Originally Posted by
propoker
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:
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?