On November 17, 2001, the World Intellectual Property Organization settled a dispute between the Vivendi Universal corporation and Jay David Sallen (a U.S. citizen) over the domain name VivendiUniversalSucks.com. Sallen was the initial "owner" of the domain name, and at the time was using it to publically criticize Vivendi. Vivendi took the issue before WIPO, requesting that the name be turned over to them for copyright reasons. WIPO decided in favor of Vivendi, and Sallan lost the domain.
This was hardly the first time such a thing has happened, but it still sparked a bit of an outcry in some of the usual corners of online anarchy. Judging by the discussion, however, it's clear that people feel they have no real power over the situation, except to make a fuss and forget about it. The truth is, this madness could easily be stopped overnight if people set aside a few minutes one day (this would only have to be done once) and typed a small batch numbers into their computers.
The first thing one has to understand is that WIPO's decision has no legal bearing, and it carries only as much weight as we allow it to. In effect, the WIPO decision meant that a handful of computers around the world would make the string of characters "VivendiUniversalSucks.com" point to a machine owned by Vivendi Universal, whereas formerly they pointed to a machine owned by Jay David Sallen. Literally, a handful of machines (owned by people just like you and me) would be configured (by people just like you and me) so that anytime someone asked "Where is the computer that has the website for VivendiUniversalSucks.com", their machines would point them to a computer owned by Vivendi Universal instead of a machine owned by Sallen.
This initial handful of machines then propogates this information to other machines around the world, and pretty soon every machine that's answer questions about what domain name points to what computer is answering that "VivendiUniversalSucks.com" is pointing to some computer over at Vivendi Universal. Now, understand that the people owning all of these other machines (those outside the initial handful) have willingly decided to accept this new data about the domain. In theory, they are perfectly cabable of ignoring this new information, and stating that "VivendiUniversalSucks.com" points to a machine in Jay Sallen's house.
Questions/Comments: karmak@karmak.org