In a new article published by the former owner of SYFY.com, the domain and brand NBC chose to replace the Sci Fi Network and Scifi.com, he tells the story of the negotiations between himself and NBC and confirms that the sales price was $250K.
And for all your domainers out there that think $250K was a pretty good price for a LLLL.com, the former owner, Michael Hinman, is not a happy guy:
“NBCU didn’t even have the balls to approach us themselves. They used a shell company called New Fizz Corp. to buy the SyFy Portal domain name.”
“$250,000…that’s right. That is what they paid us to sell our domain name and our brand. A quarter million dollars. How much of a budget hit was that to NBCU? Let’s spell it out again: $16,900,000,000 versus $250,000. That is 0.0014 percent of NBCU’s overall revenue for a brand that they are now using on a major property. If they had come to us as NBCU, they know that we would’ve looked at the $16,900,000,000 in revenue, and likely would’ve wanted to move the decimal point in the percentage of revenue to the right a few places. Even then, even if we had asked for $2.5 million for the brand and the domain name that we put so much of ourselves into, that would be just 0.014 percent of NBCU’s overall revenue for the year.””
As domainers we know that many people and companies lie, when they try to acquire a domain.
It is rare they write you and say yes this is Google and we want to buy your domain for a major product rollout.
Instead the e-mail I get claim to be from students, recently divorce housewives, or recently fired people, all of which claim to have not a lot of money to spend.
I usually get the “that’s all the money I have in the world” line only to wind up with them magically coming up with several times more, to get the domain.
Bottom line, the buyer know who they are, and they know what they want the domain for, and you don’t.
I know a lot of you would have been happy taking $25K for SyFy.com.
I think Michael, with all due respect, your pricing expectations are not realistic.
First take the case of CNN, which I understand identified themselves as such, to one of the best negotiators on earth and wound up getting the domain for $750K.
In that case CNN started using ireport for months before even contacting the “Domain King“. At that point ireport.com was probably getting quite a bit of traffic which would only increase over time and the “King”, probably would have been happy with keeping the domain and traffic forever.
CNN which is owned by Time Warner, probably has higher revenue than NBC/Universal and its not really fair to judge the sale by the revenue of a huge conglomerate generates. In the ireport.com case, it certainly wouldn’t be reasonable to count in the revenues of say HBO into the equation, for the value of ireport to CNN. Likewise, why count the money Universal makes off of the USA network into figuring our what the revenue of the Sci Fi network is or a percentage of revenue.
Beyond that domains are not a reflection of a percentage of the buyers worth or revenue.
Michael, you need to look at recent sales of domains in the mulitmillion dollar range.
Toys.com $5.1 Million
Candy.com $3M
Auction.com $1.7M
Ad.com $1.4M
All of these domains sold this year.
Sorry Syfy.com doesn’t compare to any of these.
While I agree domains are undervalued and the Buyers of these top domains Should be paying more and the domains are worth much more than they went for, its what in fact quality domain are going for.
SyFy.com other problem is who was the other buyer?
Other than this project NBCU had, who else on earth would have paid $250K for this domain?
If NBCU backed off and went in another direction, then you would have walked away with no sale.
Sciencefiction.com was offered at DomainFest.com this past January with a reserve of $150K.
That’s a domain NBCU could have bought for less than they paid for syfy.com.
So in my opinion Michael you should sleep well at night, having made a good deal on a domain.
Michael, welcome to our world, were we get offers everyday from people, unknown to us.
Sometimes they identify themselves but most times the e-mail comes from a gmail or hotmail or other ISP account and the buyer doesn’t identify themselves at all.
Many times we turn down offers never to ever get another one as good as the one we turned down.
Other times we find the domain we sold to that college student for a small project, has gone to a major corporation to be rollout as a huge project.
Other times we get a UDRP where that major corporation tries to take away our property without having to pay us one cent for it.
Yes Michael welcome to our world.
I agree fully that $250k is a price that the seller should be very happy with. There is no one else who would have paid even close to this amount. Even $25k seems high for what it is. Just because he got lucky that a large brand decided to switch their brand to a name he had, that does not seem to warrant a bitter outcry. In this market (and for what syfy.com is in any market), he should be glad he even got close to that. After all, he did sell it for $250k so he can only blame himself.
Great article MHB! In a way, I understand Michael’s argument to an extent, but not with regards to the money. Fraudulent representation is something that really bothers me when selling domain names – something that, I suppose, comes with selling digital real-estate without meeting face-to-face. Of course, this is tough to prove as brokers and subsidiary companies (even individuals) are often those negotiating sales.
Be happy with the $250K! If I could sell my CVCV’s for a 10th of that I would be a very happy man!
Cole
I’m crying. I sold SyFy.net to Buydomains earlier this year… Hold ’em people, Hold Them!
I agree $250,000 is an excellent price for SyFy.com. However, I can see the guys point. When he says, “the domain name that we put so much of ourselves into” exactly how much work did he invest in the domain? It sounds like he put time and effort into increasing the domain value and at least deserved an honest and forthcoming buyer to come to the negotiation table. This may have been his only valuable domain property and he was denied his shot to completely “max out” on its sale to a big company.
Easy for us to say he should be happy with $250,000 but if you are honest with yourself you would be upset too that NBC passed itself off as New Fizz to dampen price expectations.
To be “honest”, I would be angry at myself, not at NBCU. If you want to sell it to NBCU, and they come along in sheep’s clothing, you should either keep your price high and say your opportunity cost is selling to NBCU or not sell it at all. He made the ultimate decision to sell it for $250k. It is like chess or gambling – while there is some luck, a lot of it is about your strategy. Obviously NBCU out-strategized him. I look at domain m&a like poker or a chess match. If you are unhappy with the outcome, then blame yourself for not being intelligent enough to hold on or use the power of negotiation.
People – this is business. If he didn’t want to accept $250k he did not have to. Sounds like a sore loser and someone who is now capitalizing on the popularity of the SCI-FI channel to preach his own little soapbox.
No love for people like this – if you dont want to sell then dont – if you do then don’t complain. It takes 2 to make a deal.
We all have “could have, would have, if I only knew” stories.
whoever owns crybaby.com – please donate the name to this guy as he most certainly deserves it.
I agree with Alan, the decision to sell was the seller’s. If he thinks that way then treat every potential buyer as a big company and ask for a million dollar price then.
Most of us would have sold that name for that price in a heartbeat and thought we got the better part of the deal. Who else would pay that much?
Why should a big company wanting to buy your domain lay down all their cards when it will only increase the asking price? There are two sides to each deal, and each side has to do what benefits them.
This is a 15-20k domain name. Looking at archive.org I don’t see anything that they did significantly for a number of years to warrant 250k.
Boohoo, my feelings are hurt. How much more did they want NBC to overpay for this domain?
Over 99% of us would have sold syfy.com for under $5,000…and you are that 1% that asked for more money and got it…and now, you are crying like a little baby…i second that motion to donate crybaby.com to him!
JB,
“How much more did they want NBC to overpay for this domain?”
better question is what does this guy want them to do now?
The entire point of articles like this is for people to vent … very unprofessional, immature and just plain silly.
“Looking at archive.org I don’t see anything that they did significantly for a number of years to warrant 250k.”
You don’t have to look anywhere. If they did do anything significant they would have sold for more.
I like his comment
“””” Last year, NBCU made $16.9 billion. Our little SyFy Portal operation? About $40,000 and some change. Let’s spell that out … $16,900,000,000 versus $40,000 “””
Last time I checked no tv station in the world made $16.9 Billion in profit – somebody should tell him revenue is different than income.
Comparing apples to apples his $40k in revenue was probably much less in profit. Selling a 4 letter name that has an incredibly limited pool of buyers attached to a small business model for 10-20x income.
Boohooooooo ….
