Celebrities Domain Names

Following on from yesterdays post on DUI Celebrity Domain Names we had an interesting email today - enquiring what was the position on registering domain names that include celebrity names.

The enquirer claimed to be genuine fan and perhaps they are but then again it occurs to VIPGlamour.net that perhaps they had other motives?

So can a fan site have the domain name of a celebrity in it?

Well, first of, we do not offer an advise service at VIPGlamour.net and secondly, WE DO NOT OFFER LEGAL ADVICE, but we did some research and this is what we found:

According to some discussion at WebmasterWorld.com this is the position:

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Celebrity URL + Making Money by trading off celebrity’s celebrity status = Trouble

Pure fan site + No revenue production of any kind = Less Trouble.

Reference is also made to WIPO - World Intellectual Property Organization, who apparently say:

“An active and clearly non-commercial fan site may have rights and legitimate interests in the domain name that includes the complainant’s trademark. The site should be non-commercial and clearly distinctive from any official site.”

So it appears you can build a fan site, but it has to be a labour of love.

But note, the WIPO are not making any promises, even to legitimate fan sites, if the Celebrity does not like what you are doing, they can take the Domain away from you - so overall the best thing to do is to put any Fan Site on an unrelated domain name.

And here is another interesting article - on this topic:

What’s in a Name?

According to this article, All Headline News reports:

”Angelina Jolie has reserved 24 various versions of Domain Names for her new baby girl.” The report also states, ”Jolie and Brad Pitt, appeared to have learned from the misfortunes of fellow stars Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise.”

and The Canadian Broadcasting Corp or CBC.ca Arts reports:

”Celebrities have recently started the habit of registering the domain names of their children. Gwen Stefani recently did so for her new son.” The report also says that Britney Spears had to fight for her son’s domain name as well.

On a further side note, I see domain that paulpotts.com is for sale!

I’m quite certain this is not a case of cybersquatting - just a “lucky” individual who happened to share the same name as the now very famous Paul Potts - winner of Britain’s Got Talent

Interesting Times

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