Pop star Robbie Williams has won a dispute over the domain name
RobbieWilliams.info. Williams brought the case after Howard Taylor,
a Southampton-based IT consultant, registered the name and pointed
it to the web site of rival band Oasis.
Howard Taylor claimed in his defence that he was planning to set
up a fan club for Williams. According to the report by a WIPO
dispute resolution panel:
"He pointed the domain name to the Oasis
site to be controversial, to draw attention to the site, and to see
what interest there was in .info. He thought that the ‘rift’
between Robbie Williams and Mr Gallagher of Oasis was a public
relations exercise and ‘that anyone who knows about it would see
the humour’. There were only 50 hits to his site in 6 months (half
of which were caused by himself) and he does not believe any harm
would come to the Complainant. Once the Complaint was received, he
redirected the site as soon as was practicable to the Complainant's
site."
In fact, the domain pointed to Google’s search results for
“Robbie Williams” the first result being the official site.
The WIPO panelist, noting that Taylor also owned
ScottishWidows.info and PrincessDi.info, ordered him to transfer
the domain to Williams, reasoning that it was registered in bad
faith. He said in the decision: “This does not appear to be the
action of a fan, but rather the action of someone who wished to
provoke the Complainant.”
The decision
