Iphone Domain now belongs to Apple.What would you have done if you bought it in 95.

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nmwando

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Oct 26, 2006
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raleigh
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If you have been following all this apple gist heres some more juice

This guy should have just installed vb bulletin or something and created a user community, jesus doesnt anyone with damn good domains ever read ajon.com. Shame i tell ya.

Shit heres what i would have done. Looking around the web at websites from lee "i run fucking expensive elite retreats" dodd same shit. I would have followed what jon has done with wicked fire.
Start with a blog, collect everything from tutorials to special coupons and give them away. Collect about 100k worth of ipod, iphone and everything else iapple accesories. Have competition for every 1000 members, fuck following what jon did with wickedfire damnit i woudlnt be suprised if he had 100k posts within a week or 2. Its the iphone from brainwashed apple fans.

Hmm, find out what apple complaints are and within the next 2 months make sure i am on top of ANY PROBLEM THAT THE IPHONE IS HAVING.
Also make the community with a free for all section cough* shooting the shit *cough only call it shooting the phone shit lol. More, more you say i would buy a shitload of apple dev con passes and whatever conference is out there and throw non stop competitions that would make my poor dedicated servers get a 40x digg effect.
Nothing new, find out who our chris linge is on wicked iphone and ban his ass lol or whatever, make sure Byaphone stays around (cool guy).More free shit, and more free shit until my poor iphoners are just fucking addicted.

Offer a free lifetime iphone plans and more free shit over a period of 8 months and offer crazy prizes that would make ilounge look cheap.
This is nothing new just from watching how Wf has grown i beleive we all have a template of how to build communities and make lee dodd and his 5000 k retreats look like fucking panzies.
So what would you have done. :)

I surely wouldnt have sold that fucking domain, apple would have panned more than a fucking million bucks. Oh yes sir i would have been making at least 300k or more a month with my iphone domain. I think i am beggining to see the real value of domains and communities. That bitch just let go more than 30 million bucks or more and he owns golf, win and jesus what are this guys doing.
hehe anyway enough venting.
 


True, although I don't know if fucking with a multi billion dollar company would have been a good idea. Maybe he would have made alot more, but risking to end up without the domain and huge lawyer bills instead ?


Apple = 600 pound gorilla
Michael Kovatch = Michael Kovatch

Michael tells gorilla that he legally owns the domain and wants to use it on his own. Gorilla knows Michael is right, but doesn't like this fact.

Knockout after 10 seconds
 
I'm not sure that Apple or Cisco could have wrestled it away from him even if they wanted to. He regged it before either company had an "iphone" product.

So, the only way they could get it was with CASH! I'm sure he got plenty of it too. The author only speculates that it was a 7 figure deal, but what's to say it wasn't an 8 figure deal? Nobody knows.
 
I mean its like having ipod.com back when the ipods just came outand me sell that sucka for 300k just because its apple. Fuck that if you look at posts like this here the net really hasnt matured that much. I would read and read and develop communities nonstop. With a domain like iphone.com jesus. heheh So SEO mike, what would you do if you owned the domain.
 
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nmwando, you don't know what you're talking about. There are legal issues regarding Apple's trademark on the word iPhone. Even though he registered the domain before Apple filed the mark doesn't mean he is allowed to profit from it, that's illegal. Knowing this, your master plan to make an iPhone fansite is negated.

Sure, he could've put up a bunch of dating and car loan banners ads and collected on the PPC without directly violating their mark. Or, he could sell for a low $x,xxx,xxx deal, which he did. He made the smart choice. Apple can do a lot more with that domain than he can, so they would be willing to overpay his PPC-multiples for it.

Simply a good deal for both parties involved. I'm not sure why some of you want to badmouth rather than congratulate him and witness another success in the domain industry.
 
You seem to know a thing or two about the legal implications of owning that domain before apple had the ipod. What route would you have followed with the domain.
Questions to you,

1. If i had owned the domain and decided to create a iphone support forum what wrong would i be doing. I am not supporting nokia on there.
What kind of legal implications would be involved.
I find what you are saying interesting, got more juice. thanks.
 
nmwando, I'm not very well versed on this so please take everything I say with a grain of salt. I have a lawyer that handles this serious stuff for me. I'll do my best to give you what I think is correct though, since this board has no other serious domainers (Unless that was really Rick Latona posting!). There are two main ways of getting in trouble in the US with a trademark infringing domain name.

The first is the universal domain-name dispute resolution policy (UDRP) that all registrars follow for domain disputes. You agree to this in the T&C of your registrar when you buy a .com. This policy is decided by an arbitration panel rather than in a US court, and if you lose, the domain is transfered from you to the complainant.

To win a UDRP the complainant must show that the domain name is:
a) identical or confusingly similar to their mark
b) the respondant has no rights of legitimate uses to the domain
c) the domain is used in bad faith

It looks like there is a lot of vague wording in there, and there is, so most UDRP cases use precedence to determine what constitutes something like "bad faith." An example of bad faith though, would be attracting adsense ads related to the complainants product and therefore profiting from their mark.

The second way you can get screwed is under the anti-cybersquatting protection act (ACPA). This is a little different, and since it takes place under US jurisdiction, the complainant can be awarded damages up to $100,000 per domain for infringement. Generally, you won't see the ACPA come into play unless someone is infringing on a mega corporation (Like Apple, Microsoft, ect) and on a mass level.


1. If i had owned the domain and decided to create a iphone support forum what wrong would i be doing. I am not supporting nokia on there.
What kind of legal implications would be involved.

Okay, so to get to your question. By opening an iPhone support forum, you would be using a domain name identical or confusingly similar to their mark and profiting from it. The fact is, people that go to iPhone.com would be looking for the Apple product. You would then be representing that product without legitimate rights to their trademark. That's really all it takes, and the domain is gone.

There are some positives going for you if you were dead set on keeping the domain name though. The domain was registered before their trademark was filed or first used in commerce. Also, it is a somewhat generic term given that i's and e's are popular prefixes with electronics, affixed to an electronic device like a phone. Still though, you better come up with your own product called an iPhone, cus the second you use their mark on your site, your site is donezo.

Hope that helps
 
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hahah thanks dullspace, now thats the kinda response i was hoping for and yes i didnt know what i was talking about just yoddling out my thoughts and honestly appreciate your input.

Thanks man it seems you are a player in the domain market. :) Lucky fucka sold his portofolio for fucking million bucks. I hope he doesnt use adwords damn i would hate to be on the same niche as he is. .. heheh.
 
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