Did anyone ever find out if Dutch offered to give the domain back BEFORE Mason hired an attorney?
If so, then Mason was being a dick here by still pursuing the damages.
If Dutch refused and only agreed to return it AFTER the attorney got involved, then I agree with Mason's desire to recover damages at that point, especially with attorney fees being so high.
Log on to my new website www.toddwittelespoker.com for in depth coverage and analysis of this issue.Originally Posted by Dan Druff
Can we get a comment from A Scocozza?
Doesn't matter, Mason would have sued him anyway.
Probably, because he doesn't want more haters to do the same thing.
What if some kid in Russia registered a bunch of TwoPlusTwo domains?
How did Mason find out that Dutch Boyd registered the domain?
If you do a WHOIS search on a domain now, most of the time it gives you no information.
IIRC the ownership was hidden and Mason had to hire the attorney and incur expenses to dig up the owner of the domain.
That is reasonable, but this doesn't seem to be a part of Mason's official story on the matter:IIRC the ownership was hidden and Mason had to hire the attorney and incur expenses to dig up the owner of the domain.
Hi Everyone:
As many of you know, Two Plus Two has been in an ongoing legal battle against professional poker player Dutch Boyd who registered the domain name TWOPLUSTWOPOKER.COM without our knowledge or permission, and attempted to profit from it. After several unsuccessful attempts to negotiate with Boyd in good faith, we had no choice but to file suit against him. We don’t enjoy litigation, but in this case it was necessary to protect our name and brand.
More than two years ago, in March of 2012, the United States District Court agreed with our position and granted summary judgment against Boyd, awarding Two Plus Two statutory damages and attorney’s fees for Boyd’s violation of the federal anti-cybersquatting act. Boyd then appealed the District Court’s ruling to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal and challenged the judgment on several different grounds.
Last week, the Ninth Circuit upheld Two Plus Two’s judgment in full, agreeing with the District Court that Boyd’s actions were wrongful and that Boyd acted in bad faith in registering the domain name at issue. The Ninth Circuit also confirmed that Boyd’s registration was willful and deliberate, and therefore that the award of Two Plus Two’s attorney’s fees was proper.
We are very pleased with the Ninth Circuit’s decision and thankful that after several years (and barring any further appeals by Boyd) it looks like this lawsuit is finally over.
Best wishes,
Mason Malmuth
I guess it's possible that Mason hired the lawyer to identify the person behind the domain name, and THEN tried to negotiate with Boyd, but that leaves out a pretty big part of the story.
Mason's account implies that they knew it was Boyd, tried to negotiate with him to get the domain back, and when that failed, had to sue him.
But what were the negotiations? They could have gone various ways:
1) Mason offers a nominal sum of money to Boyd for the domain, Boyd refuses, Mason sues him
-or-
2) Mason demands the return of the domain for free, Boyd refuses, Mason sues him
-or-
3) Mason demands both the domain and his lawyers fees (and perhaps something on top of that), Boyd refuses, Mason sues him
I would love to know the actual story here.
Also, why did Mason have to hire the lawyer to identify Dutch before negotiating with him? Couldn't he have demanded to the faceless owner of the site that he wanted the domain, with the threat of a lawsuit if he didn't return it?
Dutch's Kickstarter-funded book is supposedly coming out this weekend, albeit about a year late.
Here is a Pokerlistings article where they interview Dutch about several subjects, including the Mason lawsuit: http://www.pokerlistings.com/dutch-b...preciate-71254
In this article, Dutch insists that he tried to give twoplustwopoker.com to Mason as soon as he asked for it.
It was definitely a downer. I actually lost the judgement two years ago though. This week they just turned down my appeal.
It wasn’t really a big surprise. It was really unfortunate. Mason [Malmuth] basically spent a lot of money just to prove a point and stick it in me.
It was for cyber-squatting but I didn’t really cyber-squat in the traditional sense. I registered it. I bought like 500 domain names and that one slipped through.
As soon as they approached me I offered to give it to them for free.
When the cyber-squatting law was written it was because people were demanding millions of dollars for domains.
I registered a lot of sites that could have been considered cyber-squatting but I gave them back to the people they belonged to.
twoplustwopoker.com wasn’t even worth keeping. They ended up suing me after it expired. They had the domain name back and they just felt like spending $40k to prove a point. It was basically a money grab.
