insight 

Occasionally domain name stories appear in the media solely because the name itself is of big enough interest, as was the case this week with a small spate of tales about the web site acdc.com, which has recently come into the hands of the band ACDC. It’s a bit of an amusing story but it nevertheless raises one of those important points regarding Trademarks, domain names and cybersquatting.

Apparently the band had, understandably, been after this domain name for a long time, however, the previous registrant had been using it to run a web site pointing to other content regarding another meaning of the term AC/DC. As the previous registrant was not operating in the same area as the band and not abusing the band’s intellectual property he was acting legitimately and the band were unable to go through the available dispute resolution procedures.

The details of how AC/DC came by the name in the end are unclear. They may have bought it from the previous registrant, or the previous registrant may have just not renewed it. However it came about, it’s clear the band is happy to have this name now pointing at information more relevant to their business and it highlights one of the many aspects of online brand protection.