Agree with what most are saying. This is a mediocre domain name and the party that got a sour deal is NBC.
MHB provides the most critical factor in this sale:
“. . . who else on earth would have paid $250K for this domain?”
Because the answer is no one (ever); and likely no one even at 25k; he actually made off like a bandit.
This seller reminds me of a mechanic who runs a small repair shop…the moment a big, shiny BMW pull up, he immediately start to think of ways to raise the price!
I’m sure that a company such as NBC is fully aware of such thinking…which is why they probably decided to keep their identity a secret.
I think $250K is a great sale for that domain.
I think we all agree he got far more than what the domain is worth. Its not the price its the ethics issue for me. I would never do a business deal pretending to be somebody I am not.
Maybe I am naive that this is “just how business is done” to everybody.
No wonder the housing market collapsed and people are losing their jobs.
No one should try and amp a price because they think the buyer has money. Domain names are like real estate. Could you imagine someone raising the price on a home simply because they thought a particular buyer had more money? For one thing, people with money tend to be smarter, not stupider, and they know when they are being jacked. CNN simply screwed up and paid the price to Rick for their mistake.
Seems unanimous, completely agree, the seller got a great price. Exactly right Mike, no one else would have bought that name/come close to that kind of purchase price. Seller should be thankful, thankful that a big company like NBC was willing to pay so much for a name that is not worth a fraction of that price. If NBC drew the line at 200k this seller would have been whining he lost a six figure sale–a lost sale that would have been impossible to replace. As for syfy.net, you have nothing to regret, its not worth much of anything on the open market.
I think He was VERY lucky to get 250k – even if he knew it was NBC that was making the offer.
…No wonder endusers liek to make offers in stealth mode ! 🙂
Story’s wrong, Hinman himself has said he never owned syfy.com, only syfyportal.com which still redirects to Hinman’s site. Something fishy here.
Very lucky to get $250K
I’d have been happy with $10K for that name 🙂 every time,
Unless it was a big site he had, or an actual part of his business.
But good on him for getting $250K 🙂
People from outer space would have wanted that domain…
@jblack except that it looks like BuyDomains sold it to GE.com which owns most of NBC… now they’ve got the pair.
The overall problem is the logic, if you own a domain, you should have a price you want to sell that domain. If you get the price, that is a success. Finding out the buyer was a large corporation, does not a) lessen that success and b)it does not mean they would have paid more if you knew who they were, and upped the price for the name.
…@Jason, according to DomainTools, they got a much better deal on the .net version:
syfy.net Jul 12, 2009 $1,888.00
Jon,
yes .. I believe the Klingons may have paid 300k if he had reached out a little further.
Michael,
Lets not forget the most stupid part of the equation, they replaced Scifi.com with Syfy.com. And they paid 250k for the privilege. Must be a Harvard MBA making decisions.
incredible sale. he got very lucky.
i wonder if he asked for 250k and just stuck to it, regardless of who may have been asking, or did he ask for more?
would love to know even more details
Larry
We covered that issue back in March, when the news about the change from SciFi to Syfy was announced:
http://www.thedomains.com/2009/03/18/would-you-trade-scificom-for-syfycom/
That name is worth $1000 to a domainer max?
michael,
yes i read it then and it still amazes me to this day.
larry
First, replacing SciFi with SyFy was not especially advantageous. Second, as the seller, it’s up to you to decide what you will or won’t accept in regard to an offer.
When receiving an offer, it would be preferable to really know who you are dealing with. In the end, the seller has a decision to make regardless of who the buyer is. The offer itself should be the focal point. It’s either enough … or it isn’t. And the decision is yours to make.
Buyers and seller’s remorse typically comes from people not yet able to realistically valuate a property. They gain a better perspective after the sale has closed, and then look back in regret.
Hey All,
One note … a few suggested that it’s unethical to use a proxy to buy a name such as NBCU did here.
I have to say I think whoever agrees with this is thinking only from a seller’s advantage standpoint. A buyer should try to get the best price possible and using a proxy is fine.
Hell, we have people who buy some names for us, many of you have privacy on domains when selling hoping the buyer(s) think it’s expired or don’t question who owns the domain and registrar owned domains often use privacy from the day of initial registration.
So selling using a proxy is fine but buying is not?
Many people use companies that are all owned by one master company for business or tax reasons so why should anyone show their complete hand.
Would you be open to tell the seller your purchase price and have them judge a price based on your ROI.
ex. Tommy – I would pay you $250k but after realizing you only paid $1000 for this name I would like to change my offer to $50k.
I find the whole argument senseless – an argument only a seller would make.
Alan
In real estate, this has been a common practice for years.
When Disney was acquiring the property around Orlando for all of its parks its a fact that they used dummy corporations to secure much of the land.
“To avoid a burst of land speculation, Disney used various dummy corporations and cooperative individuals to acquire 27,400 acres of land.
The first five-acre lot was bought on October 23, 1964, by the Ayefour Corporation(a pun on Interstate 4).
Others were also used with a second or secret meanings which add to the lore of the Florida Project, including M.T. Lott Real Estate Investments (“empty lot”).
In May 1965, major land transactions were recorded a few miles southwest of Orlando in Osceola County. Two large tracts totaling $1.5 million were sold, and smaller tracts of flatlands and cattle pastures were purchased by exotic-sounding companies such as the Latin-American Development and Management Corporation and the Reedy Creek Ranch Corporation. In addition to three huge parcels of land were many smaller parcels, referred to as “outs.”
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney_World_Resort
for more info
Thanks – I remember reading about that and its a great link for those in disagreement to read.
“buy as a buyer and sell like a seller” is the quote we all should live by.
Can’t have it both ways all the time.
So it seems then that some names are “worth” more (ie. have more “value”) to some companies/people than they are worth to others. A single domain name parked is worth less in terms of a PPC multiple than that same domain on the same parked page to a large portfolio holder who is able to negotiate a higher PPC revenue share. Similarly, the farm land around Orlando was only worth X for what the farmer could use it for. But its worth Y to what Disney had it mind for its use. So one can argue that a domain name sale price can vary if they know who/what the buyer is and what it may be worth to that end user in terms of ROI. Thus, the “value” is not necessarily fixed or the same regardless of the possible buyer. Rick seemed to prove that with ireport.com–Rick could not have maximized its use, but CNN likely has recouped its investment or certainly will far quicker than Rick could have.
The similarities with domains and real estate are many, but there are areas given that domains are unique assets where similarities diverge somewhat.
The most annoying thing is under his signature, he put:
_The real creator of the term “Syfy”
WTH?
This guy is a complete idiot.
He’s on a completely nonsensical rant now because of who paid him the price that he AGREED to.
So what? Was NMC-U smart to do it that way? Sure, but then again.. even aliens from outer space would not be willing to fork over a quarter Mil for that domain, so he got a major score.
Look, anybody that is negotiating into that range for a basically worthless name has to know that the buyer has a pretty big incentive to have the name if they are still at the table. To go on and on about how he got screwed somehow now, after the fact, is simply childish and stupid.
What will come of his rantings other than the entire world coming to the same conclusion – that he is an idiot.
He didn’t even own the domain.
Look up the history.
He’s claiming he “invented” something that he never even owned and was coined long before he was even around.
If he was willing to sell it for $250,000 he should have considered all possibilities. It was probably all fun and games thinking that he pulled the wool over the eyes of some start-up company until it turned out being a shell for NBC.
The fundamental mistake is for the rebranding to SyFy. No-one on the planet (or any other planet) spells the abbreviation like that, and it wouldn’t pass the phone test/radio test as everyone would assume the traditional spelling scifi. Are they going to redirect scifi.com to syfy.com ? They’ll need to. The stupidest idea this side of Andromeda.
I have e-mailed Michael on this well-thought opinion piece, but I need to make some corrections and clarifications, and share a response.