I didn’t really do anything to Mason. I don’t understand where he’s coming from. I’d always heard he was a reasonable person. It doesn’t really make sense to me to put someone in bankruptcy for the fun of it.
It sucks. I don’t think anything positive came out of it.
I think there’s something wrong with Mason. I think that he’s got a persecution complex. I don’t really think he has a lot of friends because he thinks that everyone is out to get him. I feel sorry for him, really.
He has a reputation as being someone that doesn’t play well with others.
I will say that Dutch was indeed a cybersquatter, and in fact his company Jacknames.com even implies that. I am presuming the term "Jacknames" came from the fact that he was "jacking" domain names from others.
There was a guy I knew -- an older guy who took a lot of pictures at poker tournaments from about 2005-2010 -- whose domain name was "jacked" by Dutch. I know this because I used to visit this guy's site occasionally, and one day it was gone. I saw him in the Bellagio, and asked him what happened to his website. He said that Dutch had grabbed the registration when he let it expire, and was asking for money. Later he told me that he paid Dutch to get it back.
I forget the guy's name. I think it was Steve. He especially liked to take pictures of young women in poker. Anyone know who I'm talking about?
Steve Hall, at PokerFolio.com
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...h-boyd-348382/
folio.
Yeah, that was his name. Steve Hall.Steve Hall, at PokerFolio.com
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...h-boyd-348382/
folio.
How I could forget a name with "folio" in it, I have no idea.
Also, my read on the Mason negotiating thing is not that he negotiated to get the domain back, he wanted to negotiate a settlement where ol' Dutchie paid him off for the revenue Dutch stole by running affiliate links and ads on twoplustwopoker.com. Mason contacted dutch about the domain and damages, Dutch gave up the URL, Mason still wanted to negotiate damages, Dutch was all "Dude I gave you the site" and so Mason sued. That's how I pictured it anyway.
Here was Dutch's explanation of the Pokerfolio debacle, from the 2008 thread on 2+2:
First off, I didn't steal the domain name from Steve. He let the name expire. I can definitely sympathize, as I've let a ton of really great domains expire because I neglected them and didn't renew in time. Pokerspot.com and Rakefree.com, for example, both expired and ended up in the hands of domain speculators. I was even a few days away from losing DutchBoyd.com.
Pokerfolio.com is a great domain and I picked it up with the intention of using it as a website showcasing my poker domain name portfolio. I didn't know it had previously belonged to Steve, or that he was using it on his business cards and identity. I didn't purchase this domain name with the intention of selling it back to Steve Hall. I picked it up on its own merits. It cost me $60 at an aftermarket auction (which is usually where domains go when they expire).
A few weeks later Steve approached me at a Bellagio prelim and told me that he lost the name and I now had it. We talked very briefly, since I was playing the tournament... I told him he was pretty lucky that I was the one who ended up with it and that I'd be more than happy to sell the name back to him. I threw out a hundred dollars, which I figured was more than a reasonable offer. I spent sixty on the name and I should be able to take at least a little for my time. He kind of hesitated, and my read was that he was kind of strapped for cash... so I told him I'd be happy to take some photos or something in lieu of cash. I also told him to email the nameservers so I could point the domain over while we get it figured out.
I almost believed this all to be a big misunderstanding until I read the bolded part.
First off, I'm not sure I believe he spent $60 for the domain name. You could register these for a few dollars, even in 2008. However, it's true that some registrars charge a premium for registering recently-expired domains, so I suppose the $60 is possible.
However, the fact that he wanted $40 for his "time" is a joke. Just give the guy back the freaking domain name at cost, and apologize for the misunderstanding.
Anyway, if Dutch really gave the guy the domain in exchange for a few pictures, that's a different story, and I guess there's not much to make of this. When I saw Steve, he told me that he had paid Dutch for it, which may not have ended up being true.
I'm also somewhat doubtful that Dutch made much money from twoplustwopoker.com. I can't see why he would refuse to provide the information regarding how much he made from the site, unless he just didn't have it. You would think he would be happy to provide that if he just made a few bucks. I guess it's possible that he made more than we would expect, but honestly I can't see a site like twoplustwopoker.com making very much money, unless he had sold advertising to suckers, pretending that it was actual 2+2. I doubt Dutch did that, so this part of the story is kind of strange.
