Turns out, coincidentally (see my previous thread Cybersquatting precedents), a friend of a friend who’s a recording artist and wants to register [hername].com has discovered it’s already registered by a guy in Canada.
From what I’ve been able to gather the legalities are pretty cut and dried for such situations within the US, but does anyone know the relevant trademark laws in Canada? Does Canada, like the US, recognize a “common-law” trademark?
Will she have to take this guy to the Canadian Supreme Court (does Canada have a Supreme Court?) to get her name back? Or is he on ground as shaky as US cybersquatters?
Your friend’s friend could always take it up with the United Nations…seriously.
One of their subordinate organizations, the World Intelluctual Property Organization, is apparently the final arbiter when it comes to international domain name disputes.
It seems like I just saw a news article a couple days ago about how they sided against some various international folks who’d registered juliaroberts.com and a few other [celebrityname].com, but damned if I could find a cite.
Yes, quirky “Canada” has its own government and institutions. Chroist. I saw a posting on another forum today from a southerner wondering whether to stock up on groceries and toilet paper before visiting Ontario. Come on.
The common law tort of “passing off” is recognized in Canada, though I can’t say on your facts whether this is such a situation. I don’t think “personality” law is as well developed in this country, and I don’t know if there are personality statutes in the U.S. (which I don’t think we have at all in Canada… maybe under the Quebec Civil Code, but IANAL.)
lissener, I don’t know why you keep saying the name is taken. maybe the name with a ‘COM’ extension is. But there are other ones: name.orgname.net you can use. It was once thought that the only way to do it was name.com but now thats no longer the case as there are perfectly acceptable other names that are just as successful.
friedo: Suing in a foreign court is more expensive a solution than she’d hoped to have to resort to. The rulings have been so cut and dried here that the squatter would know he’d be foolish to take it that far. I’m trying to determine if such is the situation yet in Canada: can court be avoided with a well worded letter?
schief2: She, and I, have read the WIPO information pretty thoroughly. Though there’s no doubt that registering a complaint with them would be successful, their filing fees start at $1,500. Frankly, I see that as an undue burden on the rightful owner of the trademark.
labradorian: What is “passing off”? What is “personality law”?
You sure seem to know a lot of people in show business. (If a lot = at least two) Are you in show business? I noticed that your SDMB handle is very nearly an anagram of Sir Senile which may be a clue. However, Sir Senile is not the name or nickname of any celebrity I can think of so that anagram is largely useless. Additionally, that is about all the detective work I can do in one day. I gotta go take a nap.
Passing off = passing off your goods or services as those of someone else, whether or not the other’s goods or services have trademark protection.
Personality law = law (whether statutory or not) providing protection against the appropriation of one’s personality to imply association, endorsement, etc. I’ve found that there have been Canadian courts which have provided such protection (see URL)
This paper states that there is no statute in Canada which protects personality rights, but as I suspected, there is such protection under the Quebec Civil Code (articles 35 et seq.) Not sure if there is equivalent legislation in other provinces. The author may have meant there is no “Canadian” legislation (i.e. legislation of the Parliament of Canada). If the squatter is in Quebec, the Civil Code may be of value to the squattee, and the squatee would be well advised to obtain advice from a Civilian, if her lawyer isn’t already one.