I have sympathy for Kneen, but do we really, as a society, benefit from people that buy useful domains and then sit on them for 16 years while doing nothing with them?
Is it society that would be benefiting from Harsh taking away Keen's domain? Or is it Harsh? By defining the benefit as being to "society" one might sound noble while masking the reality: Harsh is attempting to steal Keen's domain name in a sleazy and opportunistic fashion. Defining this kind of hijacking as a benefit to society is misdirection at best.
It doesn't matter how long Kneen has sat on his domain. The only reason the domain has value is because Kneen found it worth registering, and Harsh now wants it. If Kneen had registered www.:-mgpdgwcpdgw.con instead, he'd have been perfectly in his right to do so, and no one (presumably) would be interested in taking his domain. So why should someone else get a chance to take it away just coz he wants to? As long as there is no company called workbetter, the domain might as well be gibberish, and gibberish.com is not valuable to society.
That is like telling that most of a billionaire's billions are not really worthwhile to them and that they are uselessly "squatting" on them when instead they could be put to good use by someone else. One's possessions legally acquired are one's own to do what one wishes with it! Including sitting uselessly on them.
I understand your general point, but I think it'd be highly problematic to start assessing ownership of things based solely on whether someone is doing something useful enough with them.
As suggested by the only 2 domain sells, he didn't buy them for the money, so he may have bought them for a reason or idea in his head. Who hasn't had an idea that could resound to "WorkBetter"
And there are "punishments" to prevent someone from sitting on a domain that they have no intent to use. We can assume that Kneen has paid about $160 in domain renewal fees.
However, I do like your idea of preventing "doing nothing". Just as ICAHN requires up to date information, maybe they should require that you direct it to a host that is to do something other than to sell the domain after X years.
When we can't afford to buy something, do we then say that the seller is "sitting" on the product?
I would like to buy a cottage on the lakeshore, but the owner (who doesn't use it) won't sell it to me at the price I would like to pay. Perhaps I should sue him?
Isn't this a problem that is hopefully solved by the huge number of new TLDs. I think it will eventually be a non-problem.
I have seen some many startups using .co, .io, and even an early stage using a .technology. I actually saw Harris Teeter, The Grocery Store, opening a new location in Northern Va and advertising that it was hiring with giant banner that said "harristeeter.jobs".
.com is here to stay, but there is still room for more top-TLDs
Society does not need to "benefit". His domain is is property, and some idiotic "start-up" certainly does not need to steal it. If their business relies on a name, then it's a worthless business.
I purchased a domain name about 5-6 years ago that I had every intention of creating something for. However, time and resources have slipped away from me and I've simply not gotten to it and my interest in the project has waned.
In the mean time, I've been contacted about selling the domain twice. Both times, the persons who contacted me, have failed to follow through on the purchase. I continue to renew the domain name in the hopes that someday, I'll get to the actual project, or perhaps my kids will.
Having said that, there are lots of things that would benefit society as a whole if we aren't using them, cars, houses, money, etc. I would argue that a domain name may, in some miniscule way, benefit society as a whole, but let's not kid ourselves, there are far more important things to accomplish than suing someone over a domain name he bought 16 years ago.
For the amount he was willing to sell for my guess is he just hadn't been approached yet. The article made it sound like he would sell it cheaply as long as the buyer was going to actually use it and not just resell it. If those implications are true I'd say we benefit as a society.
No, the renewal fee is fixed. The comment you're responding to suggests taxation on an appraised value. If you're sitting on a domain name for which there are documented offers of, say, $100,000, an appraised tax would assess you annually N% of $100,000.
> We manage to assess real estate without running into those problems.
We also don't generally use the documented offer standard you suggest for domain names for real property, but on objective features of the property, replacement costs based on those objective features, and application of a depreciation schedule to those features subject to depreciation.
Eh, California takes the sales price as the base price and has a 2% annual cap on increases. I guess you could charge a little bit more every year for domains, but that feels extortionist.
Yes we do. This is exactly the kind of society we want, where you can do as you please with your property as long as it does not psychologically, financially, physically hurt anyone.
Otherwise we will begin to go in your refrigerator and take the food that is certain to end in the garbage, go in your closet and take the clothes you haven't worn in x years, give you your money back for the vacation home you bought and visit only 7 days out of the year and remains locked the rest of the time.
Good point. Society should favour those who take fallow domain names and turn them into productive IP!
I suspect he did "nothing" (our term) with them by simply getting mere email via that domain, or running a background service, or even just musing in the back of his mind about building a business for which workbetter.com would be a good domain.
But let's just say Mehta starts his "coworking" space. Then perhaps society later deems it good to have a program that takes the underemployed and increases their skill levels. Or encourage those whose jobs have been replaced by robots to find more spiritually fulfilling and socially valuable volenteer jobs in the community. Then we can take the worksbetter.com name away from the useless coworking space and redirect it to a socially more beneficial use!
Look, I hate squatters, but Keen seems hardly even close to being one of them. What he is is someone who shows that the cost of getting rid of squatters is higher than the burden of having those parasites around.
That is actually how trademark already works, if you have enough money. E.g. well funded brands like Coke, Google, Facebook, can easily use trademark to retroactively remove rights to a name from anyone who wasn't actively using it for some non-squatting purpose - within certain trademark and legal scopes.
Doesn't matter if someone simply owned property with that name prior to the trademark. The test is more complex than that.
I am not sure if UK or US law will apply but in Commonwealth countries there is a clause in trademark law called Prior Use.
Basically if you are using an unregistered-trademark which is then later registered you are not considered to be infriging if you have been using this trademark before the trademark was registered.
Cyber squatting laws specifically call out that you need to have obtained the name with ill intent (i.e with intent to ransom it to an already registed trademark holder).
So no, that is not how trademark works, atleast in the codes of law I am familiar with.
I have sympathy for you but does it benefit society at large that you bought some comic books 20 yrs ago and did not yet sell them and still keep them in the attic?!
Would you argue that the guy who has owned the beautiful un developed downtown property for 16 (or 60) years should be forced to sell it to build a W hotel because it's a "better use" of the land? How about building an orphanage? To me it's the very definition of property rights. I get to do what I want with my property, including doing nothing (as long as I don't otherwise break the law).
Same could be said about real estate or any kind of assets in that matter. Thesaurizing isn't and shouldn't be illegal, this is a cornerstone to the right to personal property.