First off, we never owned Syfy.com. The domain name that was sold as part of this transaction was actually syfyportal.com.
We didn’t acquire that domain name until 2002 following the merger of SyFy World and Star Trek Portal. Previous to that, we didn’t feel that having a domain name was important to the way we operated our marketing efforts, feeling that people who found us on the Internet, likely found us through a link and had already used it, and would then bookmark us from here on out. How times have changed in terms of how sites approach potential visitors on the Internet over the last 11 years, eh?
Also, at the time, domain names were far more expensive as they were now, which I’m sure Michael, as well as many who have commented on this story, are very well aware. As an operation that started out with zero revenue and was being supported by a financially struggling newspaper reporter at the time, we couldn’t justify the expense.
When an online retailer bought Syfy.com in 2000 and started to market sci-fi DVDs on it, we contacted them. However, at the time, precedent in re-acquiring domain names which contain trademarks owned by others had really yet to be set, and fighting such sales legally was extremely expensive (it’s still expensive to fight them today).
In lieu of going through a protracted battle, we contacted the company that owned Syfy.com, and they agreed to put a disclaimer on their main page indicating that they were not affiliated with SyFy World, and even linked to us (if you look at it through the Wayback Machine, you will see that the link is NOT a domain). Such a move, by the way, continues to protect a trademark, even if the result it not a surrender by the offending party.
Second, as I pointed out in an e-mail to Michael … this cannot be compared to a simple domain name sale. I did not sell couches.com or something like that. I sold a domain name as well as a trademark. In none of the examples provided are you showing where a trademark transferred. Not even in the Domain Kings/CNN example can you show where a trademark also exchanged hands. To compare even the correct domain name of syfyportal.com to the likes of candy.com or what-not is apples and oranges. Those were straight domain name sales.
This was a domain name and a trademark.
If I had just sold scifi.com, for instance, and I was complaining about $250,000, I would see your point. Since I am not selling a trademark, and I could always have used that money to buy scifiportal.com, and who could challenge me?
But under the terms of the TRADEMARK sale, I cannot use the Syfy mark, the “Sy” mark, or even the variant “SFY.” I can’t just change part of the domain name and be happy … I sold an entire brand that is now fronting a division that earned $450 million in revenue last year.
On top of that, you have a corporation that is now claiming they “coined” the term. In Fortune magazine, Syfy creative VP Michael Engleman is credited with being the first person to come up with the name, something that is completely false on ALL levels. We used “SyFy” (with a capital “F”) as a branding strategy for everything, capitalizing on being the people who convinced the science-fiction community to pronounce it as “sci-fi” and not “see-fee,” as would be the proper and common way to pronounce it.
I have asked Michael to please correct the syfy.com references, as they are incorrect, and to further clarify the position that this is NOT a simple domain name sale. This is a trademark sale as well. 🙂
To answer a few specific comments:
OZIE JACKSON: Thank you for the nice post. I know you were responding to the fact that this was presented in this column as a simple domain sale, but I hope that the discussion here in my response about this being a trademark issue helps make this whole discussion clearer. We spent a lot of time branding everything we did with the SyFy name.
When we sold the name, we had to change a LOT of names. Our corporation, for instance, was called The SyUniverse Group Inc., and had to be changed to Quantum Global Media. Our online radio program that is morphing into a podcast called SyFy Radio had to be changed to Alpha Waves Radio. The arm of our operation that created the radio show and had plans for other media projects was called SyPod. My weekly column that has run for years was called SyFriday, and had to be renamed SciFriday.
I could go on and on. Hard to believe that NBCU, who 30 days before allowed a dispute we were having with the showrunner of one of its programs go right up to the president of SciFi, and who has worked closely with us for years, somehow missed all of our branding and how we utilized a trademarkable name.
===
DREW: NBCU did not identify themselves at the bargaining table, and we had no clue that they were involved outside of a suspicion I had based on a background check I did on the attorney they were using. (That attorney has represented NBCU in other online matters in the past). However, we couldn’t be sure that it was NBCU behind it because lawyers who have expertise in a field is not always tied to a single client.
We felt we were negotiating with a small firm that had some more capital than usual, but not the $16.9 billion that was representing NBCU.
So this was like playing poker with someone who can see through the cards (and I had no idea he could). If he beat my bluff of an ace high with a pair of twos and took all my money, are you saying it’s my fault because I played the game in the first place?
=====
ALAN/ROBB: We are not complaining about the price that was paid. In fact, in initial interviews that I did in the days after NBCU announced the Syfy name change of its network, I made it clear that we had no issue with the amount of money.
However, I qualified that statement with the fact that the difference was made up because of the fact that I would be known as someone who created a name for the network.
I turned on that when NBCU began to claim their creative VP “coined” the term in articles with Variety and Fortune magazine that ran last week.
Also, what I have asked NBCU to do is to make sure they acknowledge the true origin of the BRAND/TRADEMARK, not the domain.
To just clarify, the SyFyPortal.com domain is not even at issue at all in any of this discussion, and to bring it up here only shows that you are not fully informed of what’s going on, and why this issue is up. This is most likely not your fault, although I’m sure you can use Google and find out all the details.
The issue that is being discussed in the column that was mentioned here is the claims that a major corporation is taking creation credit for a trademark they did not create. What we are asking from NBC, and the ONLY thing we are asking from NBC, is to stop making such claims, and to provide proper credit for its creation.
Part of it is because I feel that something I created, I should get credit for. The other part of it is because I feel that the truth should always be paramount.
Also, NBCU generated $16.9 billion in revenue. I never stated profit, and since they are a division of a public company (General Electric), you can verify its 2008 revenue independently. So no need to question where the amount came from, or to misrepresent it as “profit,” when it was clearly described as “revenue.”
One thing to note about identifying yourself at the bargaining table, something we may pursue further if this issue cannot be resolved:
VALUE, as I’m sure all of you who are wheeling and dealing in domain names are aware, is set by the buyer, not the seller. It’s the buyer that determines how much he wants something, and what he’s willing to give up to get it. The seller, of course, has to agree and could counter, but it always comes back to the buyer on what he’s willing to give up to acquire something.
In a good faith negotiation, a buyer makes himself known, even if he doesn’t reveal all his cards on the true value. In good faith, however, that allows a seller to try and determine what exactly the value of such a name has, and to work from there.
We WERE lucky to get $250,000 out of this, especially with them starting at $60,000. But that’s because we were not looking to SELL the brand at the time, and were able to play hardball — not because we knew who we were dealing with but because I gave them a bottom line figure just to get them to go away and stop bothering me.
Nothing against what any of you do in terms of domain names, but I get tired of getting calls asking for people to buy my domain name. And although this was turning into far more significant money than was offered before, I still felt that this was another news site that was looking to set up shop and compete with whatever we rebranded ourselves, using our old name as their primary weapon.
In the final stages of negotiations, I got cold feet about giving up our name to another news organization that I would have to compete with. In the final stage, we countered with this:
Pay us $250,000 and get this brand outright. Or, sign a seven-year non-compete, and we’ll sell it for $200,000.
They took the $250,000, which led us to completely believe that this was not someone intending to name a network (or even have a network in their possession).
Our strategy at that point was to rebrand, and do it immediately. As was pointed out, syfyportal.com STILL points to Airlock Alpha. That is based on the sales agreement that we negotiated. They knew that we would not consider this without a transition period, and that was put on the table.
The transition period was established because we made it clear that rebranding would take a considerable amount of time (it took NBCU two years to rebrand SciFi Channel, and that’s pretty fast, actually). It would take months, especially since we didn’t have an in-house or external marketing team.
However, we were able to develop a new brand in a matter of days, Airlock Alpha, and decided that we would get the new brand ready to go, and instead of waiting to do it sometime within the transition period, we would do it the day the trademark sold.
