Sex.com Congrats!
 

Very nice ruling :thumbsup

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...h_sexdotcom_dc

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The owner of "sex.com," once considered one of the Internet's hottest addresses, can seek payment from the company that improperly transferred the domain to a "con man" who later fled to Mexico when ordered to pay $65 million, a court ruled on Friday.


The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that "computer-geek-turned-entrepreneur" Gary Kremen can hold VeriSign Inc.'s (Nasdaq:VRSN - news) Network Solutions unit liable for handing the sex.com Web address over to a "con man."


The decision has widespread implications for companies that register domains, which until now have not been held responsible when Web sites are switched from their rightful owners, a lawyer for the plaintiff said.


"This is a landmark Internet decision," said James Wagstaffe, Kremen's attorney. "It is the first time a court has applied traditional property protections to a domain name."


In April 2001, Stephen Cohen -- who lawyers said turned the sex.com domain into a multimillion-dollar porn empire -- was ordered to pay $65 million in compensation for lost profits and $25 million in punitive damages to Kremen in the largest judgment ever in a domain name theft case.


Kremen had registered the domain in 1994, but lost it the following year and did not recover it until 2000, long after the dot-com boom and bust.


But Kremen has been able to get only a fraction of the money because after the trial Cohen sent his assets out of the country and fled to Tijuana, Mexico, Wagstaffe said.


Kremen sued Network Solutions, the main registry of ".com" addresses which is now a part of VeriSign, charging that the company mishandled his domain name.


He argued he had a property right in the domain and that Network Solutions should be held liable for mistakenly giving it away.


The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit agreed with him and reversed a federal district court order in favor of Network Solutions, sending the case back to the lower court.


FORGED LETTER


Having recently been released from jail where he was sent after a conviction for impersonating a bankruptcy lawyer, Cohen used a forged letter to trick Network Solutions into transferring the domain to him, according to the appeals court.


The letter claimed that Kremen's business, Online Classifieds, did not have an Internet connection and included a forged signature.


Despite the fact that Network Solutions made no effort to contact Kremen, the lower court exempted the company from liability. The court concluded that although domain names are a form of property, they are intangible and thus not subject to the law governing wrongful taking of another's property.


The appeals court rejected that narrow interpretation, although it affirmed rulings in favor of Network Solutions on two other claims related to breach of contract.


"There is nothing unfair about holding a company responsible for giving away someone else's property even if it was not at fault," the appeals opinion said.


"Cohen is obviously the guilty party here, and the one who should in all fairness pay for his theft. But he's skipped the country, and his money is stashed in some offshore bank account," the written opinion said. "It would not be unfair to hold Network Solutions responsible and force it to try to recoup its losses by chasing down Cohen."


The case took a bizarre turn in 2001 after the district judge declared Cohen a fugitive from justice, signed an arrest warrant and sent the U.S. Marshals after him. Kremen then put a "wanted" poster on his sex.com site with a mug shot of Cohen and offered a $50,000 reward.

Cohen's lawyers asked the district court to vacate the arrest warrant, claiming that Cohen was under house arrest in Mexico and that his life would be threatened by gunfights between lawmen and bounty hunters. The court denied the motion.

The lawyer who represented VeriSign declined to comment and a spokeswoman for VeriSign's Network Solutions unit said the company does not comment on ongoing litigation.

Kremen, who lives in San Francisco and operates sex.com as a porn portal, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Good! They really only have themselves to blame.

Excellent news

$65 mil is pocket change for verisign. they won't even feel it
drop.

good ruling nonetheless, they deserve it.

:thumbsup

Prediction:

Gary will win big.

That decision will increase the cost to register domains.

Insurance rates for registrars will go up. It will become a more difficult process to transfer domains. The costs will be passed on to us.

Good to see VeriSign will finally be held responsible. :thumbsup

With the amount of domains registered it will probably simply be absorbed or be very, very marginal. I still say bloody good luck to him and I hope he wins.

Marginal? I doubt it. They're looking at their exposure now to all the domains they have. So will their insurance company.

Once again blood sucking lawyers cost us all a fortune.

Kick ass! Congrats guys! :thumbsup

glad to see the good guys win one for a change,

congrats on the ruling! :thumbsup

Awesome news for Gary! :thumbsup

not a chance.

