Back in June I posted about how the band Blind Melon was suing me for the domain name BlindMelon.com. Well I was able to get a lawyer through the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and she helped me defend my case to the National Arbitration Forum. The band was accusing me of cybersquatting and they built their case around that but one of the first things they needed to prove was the fact that I had registered the domain in bad faith. Basically that means when I registered the domain my aim was to sell the domain name back to the band for a lot of money.
Well my lawyer emailed me yesterday night and turns out the arbitration forum denied their request to have the domain taken from me and given to them! When my lawyer took the case she told me we had a 50/50 chance of winning so when I read her email and the forums decision I was totally surprised.
How did I win? Well I won because the band failed to convince the forum that I had registered the domain in bad faith. Firstly I didn’t register the domain, it was given to me as a gift from the previous domain holder because he didn’t have time to design a site and he really liked mine. Secondly one of the band members was a regular participant in the site by keeping fans informed on his solo projects. Finally it was common knowledge the band had split up after the lead singer died back in 1995 and the band members were all performing under different band names.
In conclusion, I won the case and I get to keep the domain but after this incident I really hate the band now and all I have to say to them is Fuck you!
If you want to read the Forums decision you can download the original word document by clicking [Here]
37 replies on “Decision: Denied”
Mabrooooooooooooooooooooook 🙂
This is great 🙂 Mark 1 – Blind Melon 0 😛
congratulations
you deserve it :*
Way to go. Congrats man!
Congrats, you deserved it.
owned there mark, you just owned! you can stand a chance, as long as you’re in an off remote location and meet nice people on internet 🙂
Mabrook 🙂
umm. are they going to buy your domain for lots of money now ? if they do you should make a 248am party with all expenses paid 😀
That’s great!
Good for you.
Thats fucking AWESOME! seriously!
That is beating them at their own system! And whats great is that your really innocent until proven guilty!
Congrat’s.
How much did the lawyer charge you?
CONGRAA MARK!!!. So what are you planning to do now with the site!!!
Dear Mark,
For the fact that you won the arbitration case is pathetic. Regardless if you make little money on the # of hits or the links to amazon does not matter.
All the band wanted to do was to be able to have a domain where any new fan can come see a website that is filled with unreleased video, audio, and pics of the band. When they search up the band all they find on top of the list is your website which absolutely has nothing to offer to the fans.
Therefore, don’t make it like the band was bullying you. In the end, you bullying the fans in not being able to have the rights to see a professional looking website run by the band.
Anyways thanks again
stop lying to yourself. the band has blindmelonmusic.com and it has nothing so if they were going to take blindmelon.com it would still contain nothing. geez you guys really are in denial.
The website blindmelonmusic.com is not run by the band, and furthermore considered by most fans of the band, (though it is an official website) – really do not look at it this way. This website you mention has nothing really to offer for the serious fan.
The fans are not in denial and we are not looking to fight. Though, the argument is simple. If you want to tell somebody about a website – you are going to remember a simple domain name such as blind-melon.com or (any website that has the words in it) over many others. I have no affiliation or any close contact with the band members, though I can see there argument is that they want a simple, concise domain name that any new fan can tell his friends about.
Hey Collin,
I don’t know Blind Melon, and I don’t know you. Before hearing about it on 248am I hadn’t even heard of the name Blind Melon. IF ANYTHING, Mark is doing the band a favour. By suing him, You were bullying him by any measure or interpretation of the word. You are able to buy soooo many domain names for dirt prices and refer them to you. And you can work hard on your Meta Tags and pay google some money to make that specifc domain show up high on the hit list. Instead, you chose to sue. Why? Because someone in Blind Melon decided it would be easier to scare him off.
Mark stood up to you guys. Alot of people here advised him to let it go…Save himself the headache. And now, we are all proud of him for standing up to Blind Melon. So please, save your speaches for people who care.
