FC: What were motives of Bible-quoting Corinthians.com owner?

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

This is a long-standing debate and I suspect people's minds are largely 
made up. But first-come-first-served always seemed to be a good rule of 
thumb to me, unless you're intentionally creating a site that's confusingly 
similar to that of a trademark owner. For instance, I registered 
shorten.com in 1997 or so (I was thinking of launching an info-locating 
site). Sometime in 1999 I had a less-than-pleasant conversation with a 
fellow who had created compression software called shorten and seemed to 
want the domain. Nothing ever happened, and eventually I let the 
registration lapse -- with the predictable result that it's now an 
links-to-naughty-p0rn site.

So by the first-come-first-served test, while we might recognize that our 
Bible-quoting friend to be a recent convert to the merits of Holy Writ, his 
registration would not have been imperiled unless he created the "soccer 
info here" site or something similar.

Background:

"Bible-quoting Corinthians.com publisher replies to Politech"
http://www.politechbot.com/p-02892.html

-Declan

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Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2001 15:42:02 -0700
To: declan () well com
From: Tom Collins <tom () installco com>
Subject: Re: FC: Bible-quoting Corinthians.com publisher replies to Politech

> My hope is that this one-sided decision (which also covers my domain
> cruzeiro.com, pirated by another soccer team in Brazil)

After scanning through the court ruling you emailed earlier, and reading 
this statement, I'm starting to lean toward the cyber-squatting 
ruling.  Unless Sallen is registering 100's of domains, I find it more than 
a coincidence that he chose to register the names of two Brazilian soccer 
teams.

According to the court document, it wasn't until after he contacted 
Corinthians about buying the domain that he started posting bible passages 
on corinthians.com.  I fear that Sallen's "bible-quoting publisher" bit may 
be a ploy to gain support for his cause.

I'd like to know how many domains he has registered (and how many are names 
of Brazilian soccer teams), how many he has sold to other companies, and 
how many have been "pirated" by trademark holders as domain squatting.

--
Tom Collins, CTO       InstallCo Computer Services
tom () installco com      <http://www.installco.com/>

---

Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2001 17:50:56 -0500
From: "Mike T" <w3k9b7n6n001 () sneakemail com>
To: declan () well com
Subject: Re: Bible-quoting Corinthians.com publisher replies to Politech

Ordinarily, I'm not one to bother you. You have far more intelligent
and interesting people than myself sending you stuff. In this case
though, I'm afraid, you're only getting one side of the story.

WIPO has the information about this case at
http://arbiter.wipo.int/domains/decisions/html/2000/d2000-0461.html .
According to the case file, Mr. Sallen first approached the soccer
club in September 1999 with an offer to sell the domain name, and
subsequently established a web site following a notice letter in
November 1999.

According to the complaint: "Respondents registered "corinthians.com"
in 1998. Respondents have not made a good faith use of
"corinthians.com". Additionally, the email from Respondents offering
to sell "corinthians.com" indicates Respondents' profit motive for
registering the domain name. When these facts are considered in
conjunction with the number and nature of other domain names
registered by Respondents, the conclusion that profit was the motive
behind Respondents' registration of "corinthians.com" is inescapable."

>From what I see, this is simply a case of a domain squatter getting
smacked appropriately. Sure, it's a little more interesting than most
in that corinthians has multiple meanings, but the fact that he
offered to sell the domain prior to making "use" of it indicates to me
that profit, not piety, was the motive for the registration.

---

Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2001 19:51:03 -0500
From: "Mike T" <w3k9b7n6n001 () sneakemail com>
To: declan () well com
Subject: Re: Bible-quoting Corinthians.com publisher replies to Politech

Sorry for the second email on the subject, but I did a little more
digging on the subject. It seems this is the first of two domains he's
lost in WIPO arbitration. The other one, another soccer team, was
cruzeiro.com (see case @
http://arbiter.wipo.int/domains/decisions/html/2000/d2000-0715.html).
Additionally, he transferred, without having to go through the
arbitration process, dowjonesupdate.com and tonimorrison.com to their
rightful owners. A previous NIC handle, JDS267, even had the
organization listed as "prestige domains (for sale)". J D Sallen is
hardly a free speech activist or religious advocate. He's simply a
cybersquatter who got greedy.

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