LONDON — An arbitrator last week ordered the domain names of six adult live cam websites — AnalChatRoulette.com, AmateurChatRoulette.com, CollegeChatRoulette.com, EbonyChatRoulette.com, GrannyChatRoulette.com and MatureChatRoulette.com — transferred to the operator of mainstream cam site ChatRoulette.com.
Each of the disputed domain names were registered and had been used in bad faith, according to arbitrator Steven A. Maier.
The six niche cam websites, all registered by Melbourne, Fla.-based WaveSide Entertainment, had been operating since the summer of 2014.
The operator of ChatRoulette.com argued in his case that each of the six websites had been riding on the coattails of its brand and website, which pairs random users for cam-based conversations.
ChatRoulette.com’s Andrey Ternovskiy of Moscow argued that he holds a U.S. trademark registered in 2013 for the brand, as well as an E.U. trademark registered in 2012.
Ternovskiy also contended that WaveSide Entertainment is disrupting its business by using the disputed domain names, which are confusingly similar to the complainant's trademark in order to attract internet users to websites that compete with the its business.
But WaveSide Entertainment disputed that the domain names were confusingly similar to ChatRoulette's trademarks, while at the same time admitting that each of the websites in question utilize live “chat roulette" software that was created by its own developers for adult webcam models.
The company also asserted in arbitration that the terms “chat” and “roulette” are two separate words, “which indicate how the customer can access each of the services in question and that there is no intention to reference the complainant's ChatRoulette mark.”
The arbitrator, however, cut WaveSide Entertainment’s assertion down and ordered all six domains transferred to ChatRoulette.com.
“While the complainant alleges that the respondent has used the disputed domain names to offer the complainant's competitors' products which compete with the complainant's own offerings, the panel does not fully understand this submission,” the arbitrator wrote.
“The panel does, however, find that the respondent has used the disputed domain names misleadingly to attract internet users to its own websites by misrepresenting an association with the complainant's trademark and finds that misleading use of this nature does not give rise to any rights or legitimate interests on the part of the respondent. Accordingly, the panel concludes that the respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the disputed domain names.”
