In 2000, Mr. Benjamin Cohen (London) purchased the domain name itunes.co.uk from a London registrar, Nominet. Earlier this month, Nominet handed the domain over to Apple without Mr. Cohen’s consent. Cohen has applied for a judicial review claim that Nominet doesn’t like small businesses, and Nominet claims that Cohen was abusing his domain by using it as a redirect and for offering to sell the domain name.

It seems to me that it is Mr. Cohen’s domain and he can do what he wants with it. The only issue here is one of perhaps the same as in the case of Microsoft Corp. vs. Mike Row, where Mr. Row purchased the domain mikerowsoft.com and was sued by the Microsoft Corporation, who claimed that since it would be pronounced basically the same, they could be the only legal owners of the domain. If I recall, it was settled out-of-court.

From the BBC News:

“The domain name, in the hands of the respondent [Mr Cohen], is an abusive registration on the grounds of its use in a manner taking unfair advantage of, and being unfairly detrimental to, the rights of the complainant [Apple].”

Mr Cohen claims not to have heard of Apple’s iTunes music download service until after it was launched last year.

He says he was contacted by lawyers for the company threatening to issue a High Court writ unless he ceased using the itunes.co.uk domain name.

[Continue reading Legal Row Over iTunes Domain Name]

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