MINNEAPOLIS — An arbitrator last week tossed cybersquatting claims involving three domain names used by a company that offers employment services for adult live cam models.
At the center of the complaint were three domain names that all used the descriptive words “sexy” and “jobs.”
The case pitted competitors InfoNetMedia Group Inc., which operates SexyJobs.com, and WaveSide Entertainment LLC, which manages scores of adult web properties, including LiveSexyJobs.com, SexyModelingJobs.com and SexyWebcamJobs.com, the domain names listed in the complaint.
InfoNetMedia, the operator of SexyJobs.com, said that it holds a registered U.S. trademark for the mark “sexy jobs” and that WaveSide’s LiveSexyJobs.com, SexyModelingJobs.com and SexyWebcamJobs.com are all confusingly similar to it.
InfoNetMedia was seeking to have the three domain names transferred to it.
The arbitrator hearing the case, however, disagreed and ruled that despite the fact that InfoNetMedia has held the trademark for “sexy jobs” for two years, it didn’t apply in the case over LiveSexyJobs.com because the domain holder, WaveSide, used the descriptor word “live” preceding the trademarked words “sexy jobs.”
“[WaveSide] argues that its use of the disputed domain name is bona fide with respect to its solicitation of webcam modeling services, distinguishable with InfoNetMedia’s business in advertising jobs in various adult fields,” said the arbitrator, who sided with WaveSide over its LiveSexyJobs.com domain that it holds.
The arbitrator, panelist Kenneth L. Port, also rejected cybersquatting claims over WaveSide’s SexyModelingJobs.com and SexyWebcamJobs.com domains, ruling that they are not confusingly similar as they each intersperse either “modeling” or “webcam” in between the descriptive but registered words in InfoNetMedia’s “sexy jobs” mark.