Domain name registration and copyright infringement

A very important question arises in the early stages of
development of a web site – what would be the most appropriate
domain name? Domain names are representative of the address for
a web site, and there is a rising trend of incidents of disputes
over domain name registration with increased usage of Internet.

There are numerous factors that have led to a crisis of domain
registration disputes and this, in turn, has led to a rapid
increase in the reported cases of infringement of domain names.
Several companies have taken legal action against other
companies or individuals over alleged copyright violation on the
domain names.

There are some basics that you should understand before choosing
a domain name registration:

1. Use of two similar trademarks should not confuse customers
about the products or services.

2. If there is a legal conflict over use of similar trademarks,
the first user is likely to win the case.

3. The later user would to give up his claim if he cannot proves
his point and may have to pay the first owner damages.

You should apply these principles to your domain registration
selection process:

1. The best method to avoid conflict of trademarks is to search
the trademark database of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
at www.uspto.gov. It provides you with all registered and
pending trademarks. Try to search for your proposed trademark as
well as other similar names and variant spellings. 2. You must
be able to justify your reason for using the name. Your domain
registration should principally consist of a name you are using
as a trade name, trademark or corporate name.

3. It is better to select more than one name since you are not
sure about the availability of the required domain name.

If on searching for the desired domain name, you find that the
name has already been registered but there is no content being
displayed at the domain, try to find out the details of the
owner of the domain registration. It is possible that he/she may
be genuine and have yet not published any content.

But it is equally possible that the owner does not plan to
develop a web site and is willing to give you the domain at the
original price. You must confirm that the seller has ownership
rights for that particular domain name registration.

The regulations governing copyright issues for domain names are
governed by Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
(ICANN).

It is very likely that you would lose right of your domain name
registration if you have intentionally chosen a name similar to
another domain name so as to confuse potential visitors to the
site. For example, if your site deals in consumer electronics
goods made by a Samsung competitor, do not choose the name
“samsungbusiness.com” since a court is most likely to pass a
verdict that you selected this name to divert attention of
Samsung customers.

There could be others reasons of losing a domain registration:

1. You have never carried out any business under that name 2.
There is no person in your company similar to that name 3. You
are planning to sell that domain name to your competitor for
financial gain.

If your domain name is same as your name then you may be allowed
to continue to use it, despite of the fact that it is similar to
someone else’s domain name. But the usage of such a name is
governed by certain condition set by court. For example, Mr.
Suki Nokia, who runs a cosmetics business, may be allowed to use
the domain name “nokia.kr” but he would barred from using his
site to demonstrate any electronics-related information or
advertising.

A very useful tip to buy all three of the top level domains -
..com, .net and .org. You should buy all possible misspellings of
your domain name before anybody else takes advantage of this
fact.

If on searching, you find similar names, ask yourself the
following questions:

1. Will the products/services on your site compete with the
products/services on similar domain names?

2. Will your distribution channels for products be same for
products being sold under the similar domain names?

3. Will your site distract business away from the site with the
similar name?

4. Is the other name quite famous?

If you get negative answers to all these questions, you can feel
confident to go ahead with your domain name registration without
any worry of a legal hassle.

Domain Registration Without Copyright Violation

The selection of a domain name registration is one of the most important features in the development of a web site. Domain names are representative of the address for a web site, and disputes over domain names are becoming more common with increased penetration of Internet.

Various factors have led to a crisis of domain names and this, in turn, has led to a rapid increase in the reported cases of infringement of domain registration. A number of companies have taken legal action against other companies or individuals over alleged copyright violation of the domain names.

There are some basics that you should understand before choosing a trademark or domain registration:

1. Use of two similar trademarks should not confuse customers about the products or services

2. If there is a legal conflict over use of similar trademarks, the first user is likely to win the case

3. The later user would to give up his claim if he cannot prove his point and may have to pay the first owner damages.

You should apply these principles to your domain name registration process.

There are some basic guidelines for choosing a domain name:

1. You must be able to justify your reason for using the name. Your domain name should principally consist of a name you are using as a trade name, trademark or corporate name.

2. It is better to select more than one name since you are not sure about the availability of the required domain name.

3. If the domain name that you are looking has already been registered but there is no content being displayed at the domain, try to find out the details of the owner of the domain. It is possible that he/she may be genuine and have yet not published any content.

4. It is also possible that the owner does not plan to create a web site but is willing to give you the domain at the original price. You must confirm that the seller has ownership rights for that particular domain name.