$65 mil for verisign is a drop in a bucket.

they reg domains for $35/each when most companies reg them
for $8/each. they are the most popular registrar.

if this will do anything for the domain business is it will put
verisign on their feet. these fuckers have been slacking off
and running the game by their rules for many years.

domain name prices will never go up based on this ruling. i don't
know what you've been smoking man. :smokin

I don't.

:glugglug

if only you knew how many great domains got hijacked from
stupid ass verisign over the years and the tens of thousands
the owners had to spend to recover those domains (if ever),
you'd be doing what all the other registrars are doing. laughing
in verisigns face.

they deserved to get fucked this time, they've been robbing
people blind since the day they were Network Solutions.

Exactly now the blood sucking lawyers will go and file a ton of lawsuits. Verisign was the one stating that if they lost this case and domains could be considered property it would change the entire dynamics of the registrar system, the risk exposure and the cost structure.

This is a very important decision. Domain names are now property and cannot be taken without due process. Excellent decision.

right, but if you look at the statistics, it's Verisign that always
gets their names hijacked.

i'd say 99% of domain theft over the past 5 years has come
from Verisign. they are disorganized, money hungry mother
fuckers. their support sucks. i just closed a case with them
for a domain 2 years after it was hijacked.

read around on the domain forums, shit like this only happens
with verisign. and if for some strange reason it does happen
with another registrar icann is quick to jump in and fix the
shit.

in this case, since icann is verisign's bitch, they just let verisign
drag this through the legal system.

would verisign raise prices? sure, why not, who the fuck cares. i
wouldn't trust them with a $10 registration now (even though
its $35 there).

will this cause a "major price increase" with all the registrars? fuck
no, other registrars don't allow hijacking of this magnitude to
ever take place.

Nobody wins in this case-

There are only losers...but I think Gary will be worth another $30,000,000!

For all you Gary haters let's see how stupid Gary is when he beats NSI and collects his dowry.

Gary deserves it, this will be the money he didn't get out of Cohen revisited.

no doubt in my mind he deserves every penny of it...

Congrats, darling. You deserve this, and have done us all a favour with yet another ground-breaking win.

Thanks! :thumbsup

True, he still loses. Even if he was paid $65 mil, that just pays the Cohen debt. What about damages to the poor guy. How many others in the biz have been ripped off for that amount? The mental strain it can take on you knowing some ass stole your business.

But you know what, I'm sure $30,000,000 is a great start to better mental health. Gary is one of the nicest guys with a huge heart. He deserves that money.

He can throw crazy parties at the mansion with that loot!

good fuck verisign,

they deserve to go bankrupt.

Yep - you're right.

It's about fucking time. 'Grats to Gary :thumbsup


Nice win, as I knew it would be. Faith brother. Faith.

i don't know how to break this to you, but uhh, you're an idiot...

and did i mention your site sucks shit? ahh. great.:BangBang:

Have another look ...
I've been making the changes as requested by those in this room ... stronger wording ... and QUOTING MORE SOURCES ...

well. i just checked it out right now, and when i clicked enter site
it generated a bunch of errors.

It is a nice win but I think the damages were too low. During the rush years from 96 to 01 I think he could have pulled at least 100 mil out of Sex.com. I'd still be pissed if I were Gary.

wonder if this means i will have more luck getting domains back that were stolen from my Dotster account in april.

Really - grrrr ...
That's the problem with having two jobs ...
Will check that out ...tks ...

It's about g-d damn time! :)

Gary deserves this without a doubt!

The man's life was turned upside down for nearly a decade over this shit, and it was VeriSign/Network Solution's fault ... PERIOD

Whatever he get's moneywise will never replace the years of bullshit that he's been through. The fact remains that he got royally fucked, and no amount of money will ever change that!

Hopefully it won't take years for them to settle with him!

No matter how much people hate on Gary, it doesn't matter. He's a little eccentric ... but wouldn't you be if you went though the same crap he did?

IMHO he IS a brilliant guy that lives life by his own rules! That's a quality and characteristic I admire. The most successful people in this world do just that!

Congratz my friend! :thumbsup :thumbsup :thumbsup

Let's celebrate this weekend!

:)

no surprise here, glad to see it finally happen though.

Now begins the work though, going to court, getting a judgment, dealling with appeals, and finally collecting.

It has only just begun. Luckily, Gary like this stuff. :thumbsup

Well said, $tyle$!!

Excellent news, Gary!! :thumbsup

Congratulations Gary...well deserved indeed!