moral dillemma

[mattcanning99]

ok, facts / names have been changed, but same idea:

alright, lets say you've come across a hollywood movie star who does not have a website in their name...so you buy theirname.com and link it to your site, which is somewhat related.

would that make me a bad person (a monster) ?

please advise

 

[XBiker]

ok, facts / names have been changed, but same idea:

alright, lets say you've come across a hollywood movie star who does not have a website in their name...so you buy theirname.com and link it to your site, which is somewhat related.

would that make me a bad person (a monster) ?

please advise

It's called cyber-squatting and it is generally frowned upon.

However, if you share the profits with me, I shall forgive you.

Otherwise, fuck em. It's every surfer for themselves in the cyberworld.

 

[Stryc-9]

Depends on what you mean by "somewhat related"...

I think it comes down to exploitation...and it's a cheap trick if someone is surfing for one thing but gets diverted to something entirely different....

Don't tell me you bought ronjeremy.com

 

[mattcanning99]

ronjeremy.com

lmao...no, but i stumbled across albertbeckles.com...anyway, would it be wrong for me to link it to a BB site im putting up?

 

[Bry21]

I call it smart business

 

[Crazier]

I call it smart business

--

 

[mattcanning99]

but albert beckles is 70 years old. what if he dies?

 

[Citruscide]

Sorry, it's not cyber-squatting. You don't have a right to your name... Warren Sapp tried to sue a guy who did this a few years ago.... A young man bought up 100's of NFL and other superstars names... the judge said Warren Sapp had no rights... but who ever brought this up... might have a good point. Now, where it turns into cybersquatting is when you start offering the site for sale ON the site, or if you start to contact the superstars and solicit money for domain name.

Cyber-squatting is more prevelant with companies... Zerox had a problem with this when they wanted to register their name... so did Panavision... but these were all found to be squatting because the owners knowingly picked these domain names in hopes of selling them off...

Immoral? No, just don't solicit this movie star for money... they'd have to come to you... it wouldn't hurt if you put some pictures up and made it an "unofficial web site"

Intellectual Property was my spec-e-ality...

C

 

[Citruscide]

Let me go further... you do have rights to your own name... but not to keep someone from having your name as their domain name... as long as they aren't making profits off of your "good will"...

So if you set up a pay site with pictures of this movie star... you could get sued for unjust enrichment...

C

 

[mattcanning99]

ahh citrucide, i remember that you are a lawyer - good!

this is the whole story. i'm building a bodybuilding website right now, and if all goes well, i'll be adding something profit earning to it. i also bought albertbeckles.com, for anyone who doesnt know him, he has won more bodybuilding titles than anyone alive today, and has been professionally bodybuilding for around 40 - 45 years. at 71, he works out at gold's gym 6 days a week (he did all this while being a vegetarian apparently ).

anyway, i thought i could do one of two things:

(1) build an "unofficial" albert beckles fan site

(2) link it to my BB site

(3) both