Choosing a domain name registration that is same as or quite similar to another well-known trademark, may lead to legal action. The regulations governing these issues are dealt by Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

It is very likely that you would lose right of your domain registration if you have intentionally chosen a name similar to another domain name so as to confuse potential visitors to the site. For example, if your site deals in consumer electronics goods made by a Samsung competitor, do not choose the name “samsungbusiness.com” since a court is most likely to pass a verdict that you selected this name to divert attention of Samsung customers.

There could be others reasons of losing a domain name registration:

1. You have never carried out any business under that name

2. There is no person in your company similar to that name

3. You are planning to sell that domain name to your competitor for financial gain

If your domain name is same as your name then you may be allowed to continue to use it, inspite of the fact that it is similar to someone else’s domain name. But the usage of such a name is governed by certain condition set by court. For example, Mr. Suki Nokia, who runs a cosmetics business, may be allowed to use the domain name “nokia.kr” but he would barred from using his site to demonstrate any electronics-related information or advertising.

In the traditional world, two companies may have the same name if they do not conduct a similar business. For example, Roxy Electrical and Roxy Laundry can coexist comfortably. However, in the web world, both Roxies cannot own the “roxy.com” domain name. The laundry Roxy could register under “roxy.laundry” and the electrician under “roxy.electrical.”

A very useful tip is to buy all three of the top level domains – .com, .net and .org. You should buy all possible misspellings of your domain name before anybody else takes advantage of this fact.

The most appropriate way to choose a domain name is to satisfy your own marketing requirements but at the same time do not conflict it with anyone else’s domain name.

Copyright © Active-Domain.com

Common Domain Registration Mistakes

Registering a domain name is a very important part of building a website and can affect your search engine results so it’s important not to make certain mistake when registering domain names.

Below you’ll find some common mistakes that you can easily avoid if you just take the time to thoroughly search for the correct domain names.

Not Registering A .COM Domain

The reason that I think that this is a huge mistake is because people are accustomed to typing in a domain name with the .COM extension. If you register a .NET, .ORG, .US, etc you are just losing out on repeat traffic.

The reason is that people remember the domain name but often times don’t pay attention to the extension. When they attempt to go back to your site they type YourDomain.com which of course belongs to your competitor and thus you’ve lost out on return traffic.

Not Registering Every Extension

With domain prices being so affordable it just makes sense to register every extension during the domain name registration process. There’s no reason to let a competitor or domain squatter register the other extensions of your domain name and possibly put up a website of questionable content or even try to sell you the extension for many times more than you could have paid. http://www.websitespot.com has affordable domain names so registering every domain extension is by no means expensive.

Using Too Many Dashes

I understand the importance of keywords in a domain name for search engine optimization purposes but if you want to brand your website for people to return to the last thing you want to do is register Your-Main-Website-Keywords.com. It’s difficult to remember and I can’t think of anything that looks more unprofessional. As a matter of fact, if at all possible I wouldn’t recommend registering a domain name with dashes at all.

Not Registering A Domain Name For Multiple Years

The chance of losing a domain name due to it expiring isn’t great considering the number of reminders that are sent but I just don’t see how it’s worth chancing it. You may change your email address and not receive the notices or something like that.

It’s best to register your domains for multiple years so this doesn’t happen, plus you generally receive a discounted rate during domain name registration for registering for multiple years. Again, http://www.websitespot.com is too affordable to not consider registering your domain name for multiple years.

As you can see, the mistakes aren’t hard to avoid. It’s just a matter of taking your time and doing your due diligence before rushing into registering a domain name that you may regret down the road.

How to Choose the Best Domain Name For Your Business

Choosing your own domain name is very important and can be critical to your success as a network marketer. Take your time and choose the right one.

Why is it important for you to choose a domain name you are happy with? You need to realize that once you start your business and/or have a lot of customers you will not be able to change your domain name. If you do you will lose all of the advertising exposure for the previous domain name and you will look unprofessional to all your customers.

To set up a domain name you need to find a domain hosting company. There are plenty of hosting companies you can find on the internet and buying your own domain name is not very expensive. You can usually buy domains for $5-$10 a piece, per year.

“Mike’s domain registration rules:” Rule #1: keep it simple. You want to find a domain name that is easy to say, easy to spell, and easy to remember. This is not optional. If you can’t find an address that fits all three of these qualifications, keep looking.

If you are giving your website address to someone over the phone or to a group on a conference call, there can be no room for misinterpretation or spelling errors which means you need to follow the next piece of advice.