That's probably how it went down, but do you think Dutch really made much from the site?
If he made just a few bucks on it, why not just give that money to Mason and be done with it?
No, not likely.
Because Dutch Boyd.
Given Dutch went to law school didn't he, Malmuth probably want to pound him in court to really rub it in.
Plus the implied embarrassment that Dutch is hella broke adds to the pleasure.
When faced with a difficult decision, ask yourself "What would Micon do?", then do the opposite.
PFA Rookie of the Year Awards
2012: The Templar (unknown)
2013: Jasep $5000+
2015: Micon's gofundme legal defense $3k begging for 100k:
2018: 4Dragons
2019: Dutch Boyd: Mike Postle
2020: Covid19
2021: SMIFlorida and some sort of shit coins for $50k
2022: BDubs leaks chums club info
2023: 22nd Feb 4th Dec Youtube channels removed
2024: Dustin Morgan wins Chrissy's $1000 contest
The process of a lawsuit is extremely stressful and frustrating and a pre-trial settlement with a small penalty plus costs would have been the preferred path, so when you finally win and on appeal it holds up, you are going to be happy/relieved about it. The settlement would have been a lot less than the ultimate judgement. His negotiating was pretty much comprised of telling Mason and his Lawyer to gfy.
IANAL but what I understand is that a company needs to protect their trademarks. Failure to do so opens you up to anyone taking and running with it as they can point to the fact that you didn't protect it in earlier cases.
In the beginning...That is reasonable, but this doesn't seem to be a part of Mason's official story on the matter:
Hi Everyone:
As many of you know, Two Plus Two has been in an ongoing legal battle against professional poker player Dutch Boyd who registered the domain name TWOPLUSTWOPOKER.COM without our knowledge or permission, and attempted to profit from it. After several unsuccessful attempts to negotiate with Boyd in good faith, we had no choice but to file suit against him. We don’t enjoy litigation, but in this case it was necessary to protect our name and brand.
More than two years ago, in March of 2012, the United States District Court agreed with our position and granted summary judgment against Boyd, awarding Two Plus Two statutory damages and attorney’s fees for Boyd’s violation of the federal anti-cybersquatting act. Boyd then appealed the District Court’s ruling to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal and challenged the judgment on several different grounds.
Last week, the Ninth Circuit upheld Two Plus Two’s judgment in full, agreeing with the District Court that Boyd’s actions were wrongful and that Boyd acted in bad faith in registering the domain name at issue. The Ninth Circuit also confirmed that Boyd’s registration was willful and deliberate, and therefore that the award of Two Plus Two’s attorney’s fees was proper.
We are very pleased with the Ninth Circuit’s decision and thankful that after several years (and barring any further appeals by Boyd) it looks like this lawsuit is finally over.
Best wishes,
Mason Malmuth
I guess it's possible that Mason hired the lawyer to identify the person behind the domain name, and THEN tried to negotiate with Boyd, but that leaves out a pretty big part of the story.
Mason's account implies that they knew it was Boyd, tried to negotiate with him to get the domain back, and when that failed, had to sue him.
But what were the negotiations? They could have gone various ways:
1) Mason offers a nominal sum of money to Boyd for the domain, Boyd refuses, Mason sues him
-or-
2) Mason demands the return of the domain for free, Boyd refuses, Mason sues him
-or-
3) Mason demands both the domain and his lawyers fees (and perhaps something on top of that), Boyd refuses, Mason sues him
I would love to know the actual story here.
Also, why did Mason have to hire the lawyer to identify Dutch before negotiating with him? Couldn't he have demanded to the faceless owner of the site that he wanted the domain, with the threat of a lawsuit if he didn't return it?
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...tement-660963/
Interesting. Never knew the whole story.In the beginning...
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...tement-660963/
If this is true, I agree Mason was right to sue him.
So Dutch is just outright lying about everything? I would love to see his response to this.
Pretty much. The wayback machine website only contains text and none of the graphics or banners but it was loaded with dozens of links and banners on every page. About 10+ pages deep.
http://web.archive.org/web/200708230...stwopoker.com/
How anyone can assign any credibility to anything he states escapes me.
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