At 10:11 AM 7/5/99 -0700, Kent Crispin wrote:
>On Mon, Jul 05, 1999 at 12:11:25PM -0400, Tom Cottone wrote:
>> What also bothers me is the bashing that goes on regarding
>> "cybersquatters and/or speculators". If I register hundreds of common
>> words (ie. hamburger.com, hotdog.com, ketchup.com, mustard.com etc) pay
>> for these domains and register them only for the sole intent of
>> reselling them to the highest bidder, does that make it criminal.
>
>Not now, but arguably, it should be. I think a fairly strong case
>could be made that domain names should not be resellable. You may
>have noticed the arguments earlier that TMs cannot be resold;
>that there is some funny handwaving legal mumbo jumbo that goes on
>when a business changes names. Similar arguments would work for
>domain names.
>
This comment exhibits the mind set of assuming that all domain name
registrations involve businesses, or at least providers of goods or services
of some kind, as would be the case with trademarks. That is precisely the
root of the whole conflict: the very existence of the academic community,
game clubs, mushers, group authoring, other individuals, etc., is ignored.
Bill Lovell