Rule #2: Register plural and hyphenated versions. You want to register all plural and hyphened versions of your domain name of choice in order to capture anyone who might misspell the name, and to protect yourself from competition who will intentionally register any domains similar to yours.

Now this is not going to matter much if you are just a tiny fish in the big internet pond and you are aren’t promoting yourself in a massive way. But if you ever start to brand yourself and that domain name, then you need to follow these suggestions.

I recently started a project on creating lead generating capture pages, so the very first thing I did was register several possible domain names for it. (The hyphened and plural versions of each name).

Do not leave a door wide open for a competitor to leech visitors and customers through a similar domain name. You can bet that if I had not registered a hyphenated version of my domain name right after registering my real domain name a cyber squatter would have bought it and would have then owned a very valuable piece of internet real estate. (And he’d probably have a law-suit on his hands).

Always remember that entrepreneurs are opportunistic people by nature. Just do it right the first time and you won’t have to worry about any of these issues.

Rule #3: Use the top “key words” In the domain itself. (But not every time. I will explain why in Rule #5). Search engines give high relevance to sites with top key words in the domain name itself, and a higher relevance for .com names over any of the other extensions like .net .biz . org or .info.

So how do you find the right key words to use? Head to a search engine and go to the resources page for current advertisers, and click on the link for key word selector tool. (Most, but not all, search engines have a tool like this).

Type in a common search term for your category or product or service. Example: If I type “capture pages,” it brings back the following results: The top result is “lead capture pages,” so I would want to try and register something with the words “lead” and “capture,” right in the domain name itself.

NOTE: If the .com version of your preferred domain is unavailable, choose another. You want to have the .com address, because that is what your visitors will automatically type in when going by memory. And if they do not, many will type it in just out of curiosity, and if it is owned by a competitor, you are in trouble.

Rule #4: pay attention to phonics when purchasing a domain name. Try not to use numbers unless you can purchase both the numerical and alphabetical names. If you can find a domain name with both listings available, then go for it.

Rule #5: Register a “generic” domain name that can be used to promote anything now and in the future. Choosing a generic domain name can be very important when generating leads if you are a network marketer. 99% of the time, you do not want to have the name of your company or product in the domain name because your capture page is not going to be promoting your company, it will be promoting you or your business team.

Why? Because I want to keep control of what my prospects see and when. I want to keep control of the presentation of my business and the timeline in which it takes place. My prospect does not know what company I am with until I tell them. They cannot look at my network marketing opportunity website until I give it to them.

Most network marketers will register a domain name with their company name in it, but what if you change companies? What if you decide to leave your vitamin company and decided to sell products for another natural health company? What are you going to do with an email address (that everyone now knows, with your company name in it) when you change companies?

That is why you always register a generic domain name to use for your email correspondence that you can keep forever, no matter what kind of business you decide to build.

I chose a very generic domain name for my first website for this reason: Once you have a generic domain, you can always register another one for your specific opportunity that you can give to your prospects when the time is right. I have purchased over 100 domains in the last year alone. It is like owning cyber real estate.

This is probably going to be a very frustrating process for you if this is your first time
registering a domain name. Why? Because you will soon find out that 19 out of 20 domain names you think of will already be taken. Coming up with something generic is pretty easy though.

Here are a few ideas: Use your name in combination with an extension, like “LLC” or “Inc.” Think of a company name, or “Doing Business As”, name. Once again, keep these three rules in mind; easy to say, easy to spell, and easy to remember. If your last name happens to be Leibowitz, then pick something else!

Rule #6: You want to buy the .com, net, and .biz versions of each domain you choose. When coming out with a new product I might end up buying a total of 15 a domain names: each with a different “.” ending.

You get the idea. Purchasing this many domain names for one project is not necessary, just recommended. So go ahead and make your purchase, but do not buy any of the other services your registration company will want to sell you like traffic generation, search engine submission, etc. You do not need those.

All you need are the domain names, and a basic hosting account which you can set up with any of the many hosting companies.

Start with the domain search box. You will get to know this one well as you search for a name that is actually available. Continue to search until you find a name that meets all of the criteria we have discussed today.

Once you find a name that works, choose to register the .com, .biz, and .info names. Go ahead and start the check out process. Skip all of the extra services they will try and sell you. You do not need them.

I only register my domains for one year at a time to keep costs down. They will automatically renew each year as long as your credit card on file is current. If it is not, your hosting company will notify you.

Congrats! You now own your very first domain name!

How to Do Domain Registration at Yahoo