Then, we could do everything we could to get people to forget about the SyFy brand during that transition period, so at the very least, we would be established with the new name and be competitive to our old name, which apparently had more financial resources than we did to buy a trademark for $250,000.
We were actually doing very good at doing that, even going as far as contacting any site that had links to SyFy Portal, and having them change them to the new Airlock Alpha address — even specific story links that could’ve been five years old.
We were completely surprised when a month into this process that there were no plans to create a competitor to us (as we were led to believe with the decision to not sign a non-compete and pay lesser money), but to name a network with the name.
I do understand why NBCU would want to use a front company so as to not be gouged, but that is the price sometimes that comes with being a mega-corporation, and wanting something that would make them millions of dollars.
It’s not just the name of SciFi Channel they will benefit from — but the potential increase in product sales and other things they can trademark using the word, that could be in the tens of millions if not hundreds of million dollars over the course of just five years.
By NBCU identifying themselves at the negotiating table, while we may not have been aware of the plans to rebrand an entire network, we would’ve at least been given the opportunity to try and think about what a better value for this trademark would be.
I would expound on this more, but this site is called thedomains.com, not thetrademarks.com — and really is completely off topic. In fact, the whole story, once its corrected, is probably really off topic for here. Unless you want to get into the whole discussion of coupling a domain name sale with a trademark.
Michael,
Thanks for clarifying and additional information. The combined sale of a trademark with a domain is certainly not comparing apples to apples to straight domain sale.
I think you will find many people are not on your side because of the way you presented this case – whenever you bring up how much money the real buyer had and how you think you deserved more makes you look like (a) a sore loser and (b) a bad businessman
Your quote
” $250,000…that’s right. That is what they paid us to sell our domain name and our brand. A quarter million dollars. How much of a budget hit was that to NBCU? … If they had come to us as NBCU, they know that we would’ve looked at the $16,900,000,000 in revenue, and likely would’ve wanted to move the decimal point in the percentage of revenue to the right a few places”
Says it all about some bitterness about the price paid.
If the seller is not acknowledging what was agreed to in the terms of the sale and (not just assemed it would be) then sure, you probably (check with your attorney) have every right to try to out these people and set the record straight in public.
But lets be real – as much I believe ethically “the truth should always be paramount” its not the way it is. Certainly not with big business, even less so with press releases, and lower even in marketing departments. Maybe on planet zenon but not on planet earth.
If the credit was so important to you – and you had right to such credit – then next time (if you did not do it this time) please have your attorney create a contract that provides assurances you will be given due credit by the buyer in the future.
As I said – thanks for providing additional information but when making a case for credit to the public you should focus on the facts relevant to your quest for credit and not facts on the buyer had so much money.
Just my opinion and sounds like you were actually happy overall with the money so besides the credit wanted it seemed to be another win-win for everybody.
Michael
Thanks for your response.
Just a couple of housekeeping matters.
First just to clarify for everyone, there are three Michael’s involved, myself, the author of the post, and yourself
Second, I e-mailed the author of the article when I first published the article to run it by him to see if he has any thoughts and I never got a response.
Third, all the info relied in my post was taken from the article which seemed clear to me that you were claiming ownership of the phrase syfy.
If you never owned syfy.com I certainly did not understand that from the post.
How could you say you coined the phrase syfy, if you never owned the domain syfy.com?
That doesn’t make sense in the terms of the article.
If you coined the phrase why didn’t you file a trademark on it to protect it.
So now your saying you sold syfyportal.com for $250K including the trademark to syfy?
Obviously, syfyportal.com in and by itself, in the domain community a “worthless” domain.
If you place that domain into any industry auction, you might get a couple of hundred for it, unless it had substantial traffic and then you might get a few thousand.
So you basically sold a trademark for $250K and any discussion about domains is superfluous.
Your statement that in 2002 “domain names were far more expensive as they were now, which I’m sure Michael, as well as many who have commented on this story, are very well aware” is simply untrue.
Domains are far more valuable now than in 2002. There are been at least 4 multimillion sales in the past few months.
Moreover Sedo.com has written on this and the average sales price of domains keep rising.
I still do not buy your argument regarding trying to peg the purchase price to the revenue, profit or any other such measure, especially of a conglomerate which has many other profit centers. How does the acquisition of your trademark impact the revenue or profit generated by the Tonight Show?
It doesn’t
Your other argument that NBC didn’t identify themselves in the negotiation, I still find unpersuasive. I gave you a very good example that this is how business is done for decades. A property is worth what’s its worth. You want to charge someone with deep pockets more than newco. Would you charge less if a truly poor person needed the property? Of course not.
Now back to the trademark issue.
If I search for a trademark on “syfy portal” I do not find a match.
If I search for a trademark on “syfy world” I do not find a match.
If I search for “syfy” I find 5 of them all filed by Universal in March of this year and none are assignments of previously registered marks.
So I’m not sure what you sold at this point.
I apologize for any confusion but the problem lies in the original post by Michael the author and the way you describe your own story.
Hello, Alan! Thanks for the response.
I brought up the money issue because, to be honest, I felt like I was violating the openness I have had with my readers over the last 11 years by not disclosing something that I am not required to keep under wraps.
NBCU, or should I say “New Fizz,” didn’t feel that such an amount necessitated it being a secret, as the agreement contains absolutely no confidentiality clauses.
Plus, as demonstrated by other domain sale examples presented here, apparently, other people were “sore losers” or “bad businessmen” because those prices were released in some form or another.
The release of the price, in the context of the column and the entire story, was to state that me asking simply to be credited with the creation of the name, which would be a true statement, was not asking for much. When I was asking for it in the past publicly, some felt that I had received far more than I actually did simply because I had not released the amount, and this was to show exactly how much was given, and why in comparison, it was not enough. It was an effort to quash a rather uncommon (but existing) response of “take the money and shut up.”
In regards to whether or not they followed the agreement, unfortunately, I cannot discuss that further here, simply because it IS a legal matter, and a possibly active one.
I can say that there were stipulations made in the agreement that are a bit … outside the norm, in terms of what we asked for, and one of those was historical linkage of the Syfy brand and its past before being bought by New Fizz/NBC.
You are correct in terms of credit. However, like I said in a later post, we had felt that we were simply dealing with someone who wanted to create a news site and had the financial resources to do it with an established brand. You may not hav eheard of us, and we may be hardly world famous, but we are a very well-established name in the genre community, mostly because of our longevity and the fact that there are a lot of sites with similar operations that were inspired by us, or get a lot of support by us (or both).
I’ve never been one to treat competition as anything more than friendly competition, and that’s the kind of approach that helps make many online friends in the community. 🙂
If we even had an inkling that the name would be used for anything other than a competing site, we may have made such a demand. But remember, once again, the buyer did not represent itself fully. We had absolutely no clue that the next place we would see the Syfy name was in the pages of the New York Times in a major entertainment story.
I was publicly forgiving of NBCU over the lack of representation, and possibly a sale of a brand for pennies on the dollar, ONLY because of the bit of notoriety I would receive for creating such a name. To me, that has a value that goes beyond even cash.
So imagine what that would feel like if that was suddenly taken away. That’s like giving me $5 million, and asking for $4.9 million of it back.
MHB:
I hate doing this this way as I think it’s messy, but please let me respond directly.
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I am referring to Michael H. Berkens, the person who e-mailed me about the existence of this blog post. To be honest, I did not look at the byline to see that it was a different name, as I had just assumed that you had written it.
Bad assumption to make on my part, so my apologies.
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Thanks. I am assuming you are an editor or a publisher of the site, and that you can make corrections when needed. Corrections, especially ones that misstate fact, should be handled expeditiously. Just some friendly advice. 🙂
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I was. I owned the marks for the term “Syfy.”
