Ok.. hypothetically

Lets say some guy, we'll call him Tom, buys a domain name for a business he is starting. He registers it himself, personally, not under the business.

A few years later Tom expands and takes on a few partners. The business starts to grow, the company website is put on the web domain (that Tom owns).

A website for the company is up for ~1.5 years or so when Tom decides to leave the company.

What happens with the domain? Is it still property of Tom? Does he have a right to "sell" it back to the company that has been using it for over a year? What rights to the company have legally to get the domain from Tom? Is the company pretty much screwed?

1/23/2008 10:40:43 AM

Tom? I bet he could sell myspace.com for a lot of money.

1/23/2008 10:45:32 AM

domain names are generally only good for a year anyway, so he could always just not renew it and they could buy. He could also sell it to them at any time.

now if he didn't want to let go of it and kept renewing the domain in his name, yeah they're pretty much screwed.

1/23/2008 10:50:51 AM

Quote :

"Tom? I bet he could sell myspace.com for a lot of money."

It was sold in 2005. He only got $580 million though. Dumb Ass, Am I right?

1/23/2008 10:55:23 AM

i know domain names are renewed..

i've found a bunch of info regarding rights to domain names, but it is mostly geared towards registering a trademarked name or something close to a trademark named (ie, micros0ft.com). but i have no idea in this case.

1/23/2008 11:00:01 AM

Quote :

"now if he didn't want to let go of it and kept renewing the domain in his name, yeah they're pretty much screwed."

This is true to a point. Tim has to have a legitimate use for the domain. He can just hold it for squatting for extortion purposes.

For instance, I could buy the domain xyzcomputers.com. However, unless I use it for a business or website in some way related to an entity xyzcomputers, an actual company called xyzcomputers could file a claim with ICANN and I would be forced to turn over the domain to them for no more than registration costs.

[Edited on January 23, 2008 at 11:12 AM. Reason : wrong by]

1/23/2008 11:12:05 AM

^it's Tom, not Tim!

1/24/2008 1:53:33 AM

If tom leaves the business, he no longer has a legitimate use claim to the domain. You can force him to sell the domain to you for fair market value. Which means Tom could probably make a good chunk of change off of the domain name, but it greatly depends on the revenues of the company in question.

Now if the company were smart, they should have acquired ALL rights to the website domain as soon as the business begins to use the domain name.

1/24/2008 2:05:40 AM

$580 million??????

that ridiculous for something intangible

1/24/2008 4:24:06 AM

yeah, you're right. nothing on the interwebs are tangible and therefore not worth as much as the "real world"

1/24/2008 6:40:29 AM

for the first time, facebook has more new users than myspace.


THat zuckerburg kid will be a billionaire very shortly (the company is worth billions, but his share is not).

1/24/2008 10:36:16 AM