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jimmorrison.com - The End?

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Release Date:
28 September 2009

IMPORTANT: This briefing note is only intended as a general statement of the law and no action should be taken in reliance on it without specific legal advice. Release Date: 28 September 2009

The estate of Jim Morrison (an artist who should need little introduction) has successfully secured the domain name jimmorrison.com from another self styled Jim Morrison, Rick Sentieri, who had held the domain name since 1997. The recovery follows the decision in recent arbitration proceedings before WIPO.

Clearly, at first glance the result makes good sense - at least from a branding perspective and / or for all fans of the Doors who would expect www.jimmorrison.com to take them to some official website.

However, one wonders how Jim Morrison's successors would have fared had "the other" Mr Morrison either:

  • actually been called from birth Jim Morrison and operated an innocuous website from the domain name;
  • not had the misfortune to be taking on a celebrity benefitting (albeit through his estate) from the wonderfully powerful law of privacy for famous personalities in California;
  • operated a fan site for "the" Jim Morrison (WIPO's contrary decisions in this area make your guess as good as mine); or - even worse.
  • not responded to the WIPO proceedings beyond essentially saying "please leave me alone you are making me sick and very unhappy" / "I have received your letter that has print outs of my website ... Your organization has violated my webpage disclaimer ... Rick Sentieri aka Jim Morrison's poetry is the best ever written. Potentially a Nobel Peace Prize winner ..." / "jimmorrison.com is a trade mark of Rick Sentieri".

Indeed, a quick flick of domain names for famous music artists with commercial significance who are no longer with us makes for interesting flicking:

  • johnlennon.com - an "official" site (having never been the subject of any WIPO action)
  • elvis.com - an "official" site (having never been the subject of any WIPO action)
  • jimihendrix.com - an "official" site (having never been the subject of any WIPO action)
  • kurtcobain.com - a fan site (having never been the subject of any WIPO action).

Oddly, no functional website is up and running at the moment under www.jimmorrison.com. Watch that e-space. Oh and if you are not confident that you can persuade WIPO that your famous .com name should be yours and yours alone (or that of your rock and roll estate), best to get it registered now and avoid the arguments later.

If you would like to discuss any of the issues raised in this briefing, please contact  Simon Tracey on +44 (0)20 7440 4733 or by e-mail, or Peter Nunn on +44 (0)20 7440 4768 or by e-mail.