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It was not clearly spelled out in my column that I did not own syfy.com, because I was not discussing domain transfers, but instead trademark transfers. Since I had addressed the issue of syfy.com to our readers in the past, there was no need for me to bring this up again.
Please note that you took this from a weekly column that I write. About four of these columns since March has talked about this, and many of our readers are well aware of the past discussions made to other media outlets, including the situation surrounding syfy.com.
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I explained this already in my response. I will share it again in case you may have accidentally skipped over it:
Also, at the time, domain names were far more expensive as they were now, which I’m sure Michael, as well as many who have commented on this story, are very well aware. As an operation that started out with zero revenue and was being supported by a financially struggling newspaper reporter at the time, we couldn’t justify the expense.
When an online retailer bought Syfy.com in 2000 and started to market sci-fi DVDs on it, we contacted them. However, at the time, precedent in re-acquiring domain names which contain trademarks owned by others had really yet to be set, and fighting such sales legally was extremely expensive (it’s still expensive to fight them today).
In lieu of going through a protracted battle, we contacted the company that owned Syfy.com, and they agreed to put a disclaimer on their main page indicating that they were not affiliated with SyFy World, and even linked to us (if you look at it through the Wayback Machine, you will see that the link is NOT a domain). Such a move, by the way, continues to protect a trademark, even if the result it not a surrender by the offending party.
Please note that last part of that part of the message: Such a move (as in forcing someone who is using a trademark term to acknowledge they are not affiliated with someone also using a trademark) has been considered acceptable in the past for protecting a trademark with the original owner, even if the result of it is not a surrender of the usage of the trademark by the offending party.
For instance, I call my site Star Trek Portal (pretty much a name we acquired in our 2002 merger). Just because CBS Television doesn’t step in and force me to surrender the use of the “Star Trek” name doesn’t relinquish their right to continue to claim trademark ownership over the name.
This more a discussion of trademarks and not about domains — two totally different tracks of conversation.
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In terms of which article? My column or the article posted here?
I will not attempt to interpret this article here, but in terms of my column, my total discussion was about the SyFy brand, and had nothing to do with any domain sale, outside of the ancillary inclusion of syfyportal.com as part of the total sale.
The leap made by the writer of this column from SyFy brand to syfy.com was made by the writer, and never implied by me. I know it’s complicated, so it doesn’t reflect badly on the writer, but my efforts here are to set the record straight to help eliminate confusion, and maybe provide some context to those who are responding to this story as if I was bellyaching over the sale of an overpriced domain name, which is not factual at all.
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We sold the trademark to NBCU. You do NOT have to file a trademark registration in order to claim trademark ownership. Similar to copyright protection (you have copyright protection of your work here, for instance, yet you do NOT have to file it with the copyright office to get that protection), registration provides a strong level of defense if someone infringes on your work, because it helps establish a timeline of usage.
However, there are other legal ways that you can establish timeline of usage, and we were able to do that simply with documentation and published works that show us using the name, dating back before anyone else can claim usage of it.
If I had just coined it in my diary, and never did anything with it, I can’t take that diary to court to claim trademark infringement. But the fact that we were using it in a published medium, and could establish that we were publicly using such a mark, it can be used to establish trademark usage in court.
Say NBCU knew that we never filed a trademark registration, so they buy Syfy.com from the other company (for far less than $250,000, by the way — I heard it was actually under $10,000, but I don’t know that for sure) and decide to rebrand themselves Syfy.
They never approach us, never buy our mark. We can still turn around and sue them, and even with no money, we would be successful, because we could establish that we were using the name, and had created it before NBCU used it. Even if NBCU could show documentation that they first thought of the name prior to 1998, the fact that they didn’t register a trademark, or create something that could be publicly traced to the original usage of the name, they would lose pretty hard.
And all of that even though I never officially filed for a trademark.
You have to remember, copyright and trademark filings are NOT like patents. If you invent something and start to market it, and you never patent it, but someone else recreates it (even if they took the original designs from you) and patents it, that second person will likely get to keep their patent because they filed for it first.
Trademark and copyright protections are simply certified evidence of the existence of such original marks and material, and are meant to be used in efforts to defend such marks and material against infringement.
I’m not a lawyer, but I do know my way around trademark and copyright law. 🙂
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I am not “now” saying anything. I have said it all along. Once again, the leap to syfy.com was not made by me, or even implied by me. That was made by the writer of this column.
I have stated all along that the domain AND the brand were sold. The only thing I’m saying “now” is the amount: $250,000.
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Yep, which lends credence to my claim that NBCU purchased a trademark and brand, not a domain name.
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The site generated about 8 million uniques a year. Not Wikipedia numbers by any stretch of the imagination, but nothing to sneeze at.
But you are correct, if the domain and domain only were to be sold, we would be lucky to get a few thousand.
However, as I have already stated in this line of comments, we did not just sell a domain name, so the entire idea of this column — and many of the comments that followed it (some of them a bit rude, but that’s OK) are actually based on an incorrect premise that I sold a “worthless” domain name for $250,000, and I’m still complaining about it.
The issue that was raised was that I feel that no one else should claim credit for someone else’s work. Especially when that work is mine. I added the amount, which is what sparked your interest, based on efforts to allow people to understand exactly what the brand sold for, and compared to how much money NBCU stands to make in an effective rollout of that brand, why me simply asking for credit in the origin of the name is not asking for a whole helluva lot.
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Exactly. Which is what I stated more than once.
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You misunderstood. I’m talking about the purchase of unregistered domain names. In 2002, a typical domain name sold for about $75 a year. Now, they run around $10 to $12 a year, depending on who you use, without some sort of promotional deal.
While that may be the difference of a little more than $60, it’s still a SIGNIFICANT decrease in price, especially since to buy all the variations of syfy could be an annual cost of a few thousand dollars a year several years ago, compared to what they are now.
I don’t deal with domain name resale, and thus I have very limited knowledge on it, outside of the calls I received and still receive based on domain names I currently own. All the domains name I own I bought through ICANN, and not through previous buyers.
I did make an offer not too long ago on a domain name that was registered for the first time in 2007 that the owner had never actually used. I offered him $200 for it, which I felt was more than fair because I really wanted the domain name (it was an early name idea for our soon-to-launch television entertainment news site), but the guy demanded $2,000 for it instead when he found out who I was.
I walked away, and two months later I owned the name for $10 because he allowed it to lapse. So I not only saved $1,990, but I saved $190 as well. 🙂
Basically, my business is creating Web properties and such that deal with news, because I am a journalist, and that’s what I do. The business of people here, I’m sure, is in domain name resales, so you guys are the experts on that, not me. 🙂
But let me clarify that I was NOT referring to domain resales. I know very little about that, and actually learned quite a bit about it from this story and the comments that followed, but that is the extent of my knowledge. 🙂
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I used NBC Universal as the primary means to demonstrate where the money was coming from (I was going to go as far as General Electric revenues, but it was already an obvious stretch taking it from NBCU).
However, in later comparisons in the same column, I do shell it down to a less eye-catching number: $425 million, which was the revenue of SciFi Channel in 2008. That is better context for my point, although it is only talking about revenue, not overall value, which is a far different proposition.
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Black and white people couldn’t marry for decades. Women couldn’t vote for decades. The American colonies were taxed without representation for decades.
Does the fact that such practices exist for decades make it right?
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Good point, but then I likely would choose not to sell.
What you are leaving out of your argument is the fact that pertinent facts were not brought to the table that would allow me, as the seller, to decide whether or not to accept a deal.
If a poor person came to me and wanted to buy my brand or domain name, and I didn’t like the price — even if it was a great value compared to what he planned to do with it and what his potential profits were — I would have the right to turn him down.
