Why should this be legal, any more than identity theft is?
It's "legal" if the name in question isn't trademarked, as Tom said. If the USE of the name harms or injures the "famous person" then it's on the injured party to seek remedy. Typically I believe that intent would need to be proved. A lawyer would have to address this, I believe that domain name registration has more than a few gray areas, and there are more than a few people making money by registering untrademarked domain names and then selling them to the intended targets, or to the highest bidder. That's economics in action. Here's an example. http://www.2600.com/news/view/article/322 The bottom line on that is that you really don't want to take on a Fortune 10 company with very deep pockets and platoons of lawyers. It can also be very ambiguous. My name, Eric S. Sande, is relatively uncommon. But there are many Sandes, an appreciable number of Eric Sandes, and even a few Eric S. Sandes in the world. But there is only one genuine original Eric Stuart Sande. That person isn't famous, and doesn't have platoons of lawyers. Or even one lawyer on retainer. So he's defenseless, legally speaking. Unless he is harmed, in which case he could expect remedy (if he pays a lawyer to bring suit, fight the case and wins). That would be a horrible worst case scenario. Having to fight for the right to your name, that is. ************************************************************************ * ==> QUICK LIST-COMMAND REFERENCE - Put the following commands in <== * ==> the body of an email & send 'em to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <== * Join the list: SUBSCRIBE COMPUTERGUYS-L Your Name * Too much mail? Try Daily Digests command: SET COMPUTERGUYS-L DIGEST * Tired of the List? Unsubscribe command: SIGNOFF COMPUTERGUYS-L * New address? From OLD address send: CHANGE COMPUTERGUYS-L YourNewAddress * Need more help? Send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ************************************************************************ * List archive at www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ * RSS at www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml * Messages bearing the header "X-No-Archive: yes" will not be archived ************************************************************************
