GENEVA — Ruling in a cybersquatting case, an arbitrator recently ordered the domain name Clips4Free.net transferred to the company that operates Clips4Sale.com.
Since 2003, Clips4Sale.com has offered millions of fetish and amateur porn videos by the clip. Wiluna Holdings LLC, which operates the portal, holds a trademark for the name.
The respondent in the case, Edna Sherman of Illinois, never responded to the UDRP claim submitted to the Forum arbitration panel. Sherman registered the site in 2015.
In the claim, Wiluna Holdings stated that “respondent uses the disputed domain name to resolve to a website that offers products that compete with those of complainant, and that contains click through advertisements through which respondent presumably receives commercial profit.”
“The website at the disputed domain name competes and disrupts complainant’s business,” Wiluna’s complaint read. “Apart from use of the term ‘free’ in place of the term ‘sale,” respondent has copied the exact look and feel of complainant’s legitimate Clips4Sale.com website.
“Respondent’s confusingly similar domain name is used in bad faith to divert Internet users from complainant’s legitimate website to respondent’s domain for respondent’s commercial gain. Respondent is attempting to pass itself off as complainant.”
Arbitrator Richard Hill agreed with Wiluna’s assessment and ruled that the respondent who registered Clips4Free.net acted in bad faith through confusing and attracting internet users to respondent’s domain for commercial profit.
As a result, Hill ordered the domain Clips4Free.net transferred to Wiluna, which also was successful in cybersquatting cases with three other “Clips4” domains in recent years, including the domains Clips4Free.org, Clips4Free.com and Clips4Free.cc.
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