I don’t think there has to be full disclosure, like what you would need on a house sale or a car sale, but there should be more disclosure than this. Like I would want to know how the neighborhood is with crime, if there was a sinkhole problem, or if there was a potential of Disney coming in and buying the land for a new theme park. =P
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I discussed this above. My discussion, obviously came after you made this post, so there is no way you could’ve known it before asking.
However, if you wish to talk more about trademark issues beyond what I shared above, I am open to it, although I don’t have a ton of time, so I will do my best to try and answer things as best as possible. 🙂
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I appreciate it, but what would solve the problem is correction and clarification in the original story. Thanks!
Hmmm … apparently my quoting did not work as planned .. I don’t have a way to edit it … but I guess you can read your original post, MHB, and understand where I am going from there.
I went right in order. 🙂
Michael,
“The site generated about 8 million uniques a year”
Are you talking about your site – the one you sold for $250,000?
Michael
So you sold an unregistered trademark for $250K and are quoted as complaining about it:
“NBCU didn’t even have the balls to approach us themselves. They used a shell company called New Fizz Corp. to buy the SyFy Portal domain name.”
“$250,000…that’s right. That is what they paid us to sell our domain name and our brand”
Wow
Once again if the original story had any clarity to it, then my story would have been correct.
However, if the story said you sold a unregistered trademark for $250K, and weren’t happy about it I would have wrote about that.
Alan: I am referring to SyFyPortal and later Airlock Alpha.
Note that I used an annual number. That breaks down to less than 660,000 a month, or about 20,000 or so a day.
I said “a year” but just wanted to make sure that was clear. 🙂
This whole issue is nearly unintelligble.
It seems like just the bag was sold, minus even the smoke.
And someone is complaining about it.
To clarify …
you sold syfyportal.com ( and some intellectual property) which received 8 million highly targeted unique visitors a year for $250,000
If I’m wrong please correct me.
MHB:
I don’t understand your rudeness about this. There is no need to be rude, and it’s really OK to make a mistake or two. Breathe … breathe.
People make mistakes all the time. There is no need to be defensive about it or to start lobbing grenades. I made it clear that the entire situation is very complex, and that the writer (who I guess has now been identified as you based on your post) should not be blamed. I didn’t come in complaining, but wanted to make sure that the record was set straight, since there seemed to be a lot of confusion about this, and a lot of comments based on inaccurate information.
I sold an unregistered trademark, but it’s STILL a trademark. The only difference between an unregistered trademark and a registered one is that the latter is far easier to use to fight infringement than the former.
So now that that’s squared away …
In terms of clarity, in the quote you provide in your response, I said very specifically, “$250,000 … that’s right. that is what they paid us to sell our domain name and our brand.”
How much more clear can that be? A “brand” is the same as a trademark. They are interchangeable. That alone should’ve been the first indication that this was more than a domain name sale, as it was characterized on here.
I’m sorry, but I was being VERY nice about the need for a correction, and I don’t think that such a request required such a response. I did not attack you at all, but instead, you attacked me.
So if you want to play it that way, MHB, you are burying yourself because your single post lone shows that I made it clear it was NOT just a domain name sale.
Also, if you read the original column, there is never a single mention of Syfy.com. That, again, was a leap you made. That would be like when I merged my site with Star Trek Portal, that you would write something announcing to everyone that I acquired the rights to the Star Trek name.
Just because I don’t own or control every usage of a trademark out there does not mean that I necessarily do not own the trademark. And just because I have a trademark does not necessarily mean that I own all the uses.
In terms of Syfy.com, they were allowed to continue using the name because we took efforts to establish our ownership of the mark, and allowed them a de facto license to continue using it, simply by providing a disclaimer and a link to our site.
My goal at that time, with the limited financial resources I had, was to 1) Make sure there was no confusion between that site and my site; and 2) Make it clear that they were using a name we owned, and that they would acknowledge as much by being the ones to provide a disclaimer AND linking back to us. SyFy World did not carry any type of reciprocal disclaimer.
I am not sure how to explain it any better than I did there. Since the original rebranding, and later revealed sale of the branding, was covered heavily in March, there is plenty of material available in a news clip search that would’ve generated the details of what was sold and what was NOT sold, including Syfy president Dave Howe’s claims about syfy.com and the fact that I did not own it, and our subsequent response to that, which was never rebutted (because, really, you can’t rebut it).
The original story was clear to our readers, which is the audience I was trying to reach. Our readers are a loyal bunch of people, and many have been visiting us for many years, a few from almost the very beginning 11 years ago. The story has been rehashed so many times on our site, actually, that there are a few tired of hearing about it, or hearing all the history to just get to the new parts.
Typically, if someone picks up on the story, and they are new to all of it, it’s very easy to send me an e-mail, like you did — except BEFORE you publish it. I would’ve been happy to provide any comments or answer any questions that you ask. It’s very rare that I turn down any media requests, because I hate it when people do it to me, I want to make sure that only accurate information is being printed because it’s real hard to get it corrected after the fact, and I am a media whore. =P (the second part might be a joke, lol)
Waiting maybe two hours to write me some questions, or to ask to call me, and getting answers to different parts probably would’ve made this far more clear.
I am one of the most accessible Web business people you will find. You know that — you e-mailed me. If Leonard Nimoy can find my phone number out of nowhere — and my cell phone no less — I’m sure you could, too (or you could ask for it).
So instead of blasting me about the “clarity” of a story that is intended for our readers, maybe you need to think a little bit about how you could’ve avoided the factual errors in the story.
I’m verbose, because I talk fast and think a lot. And I know that sometimes, points and facts can be lost — but I am always available to provide details about it, even in “deadline” situations where you need to get something up.
And if you wish to write about the unregistered trademark issue, great! Please do! I’m sure you have an opinion about it that is different than mine, but that’s OK. If the world agreed with me, it would be a boring place. 🙂
Just please be factual and fair, and if you have questions you wish to ask of me, as long as you promise to at least give me a fair shake, I would be more than happy to answer them. You know my e-mail, and if you would like my phone number, e-mail me the request, and I will get it to you and times I’m available to talk by phone.
Thanks!
Alan:
I never used the term “highly targeted.” That term has a specific meaning, which I don’t know the full definition of, and I would prefer not to use such a specific term — even if it might be true — without being comfortable that what I would be sharing is accurate.
The number I provided is just “unique visitors,” and some of those numbers are based on illegal copies of stories we publish on other sides. So the proper terminology I should probably use is “unique readers” rather than visitors, although the number of off-site reading is only a small fraction of our total visitorship, and I tend to use more simplistic terms. 🙂
Michael Hinman,
curious – if you did not sell it would you happen to know how much syfy.com sold for?
Alan, I don’t have first hand knowledge of how much syfy.com sold for, but I was told it was for less than $10,000 … in the $5,000 to $7,000 range.
so you sold an unregistered TM (in your opinion) that did not include the domain name (which predates your usage as well) for 1/4 million and you’re bitching about it afterward?
NBC applied for all sorts of REAL TM’s for SyFy earlier this year and they graciously paid you off… so what if it was through a shell company, you did well.
What people are reacting to here is your obvious bitterness after the sale that you negotiated. While you may have control over your own forum, the opinion from the rest of the universe is not likely to be as skewed…
Cartoonz:
You are incorrect.
I sold a trademark (and it’s stated as such in the sales agreement … it’s not “my opinion”) that included a domain name.
The Syfy.com purchase did NOT predate my usage. Syfy.com was purchased in 2000. SyFy World launched in August 1998. By the time Syfy.com was going, we were already nearly two years old, and had had our first big break.
And yes, I am complaining about the fact that they are trying to claim they created something that they did not create. It’s not true, and it spits in the face of the person who DID create it.
I kind of liken it to someone who builds a house from his two bare hands, and spends a lot of money and time on it, to make it some hugely unique house. It’s not well-known, except in the little town that it was built in.
Donald Trump decides that he would like to have a unique house, and is thinking about building one when he happens to hear about this unique house that the guy built.
