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Bruce Springsteen loses cybersquatting dispute


Rock star Bruce Springsteen has lost his bid to evict a fan club from a web site sporting his name on the grounds that the owner of brucespringsteen.com could show some rights or legitimate interests in the name.

A three-member panel of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (“WIPO”) ruled that a Canadian, Jeff Burgar, and the Bruce Springsteen Club had not violated Bruce Springsteen’s rights by registering the web site brucespringsteen.com.

Although the WIPO panel was split, the majority ruled that Burgar had “demonstrated that he had some rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name and [Springsteen] has failed to demonstrate that the domain name was registered and has been used in bad faith”.

Bruce Springsteen failed to present any evidence that Burgar had attempted to sell the domain name at any time.

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