Back in 2010, The Academy Awards went up against the domain retailer GoDaddy, alleging that they let customers buy “confusingly” similar domain names like 2011Oscars.com, etc. It claimed on allowing individuals to pass on the profits who wanted to “park” on these domains and claimed a part of revenue. The Academy was seeking statutory damages of $100,000 per infringement, equal to more than $29 million, court papers showed.
It was a battle that lasted for five years and that culminated when U.S. District Judge Andre Birotte ruled that GoDaddy had no “requisite bad faith intent to profit” from their domain sales. The judge also stated that the Academy failed to show that GoDaddy acted in bad faith by letting customers purchase 293 domain names such as academyawards.net, oscarsredcarpet.com, billycrystal2012oscars.com and theoscargoestothehangover.com.
Furthermore, the judge also stated that GoDaddy always, and sometimes within a matter of minutes, reassigned domains to advertising-free templates after trademark holders filed takedown requests.
“Any inadvertent use by GoDaddy of domain names that are confusingly similar or identical to the AMPAS Marks via its automated processes was unintentional,” Birotte wrote. “AMPAS has failed to prove that GoDaddy had the required specific bad faith intent to profit from the AMPAS marks.”
