What Narnia can teach your business
Posted 18 June 2008 at 8:24AM by Ian Betteridge in Doing business online
The inheritors of the estate of C. S. Lewis, author of the Chronicles of Narnia series of books, have found themselves in something of a pickle - one which, if reports are correct, could have been avoided.
According to BBC News, the company which owns the Narnia rights - CS Lewis (Pte) - has taken the father of a 10 year old fan of the books to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) over ownership of the domain narnia.mobi. The company says that it owns the trademark of the domain, and therefore it has a right to the domain.
Obviously, taking this kind of action effectively against a child fan is the kind of thing that makes any sensible PR person wince. The only headlines that the company will get over this are bad ones - there is no potential "up side" to taking away a ten year-old's birthday present.
And the worst thing is that if reports are correct, it could all have easily been avoided. When releasing new top level domains, like ".mobi" or those associated with new countries, there is a three-month grace period when companies who own trademarks get the first option on appropriate domain names. Unfortunately, it appears that CS Lewis (Pte) didn't take advantage of this grace period - and hence it's current problem.
The lesson is simple: keep an eye on any new top level domains that are due to be released, and make sure that you take advantage of the grace period. If you don't, you may miss out - and end up causing trouble for yourself later on.
Tags: bt, bt broadbandoffice, cs lewis, domain names, narnia
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Comments
2. At June 18, 2008 5:32 PM, Interested observer wrote:
This just smacks of self interest, were the CS Lewis estate hoping to use this domain to advertise the forthcoming film???
It would seem foolish of them to pursue this issue when they do not own narnia.org.uk, narnia.uk.com, narnia.eu, narnia.tv. These sites are all owned by private individuals and have been registered longer than the .mobi address, sureley they should be chasing these individuals aswell
3. At June 19, 2008 9:53 PM, J G Dawson wrote:
In my experience cyber squatters don't usually profit from their ill-gotten gains. Everyone knows they've pinched a title belonging to someone else and copyright theft in whatever medium, deliberate or well meaning, often reaps its own rewards and anyway; if you can't think of something original for yourself...
4. At June 20, 2008 2:15 PM, another observer wrote:
Sounds more like a storm in a teacup than a lion in the wardrobe.
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1. At June 18, 2008 10:01 AM, Chris Sabin wrote: