to have the material removed and everybody would have been happy.
Again I’m sticking to my guns, she would have been better off negotiating for the domain.
I don’t question your loyalty as a domainer, I believe your intentions are honorable. I believe the same as you, sybersquating should not be tolerated.
I just hate to see everyone come out of the woodwork and suing for the rights of a domain name, putting more restrictions on a space which one can practice freedom.
Jedi
Most companies seeing what they consider to be a trademark infringement or improper use will send a C&D letter first, but there are some that will just go file a suit.
Many plaintiffs will settle shortly after suit for attorney fees and the domain, but some, especially with deep pockets, what to proof a point. They want to punish the “wrongdoer”
When someone plays the game, engages in this kind of conduct figuring they will just give up the domain when the get the C&D, runs the risk of running into one of these people, who will want to make them an example and cost them a lot of money.
Don’t forget that a judgment lasts for 20 years, so even if someone doesn’t have money today, who knows they might hit the lotter years from now and you can collect your judgment then, plus interest.
But this is the world we live in any if someone engages in this activi
I heard her on Howard Stern once laughing how she was d list and only had the .net. I guess she figured out the has rights to it anyway.-
Domaineering is the web-based marketing business of acquiring and monetizing Internet domain names for their use primarily as an advertising medium rather than as intellectual property investments for resale as in domaining. In essence, the domain names function as virtual Internet billboards with generic domain names being highly valued for their revenue generating potential derived from attracting Internet traffic hits. As with traditional advertising, domaineering is part art and part science. Often to be the most effective as advertising tools, the domain names and their corresponding landing pages must be engineered or optimized to produce maximum revenue which may require considerable skill and good knowledge of search engine optimization ( SEO ) practices, marketing psychology and an understanding of the target market audience. Domaineering generally utilizes a firm offering domain parking services to provide the sponsored “feed” of a word or phrase searched for thus creating a mini-directory populated largely by advertisers paying to promote their products and services under a relevant generic keyword domain. Occasionally content is added to develop a functional mini-website. Domaineers and some of those who advertise online using keywords believe domaineering provides a useful, legal and legitimate Internet marketing service while opponents of domaineering decry the practice as increasing the ubiquitous commercialization of the world wide web. Domaineering is practiced by both large companies who may have registered hundreds or even thousands of domains to individual entrepreneurial minded domaineers who may only own one or a few.
The way I see it. If its not your legal name get an other name fool. If you’re NOT going to use the domain for a business DONT BUY it. Soon there will be a LAW against domain name parking, cybersquating etc etc. I think it’s total bullshit that people are buying domain names and trying to sell it for profit when an other legit person or company is trying to use for a business (to bring money back into our economy) I once found out that this guy had my name for sale, some how he found out my email and tried to sell it to me for 500.00. Yea right! By some crazy reason the guy lived 8 miles from me, I found out where hi lives and did a house visit with my nice AAA baseball bat, and my mac on my hand. Caught him leaving his house and gave him two options start to transfer the domain name to my godaddy account Now, or I’ll break both your legs..I had two buddies with me just in case.. 🙂
In two weeks I had my domain name 🙂 Cheap and easy.
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People’re always trying to sell domain names because someone else might have the same exact name. That way whoever buys the .com has rights to it 1st. People with common names like me, benefit. That’s why there’s a tizzy-suit over ap-phone now. It’s all in the name. Barnes & Nobles has even been getting a taste of some unsweetened i-book drama lately, too. Anything to sue, suzy is a busy body baby.
Let me elaborate hookedup dot com may be a desired site for hookers or escort sisters or dating site or even a b-ball site. Who want it enough to fight? okay or pay for it.