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Procedures for Protecting Entertainment Domain Names Against Cybersquatters

By Karen Levin, Ariel Ronneburger and Damias Wilson

Because there are so many new digital channels for possible intellectual property infringement, knowledge of the various mechanisms available to combat the issue is vital to enabling entertainment industry owners to protect their brand.

As many entertainment companies and entertainers know, domain names present an easy opportunity for infringement. Cybersquatters register domains containing a trademark, or similar to a trademark, for the purpose of selling that domain to the trademark owner for a high price. A variety of “top level domains” (i.e., .com, .org, .net) enable such cybersquatters to buy domains corresponding to trademarks with the intent of profiting off the infringement. In recent years, the expansion of “generic top level domains” (gTLDs) — which range from “.college” and “.dog” to “.porn” and “.sucks” — have opened the door for cybersquatters to seize hundreds of new domains containing trademarks. (A list of these new gTLDs, approved by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), can be found at https://go.icann.org/2fvWNKf.)

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