Annoying Domain Dispute

I really don’t like the outcome of this (old) case: Freddy Adu v. Frank Fushille. The complainant is some kind of soccer player or something. The respondent is a fan. The respondent registered a domain with the intent of starting a fan site. At some point, he contacted the soccer player’s manager and said he was making a fan site and was wondering if it could be the official site (presumably, the soccer player didn’t have an official site at that time). The manager sent back an offer to buy the domain. The guy didn’t want to just sell the domain though, he wanted to run the site. So they got into a discussion over that. Apparently, the respondent got carried away during negotiations and they fell through. The manager then files to have the domain transferred, using the negotiations as evidence of bad faith registration.

That’s just wrong.

Everybody has a price. If I were running an unofficial fansite for a celebrity and the celebrity offered me a million dollars for the domain I would probably take it. The celebrity should not be able to then turn around and say: ‘Aha! Bad faith!’. Negotiations initiated by the complainant shouldn’t be evidence of registration for the purpose of sale.

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