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Mmmmm… lawsuits

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The citizens of Springfield avoided a hijack last week after the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) ruled that a satirical podcaster had registered a domain for thesimpsonsmovie.com in bad faith. New Yorker Keith Malley had registered the URL in 1999, and had attempted to wrest $50,000 from Simpsons producers, 20th Century Fox, for its rights.

Fox lawyers complained to WIPO that the domain, as used by Malley, had redirected web surfers to a parody Simpsons page, and to Malley’s own Keith and the Girl site, which features an archive of comical podcasts. WIPO’s ruling declared that Malley had ‘no rights or legitimate interests with respect to the domain name,’ adding that Malley had intended ‘to profit from and exploit … one of the longest running network series in television history.’

Meanwhile, Malley has argued that Fox’s tactics throughout the suit amounted to ‘bullying’, claiming that a far smaller fee of $300 the studio offered him would not have paid for his site development plans.

The case was conducted through WIPO’s domain names arbitration system, established in 1999 to forestall costly legal battles in the mainstream courts.

It’s conclusion comes in the same week that a brace of heavyweight firms – including Yahoo!, Dell and the Marriott hotel group – have established the Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse, aiming to safeguard the digital real estate of major corporations. It promises to be a powerful force of activism, with president, Josh Bourne, claiming that ‘money isn’t an issue’ for its campaigning budget.