(SF)

Original Story Here


Hamilton Alonso

It's enough to make the humblest man let out a resounding 'Woo-hoo!' - The Simpsons Movie has won its name back from a cybersquatter whose website contained sexually explicit pictures of Simpsons characters.

A U.N. agency has ruled that ownership of the domain name thesimpsonsmovie.com must be handed to Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, which owns the rights to the film, and the popular TV series of the same name.

Twentieth Century Fox filed a complaint to the World Intellectual Property Organization over the use of the film's name in the Internet address of a site registered by Keith Malley of New York.

Malley was using the address to divert Internet users to a Web site that included sexually explicit depictions of several characters from The Simpsons.

Later, he also redirected the domain to his 'Keith and the Girl' Web site. He was demanding a £24,370 ($50,000) fee from Twentieth Century Fox for the domain name's return, according to the July 22 ruling of the WIPO arbitration panel.

It found that Malley 'has no rights or legitimate interests with respect to the domain name' and ordered its immediate return.

The arbitration system, which was set up in 1999, allows those who think they have the right to a domain to gain control of it without having to fight a costly legal battle or pay large sums of money. Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman and Madonna are among the Hollywood stars who have previously won rulings against so-called 'cybersquatters.'

'The animated television series The Simpsons debuted in 1989, and has become one of the longest running network series in television history,' the ruling said, noting that Friday's long-awaited release of the film has generated huge public interest on the Internet.

WIPO said Malley's 'aim in registering the disputed domain name was to profit from and exploit' Twentieth Century Fox's trademark to promote and sell his own products and merchandise. Malley did not submit a defense in the case.

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Put me on wheels and I'll turn tricks.

Clever? Nah, I ran out of that years ago. But if you find this, let me know, k?
"The road goes ever on..." ~ Tolkien

In memory of my friend skip...
Go then, there are other worlds than these

Exactly. That's why he registered it.


It's called supply and demand! Part of what made America great. Now they can take our houses to build a shopping mall, and take our domain names & give them to others that deserve them but were too shortsighted to register them themselves.

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Though I am different from you,
We were born involved in one another.

For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul.

Complete surrender should not just come at moments in which one faces overwhelming odds, but in the calm when it seems one is personally in complete control of one's life.