He comes in and offers the guy some money, and buys the house. Then, as soon as he does it, the fact that Trump is involved gets national and international media attention, and suddenly the house is famous and Trump is selling tour tickets for $50 a pop.
When he’s asked by Matt Lauer about the history of the house, Trump said, “Yep, I built it.”
Do you think that’s accurate? Do you think that the person who actually built it, and sold it for what it was valued at before Trump got a hold of it, should at least have the right to be credited for his work?
Let’s say you sell people.com. Would you be happy if I stepped in and claimed I was the one who brokered the deal, when it was actually you?
I’m hoping you would be upset about it, and that is what I am upset about.
Yes, the bitterness I feel is over claims that they created the name, and I don’t even exist — something that could potentially be a violation of said deal. And because they chose to make this potential violation in the public eye, it should be responded and refuted in the public eye.
Not much more to it than that.
I know how people feel about things. That is one reason why I shared the selling price, which was NEVER a secret (I simply decided not to release it) was because some people who felt that I was speaking out against something felt that I received far more money than I actually received, some to the point that I was ONLY supporting the rebranding of Syfy by NBCU because the conglomerate bought that support.
The idea was to show that they did not buy it, and they really didn’t spend too much on anything else.
it’s also to show I’m not asking for much. When you count a brand sale, which is far different from a domain sale, you see a lot more money exchanging, especially if the brand is going to be used at the scale it is here. If they had represented themselves properly, the sales price would’ve been closer to $2.5 million, not $250,000, which would be the most appropriate way to go.
I completely understand why people here (or in other places) would react the way they did, and I have no issue with that at all. If I’m being bitchy about the sales price, and that’s what people want to hone in on, then I need to get better about keeping the focus on the true goal of mine: To make sure that no one else can claim credit for probably the only thing I have a chance to be known for. 🙂
What people are reacting to here is your obvious bitterness after the sale that you negotiated. While you may have control over your own forum, the opinion from the rest of the universe is not likely to be as skewed…
I work for Universal/NBC. First of all they are very big, owned by General Electric. You got a very fair price. Lucky to get that. SYFY will have to be branded on their part. Not even the right spelling.
They don’t need you. You need them.
Michael (hilman)
I’m pretty sure there some polish science fiction jokes long before 1998 🙂
http://www.thewrap.com/blog-entry/2136
peace
“If they had represented themselves properly, the sales price would’ve been closer to $2.5 million, not $250,000, which would be the most appropriate way to go.”
That is what everyone here is focusing on, exactly. It doesn’t matter who you did the deal with, the fact is that you cut the deal that you were willing to accept.
Now, you are crying that it wasn’t enough and that somehow it would have been 10x the amount you had already accepted SOLELY because of who the buyer is? Sour grapes. If you’re that upset about it, perhaps you should look in the mirror as you were the one that accepted 250k. Exactly who did you think was spending that kind of money? Wasn’t it obvious who it likely really was at that point? If it wasn’t, you must not have really looked at the deal very objectively at the time.
But the bottom line is that you negotiated and closed on a price that was obviously acceptable to you. You can’t go back later and cry foul because the buyer didn’t tell you they had more money than you supposed they had. That makes no sense. You accepted the deal. You even gave them the price, according to your statements. They accepted YOUR OFFER to sell at that price. Again, whining now that it somehow wasn’t fair just seems silly
As for your dismay over creative credit, the term SyFy arguably predated your use of it by many accounts anyway. The domain name SyFy.com was registered by a different party as early as 1999.
NBC-Universal is claiming credit of re branding its own platform to SyFy solely because SciFi is a generic term and indistinguishable. Their use of the SyFy mark and reason for changing to that term is completely different than what you claimed common law rights to, so yes they did create their own branding and rightfully so. I don’t see where they made any claim to be the first to ever utter “SyFy”, just that they created a new brand for themselves using that term. Perhaps it is just semantics, but I can completely see their position.
They decided to re brand. They chose to re brand as SyFy. They are not using it for the same purpose as you may have, they created a new brand for themselves. Just because they graciously paid you off to assure a clear and uncontested TM process on the term does not mean that you created their vision or brand and your continuous blathering about that makes no sense to the rest of the world outside of your community.
ALAN: My last name is Hinman (hehe), and to be honest, did you know that I never heard the whole Polish thing before NBCU bought the trademark? No one ever brought that up to me, but that explains why we have a better following in Poland NOW than we did then I bet, lol!
And yes, that word predates 1998, but remember, I am not talking about the actual creation of the word or any version of it. I’m talking about its specific usage as a variant spelling for “sci-fi.”
CARTOONZ: I’m sorry, but what people were focusing on was a DOMAIN sale, saying, “Wow, that’s way too much for a domain name” and the like, when that is not the case at all.
The discussion was over a trademark sale. Call it unregistered or whatever makes you feel better, but the simple fact is, you can’t compare a typical domain resale to a trademark sale. They are two different animals completely.
I am not going to keep repeating myself. If you cannot read the things that I say, and in the context that I provide it, I will stop saying it. I am doing everything I can to try and respond directly to questions and thoughts and such, and think about each one carefully.
The ONLY issue we have right now with NBCU at this moment is the claim that they created a brand and that it did not exist before. Everything else was talked about as just other discussion, and to bring up a point that I think has been something on the mind of people for a long time: People should be allowed to know exactly who it is they’re dealing with.
There’s no easy solution to it, but I’m sure a lot of you would like the same thing when dealing with domain sales and the like. Or maybe not.
Either way, it’s an opinion that I expressed, and if you disagree with it, I respect that. I am not looking for more money, just the truth. But there were a lot of comments being made here based on an inaccurate presentation of facts, and I wanted to make sure that the accurate take was presented. It’s not expected that people will change their mind, as I’m with you: The deal was struck, I signed the dotted line, and that’s that.
The discussion of money, however, came up in the column, like I have already said before (and saying now for the final time in this thread): We wanted to show that we are not asking for much, especially since we could’ve probably had grounds to demand for more. We’re not. We feel the value of the brand was probably worth closer to $2.5 million, but I feel that $2.25 million of that value comes in being acknowledged of the creator of a brand I did in fact create, whether I currently own it or not.
There really is nothing more or nothing less to it. 🙂
Wasn’t it obvious who it likely really was at that point? If it wasn’t, you must not have really looked at the deal very objectively at the time.
I was approached by a company calling itself New Fizz Corp. As soon as the offer was officially made, my attorney (and even I) scoured everywhere to find out who these people were, searching the Internet, corporate records, you name it.
All we knew is that they bought other domain names, and a lot of them, and likely were either a broker, or a site that would acquire names either with an established intent or possibly even a buyer.
By the way, based on the coverage that happened in March, there is now a Wikipedia entry on New Fizz Corp., that now identifies them as a company that represents media companies in making purchases, to help shield the fact that it is a major corporation looking to make an acquisition online, and it cites specifically the NBCU purchase of Syfy.
When their lawyer became involved, a background check revealed that he was an attorney who, AMONG OTHER PEOPLE, represented NBCU in the past. He also represented other companies, and other purchases and the like. So there was nothing evident in any way that this was NBCU. We felt it might be, because they maintained a major sci-fi property, but we were completely in the dark.
None of us knew who it was until March when we read the story in the New York Times.
Does that make me naive? Maybe it does. But if we even had an INKLING of who it was, things might have been different. Not necessarily more money, but likely a less contentious negotiating session, because our biggest concern was having competition using our old name more than anything else.
And who would imagine that someone wanted to buy a name that you created to rename a network after? I think the list of people that has happened to is very small. Hell, I might be the only one on it.
But the bottom line is that you negotiated and closed on a price that was obviously acceptable to you. You can’t go back later and cry foul because the buyer didn’t tell you they had more money than you supposed they had.