Run a whois…
Registrant: Make this info private
EMI Recorded Music NA
150 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10011
US
Domain Name: BLINDMELONMUSIC.COM
Administrative Contact , Technical Contact :
EMI Recorded Music NA
[email protected]
150 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10011
US
Phone: 212-786-8000
Record expires on 03-Aug-2010
Record created on 03-Aug-2005
Database last updated on 03-Aug-2005
Amazing what some googling can do 🙂
Mark, does the name Meredith Coleman have anything to do with the case? She is the lawyer who created the petition site. I wonder if she was part of the team that sued you… I wonder if it is legal to do something like that before letigation… Might want to condier suing them for defamation, or something like that…
Damm, I watch too much Boston Legal 🙂
I just cant understand why someone who used to be a fan of the band would refuse to give up some shitty outdated site. It sounds to me like your just trying to be a dick. I dunno if it was me i would have gladly given the band the domain, but im not a giant douche.
your such a douche. why wouldnt you give it to the band if you truly started the site as a fan. that is so lame. your a pathetic pieces of shit and the only comfort i get is knowing that you will hopefully you will get pancreatic cancer and die a slow and painful death. And guess what noone will morn your death cause your a douche.
Hehe, you guys must soooo embarrassed and annoyed as fuck that you lost the case. Just move on and get a life already little melons. You’re just sooo pathetic still dwelling over this case, it’s sad.
The band’s take on all this:
I was a member of Blind Melon, and wanted to drop my 2 cents here, as it seems that we’re getting slagged here. The reason we wanted blindmelon.com is obvious, because that’s the first place anyone who happens to be looking for us will go. Of course we can put a site elsewhere, and we are doing that now, but the .com name will get more traffic because that’s the way these things work I suppose. We had tried intermittently over the years to buy the site from Marc. He had initially offered it to us at a much higher price than we could pay (we are not wealthy), leading a couple of the band members to send him angry emails, and thus we were off to a contentious relationship. Too bad…I never had anything personally against Marc, don’t know him and I’m sure he’s a fine chap….sends his mother flowers and all. We offered him $500, and he turned that down saying that he was looking to make enough to move to the US. Fine. I had no idea how much money Marc had put into the site over the years, so I asked if we could cover that cost, but I could never get another number from him because I think at that point he was already so angry that he was never going to give up the domain. I felt like I was trying to buy a used car or something. We had no intention of trying to rip him off, that’s not the way we do things, and we are certainly not litigious by nature, but we felt like we had no recourse. Enter the lawyers, who are going to do whatever they can to win.
After Shannon died, things were very difficult for us and we certainly didn’t think about registering domain names. And who would’ve thought that a “one-hit wonder” band such as ourselves would still be selling records in 2006? Not a lot, but it steadily sells. The website in question had ceased to be a vital thing, and the relationship between Marc and our fans had gone pear-shaped, with the message board ultimately being shut down because there were so many arguments. The only purpose that was being served was that Marc was collecting a little money from Amazon for click-through sales on our records.
In our defense, we are not ‘corporate assholes’ or bullies, we’re just trying to protect our name that we put the ole’ blood, sweat and tears into. And this site had become a place that was just not positive. The average internet idiot such as myself would assume that blindmelon.com was the official site. The blindmelonmusic.com site is run by EMI, and we didn’t even know it existed until it was pointed out to us, as we are no longer signed to Capitol (EMI owns our catalog and we don’t have much control over what happens to it).
So in the end, as in many situations like this, no one is served but the lawyers. Marc has a website for a band that he hates, he’s proabably out of some dough for hiring a lawyer, we don’t have the domain name that we should have, and the site lies dormant. So let’s just call it a day….there’s too much other horrible stuff going on in the world to argue back and forth about a website.
over and out
rogers stevens
You are a fucking disgrace and a dishonor to the memory of one of the last generation’s greatest singers/songwriters. You are a worthless pile of trash and may God have pity on your worthless fucking soul.
Wow, guys, what’s with the insults coming back and forth.
As for Rogers’ perspective, I can understand where he stands completely. I also think that maybe if lawyers were in charge of the communication between Marc and the band, they might’ve used some intimidating tactics.
Despite all this, I choose to believe what Mr. Stevens is saying. In retrospective the only thing that came out of this is that some guy posted on a webpage saying that they “beat” the band. Man, if I ever had a domain name and the band asked for it, I wouldn’t think twice before giving it to them. As a fan it would be an honor to do so.
Blind Melon’s gone through a lot. I want to thank them all for the beautiful music they created.
