The singer Madonna, whose full name is Madonna Louise Ciccone,
is challenging the present owner of the domain name madonna.com
before a panel of the World Intellectual Property Organisation
(WIPO). However, the owner is seeking to transfer the name instead
to a hospital.
Dan Parisi of New Jersey owns the domain name and previously
displayed pornography on the web site. He now uses it to explain
that: ”We were in the process of donating the domain name
madonna.com to Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital [which] owns
madonna.org when the WIPO domain name challenge was initiated. We
had finalised an agreement in June of 2000 to transfer the domain
name to Madonna Hospital.”
At present, the singer’s web site is found at
MadonnaFanClub.com. Parisi says she has no more right to the
madonna.com domain name than anyone else.
WIPO’s panel is expected to decide the matter by next week.
Recently, a WIPO panel refused to transfer the name sting.com to
the singer Sting, largely because it viewed the word as
generic.