Once again, that is NOT what we’re crying foul about. If I was doing that, I wouldn’t have phrased the column as an open letter to Michael Engleman, who was never even INVOLVED In the negotiations, as far as I knew. New Fizz represented Dave Howe, the network’s president, from what I understood.
The reason why Mr. Engleman was singled out is because he was the one talking about CREATING the Syfy name, and “COINING” it, thus the crux of the actual column.
Creation credit, unless there’s an actual dispute, does not need to be spelled out in a legal document. If someone created something, and there’s no doubt that I had the Syfy name before NBCU, and they felt I owned the marks, as they “overpaid” for a “worthless domain” as it’s been described, then proper credit should be given. That’s what the whooole thing is about. 🙂
As for your dismay over creative credit, the term SyFy arguably predated your use of it by many accounts anyway. The domain name SyFy.com was registered by a different party as early as 1999.
Keep making this claim all you want, but for the LAST TIME (and I’m seriously not repeating myself again), SyFy World was created, without dispute, in August 1998. Period. The actual launch date was Aug. 13, 1998. I know that, because we celebrate the anniversary every year, and celebrated 10 years last year.
By what you provided here, the registration of syfy.com took place AFTER the founding of SyFy World. You don’t provide a month, but if it was registered around or after February 1999, then it was registered after SyFy World had not only fully launched, but already had its first big break: We became a spoiler site and was put on the map with our coverage of “Earth: Final Conflict.” Our visitors in January 1999 went from maybe 20 to 25 a day, to 4,000 a day (these are not uniques, these are just visitors — some could be repeats). But it was a significant jump, and we were getting some recognition.
I will not continue to discuss who owned the marks. We were never, ever challenged for the marks. We never found any other reference to the words in anything close to the context we used it in. And unless you can present to me anything that shows it predates Aug. 13, 1998, then we’ll talk.
But I will not continue to defend my ownership of the mark through last February. You have stated TWICE that syfy.com predated me, first using 2000, then using 1999 (if there was a domain purchase in 1999, it wasn’t first used until 2000 based on cache versions in that domain). Even if 1999 is accepted (I don’t seem to have the same type of access to historical purchases as you do), it still does NOT predate my public usage of it.
Period.
NBC-Universal is claiming credit of re branding its own platform to SyFy solely because SciFi is a generic term and indistinguishable. Their use of the SyFy mark and reason for changing to that term is completely different than what you claimed common law rights to
In what way? We used “Syfy” as an alternate spelling of “sci-fi.” We used it to brand our platform, which yes, was a Web-based news outlet, but still enough to common law or not be challenged if they tried to use it for their television and Web platform while not trying to acquire it from us.
I’m well aware of why NBCU was interested in it. The same reason why I was interested in creating it: I didn’t want to use other people’s trademarks, like “Sta Trek.” I wanted to create my own.
None of that is in dispute.
so yes they did create their own branding and rightfully so. I don’t see where they made any claim to be the first to ever utter “SyFy”, just that they created a new brand for themselves using that term. Perhaps it is just semantics, but I can completely see their position.
Read the most recent article from Variety quoting Michael Engleman, where it talks about how he “created” the actual name (not the branding protocol), and also how he “coined” the term.
THAT is the issue we have. We aren’t claiming that we created their branding strategy, just their name. And in those stories in Variety and Fortune, they are not talking about the branding strategy — they are talking SPECIFICALLY about the name.
They decided to re brand. They chose to re brand as SyFy. They are not using it for the same purpose as you may have, they created a new brand for themselves.
OK, so I am going to create a new brand of pens, and I’m going to call it Coca-Cola. Let me know how far I’ll get with that.
Just because they graciously paid you off to assure a clear and uncontested TM process on the term does not mean that you created their vision or brand and your continuous blathering about that makes no sense to the rest of the world outside of your community.
I don’t understand why you are being so rude. People don’t have a good opinion of domain resellers, but I always try to reserve judgment of anyone until I have a chance to interact.
You’re not helping that opinion.
I have answered your concerns, you have expressed your opinion. If there are any other questions specifically, I’ll be happy to answer them. However, I will not continue to debate my position or my opinion, especially since I have better things to do, and that some of you are just being a bit nasty (blathering?)
I also will correct anything misfactual that you present (it seems that facts are not something really important here … there are nothing but inaccuracies all over the place here, and even when they are corrected, the inaccurate statements just get repeated and repeated).
Also, whether or not it’s something only of interest to my “community,” one thing to note: I didn’t ask for anything to be written here. Until I received a message from the writer of this article, I had no idea this blog even existed.
I am not trying to push into your community. I was pulled into it with myth and inaccuracies.
Michael H
For the record (since you stated you did not know thedomains.com even existed today) this website is one of the most popular respected blogs in the domain community.
It is a blog where highly educated and upstanding investors in the domain industry (not the cyber squatters and obvious trademark infringers) come to chat so although the common perception of domain resellers may very well be negative you are actually chatting with some of the most respected people who in this industry who spend millions collectively each and every year to try and protect domain names for ALL small business.
With that said you are also speaking with people who absolutely love success stories – whether that is a $200 sale, $250,000 sale or $10 million sale. Domains, apples or aliens – does not matter.
Cartoonz is dead on with a lot of his points but I think at this point we all need to move on. Some of your comments just negate the entire point you tried to make with your post and I fear most (including myself) are confused by many of the arguments you make. Not to say you do not see them as valid but in terms of logical arguments the incorporation of demanding or assuming or at least stating that its “right” to know who the buyer is and then comment on how higher price COULD be warranted is exactly the bad apple of the story which dismisses any love for your tale whatsoever. Are you asking for more money – no, but the mere suggestion of it is enough.
Your last post
“But if we even had an INKLING of who it was, things might have been different. Not necessarily more money, but likely a less contentious negotiating session, because our biggest concern was having competition using our old name more than anything else”
You stated the lawyer was identified as previously working for NBCU (1 inkling)
You offered a $50,000 discount if they took a no-compete clause and they passed (2 inkling)
How many other buyers could you list for this term who would not sign a no-compete clause with a $250,000 checkbook (3 inkling)
I wish you the best of luck in any battle you decide to wage with NBCU and just know that to all the readers of this blog today you will be known as the guy who claimed to have created SYFY.
Whether that claim is true – who knows – but in terms of publicity on a Monday you’re not doing that bad.
Seeya – must leave this post and move on ….best of luck.
Michael
Just to add to the comments of Alan, he is spot on. I think its is simply awesome you got $250K for your domain and an unregistered trademark.
I like Alan says I’m very happy to report on success stories where ever they come from and have nothing but respect for the, IMHO, excellent deal you made.
For myself and many of the readers here, we just wished you were as happy with the deal as we would be.
Oh my. Someone who sold “syfy.com” for a quarter million dollars is complaining? Please tell me I’m reading that wrong.
TAKE THE MONEY. SHUT UP. INVEST IN MORE DOMAINS.
Good grief. That domain would maybe sell for $4k-$15k at auction…
I don’t know what I’m reading here, i’m very confused because I think I’m reading a complaint from a seller that he got “jipped” or something and should have received more for that domain. What’s he looking for? A down payment on a house next to Bill Gates?
There are about 10,000 active domainers who would have gladly sold that domain for $250k and snuck off into the darkness to figure out what to do with the cash.
You are on target, Mikey.
I would have sold them Scifant.com for $25k, much better name imo but I am biased
If you paid so much for a station, why would you change the lin-up . sports are for espnor spike. I LIKE SIFI MOVIES.. WHERE IS STARGATES EVEN IF UT IS GAT 27. WAREHOUSE 13, EURECAK. YOUR GREAT PROgraMING IS IN THe SUMMer WHERE. now YOU COULD USE IT. WHAT ABOUT Deep space 9