Gary Kremen, the man who registered the domain name sex.com in 1994
and lost it the following year in a fraudulent transfer, has been
awarded the sum of $65 million in damages by a Californian district
court.
Stephen Cohen, an ex-convict, took the name from Kremen by
sending a forged letter of transfer to Network Solutions, the
domain registrar. Cohen then ran a highly profitable porn portal
until November last year when a court awarded Kremen the return of
the domain name having found that the forged signature on the
letter to Network Solutions misspelled Kremen’s name.
US District Judge James Ware this week ordered Cohen to transfer
to Kremen all assets related to the sex.com business, in addition
to $40 million in compensatory damages and $25 million in punitive
damages. However, Cohen did not appear in court and is the subject
of an arrest warrant which will remain in effect until he
surrenders all his property to the court in San Jose. He is thought
to be residing in Tijuana, Mexico, with his assets tied up in
offshore bank accounts.
Kremen is reported as saying that he wants to move sex.com
“toward a Maxim magazine model … softer, [with] more context around
the content.” He told MSNBC.com, “We’re working on a deal [for
content on] … sex education, disease prevention, women’s oriented
stuff, stuff that you normally don’t see in the [adult] space. And
we’re doing it because we think we can make money at it.”