Much Love,
Ed Toscani
I hope you get herpes.
It’s a pity an artist has to justify why he wants to run his band’s website…
Rogers, you have my respect!
Mark,
Dude, I’ve been around the block with you a few times myself before, back when I had more time on my hands. Fighting with people on your website’s messageboard, critiquing other fansites like a sullen schoolmarm, and whoring out blindmelon.com as a portal for amazon media sales and nothing more. If you feel like a hero, well that’s great.. especially throwing Rogers and company under the bus for visiting the messageboard to post upcoming Extra Virgin and such. No doubt you’re probably be seeking some press on this supposed victory right now. Maybe some newsies will pick it up and provide you with some additional amazon clicks from the site and get you a few dollars in your pocket, you savvy businessman, you.
Sad thing is.. if you haven’t gotten the message by now, you’re not going to. But, trust me, it’s pathetic behavior. Especially as you revel in holding on to a domain name of a band you hate as your pals slap you on the ass for pulling off this dick move.
So, what next? My hope is that the hackers start working on pounding the shit out your site and never stop. The domain won’t do too well when the site is down half the time. Good luck to whoever takes the cue. And for you, Mark.. may you continue to live an empty life without soul or dignity.
Matt, grow up…
Rogers Stevens, I personally think posting on here is a very mature and considerate email. If you have seen my posts earlier, you’ll know I know little of you guys. But, you have to admit, this whole thing was very lame from your side. there are sooo many cases out there of giant corportations (and I know that’s not u) trying to kill websites under the umbrella of hoggin the name for profit (Look at Nissan.com)… You were trying to get your website in order to relive your glory, and make some dough out of it. I am sure things could have been settled. Mark is a businessman with a domain that he’s owned for a while (without the intention of squatting)…He has ALL the right to do whatever he choses with this domain.
And hey, Flash Flood, your post shows how much of an internet idiot you are. The most a hacker can do is disable the site, maybe re-write its code. So what… Mark has no use of it… So go play somewhere else will ya.
I wonder what the owner of firefox.com got as a deal for giving up his domain 🙂
Mark, is everything is money for you? this whole site smells dollars and cents, i wish it could be dollars and sense.
Blind Melon were a bunch of guys who worked a lot to make their own music and to share with their fans, now the band is over since their singer died but they still sell cds so what if they want to manage http://www.blindmelon.com?
if that so unbelievable?
ahmed asked “so now what are you going to do with the site?”, I’m also wondering this now!
You fought for a site about a band you hate and what are u gonna do with it? like you said before … nothing
so why do you keep it? i just see two main reasons:
1/ you so hate the band and the fans that you want to make em crazy by keeping it
2/ you just want the amazon vouchers you get there (200 us$ a quarter like u said it before)
money and hate, is that it?
oh no! i remember: you want to keep it cause i remind you all the good times you had back when you made this site and all the good friends you made on this guestboard you closed 2years ago to prevent ppl from chatting again (officialy because of a big security hole mean people could use to attack us). Bullshit!
We seem pathetic now you have won, you and Nat probably think we should have a life or go play somewhere else but let me tell you, i have a life, i’m just sad… like hundreds of ppl because of you.
hey zorbon…
“The most a hacker can do is disable the site, maybe re-write its code. So what… Mark has no use of it…”
..isn’t that exactly what i recommended, douchebag? i figure a disabled site and domain is far better than the band being misrepresented and mark earning bus fare from his amazon revenues.
oh.. and mark being a businessman? uh yeah, he’s a regular donald trump or whatever equivalent you have over in kuwait. now go make the price of oil increase more so you can hurt blind melon even more… at the pump!
Cheers to Rogers! I think we should turn this nerd’s blog-site into a Blind Melon message board. Hey Rogers, how bout making some new music and bringin it to Chicago?!
Dude, just give the site back to the band!! I dont see what you have gained out of this except PISSING OFF THE FANS OF ONE OF THE GREATEST BANDS OF THE 1990’S!!!
I hope your wife gets HIV
And how old are you again Mark?
dear marc, i am a single woman looking for a boy to train. are you 14 years old ,or just act like one?
Eat shit Mark.