MXit wins mixit.co.za battle

Now this is what I call bull. The man saw a gap and took it. It's called business. If the domain was really having an influence on mxit the should have bought it and redirect to the proper site.
 
I thought'd I'd seen the article itself actually being posted before this as well...

On the front page of the site I mean.
 
Zandberg said:
Now this is what I call bull. The man saw a gap and took it. It's called business. If the domain was really having an influence on mxit the should have bought it and redirect to the proper site.
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There is a clause where you may sue for the "rightful domain name" for your business. If you have enough money, that is. It happened with McDonalds too. But long ago though, and it was settled out of court.
 
I think the guy lost the case because of the ads he had on there. If he made say a recipe site that instructed the right "mix" of certain beverages, I don't think that MXit would have won, and if they did, I don't think I would have registered another .co.za domain name ever again...
 
Absolute bull!!! Its clearly a business opportunity that he saw and took the opportunity. MXit should have paid him and bought it instead of screwing him over. Pathetic
 
Well to be honest, the judges first point of reasoning was siff, but her second and thirds points were fair.
 
Shake&Bake said:
I thought'd I'd seen the article itself actually being posted before this as well. On the front page of the site I mean.
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This is the first news article about it. There was a forum discussion about the subject, but no article. It may also happen that news get covered in multiple article if new information emerges. Do you guys know of any news source that does not have multiple articles about an event – like the economic crisis for example :D
 
Its freedom fighter or terrorist situation - depends on which side you sit. For me this is an important ruleing as I nearly lost my wifes domain due to admin errors. Somebody else wanted to register the domain and he by chance let it slip that he saw the domain was about to be suspended.

This individual wanted to use the domain to promote his company of which my wife is known to use his products. I know that he was preparing to look at taking this domain from us even if it meant going to court.

Fourtanetly the domain is my wifes business name.
 
The fact that he registered it before mxit began operating makes all the difference ... if he did it afterwards then it becomes messy with trademarks and so on - but otherwise it should be mxit's fault

But I suppose his using of keywords like 'chat' does make it more complicated...
 
I think the rule is / should be... (as has been applied in other suits around the world)...

1) if the domain uses the exact brand name as part of or as the sole domain name,
2) or the branding, logos, layout, on the site appears similar,
3) or the company is engaged in exactly the same business (with a view to stealing users),
4) or that reasonable confusion may arise in the minds of the users,

then a condition for a suit exists.

In this case the infringing company violated at least two of these principles. He should have avoided the similarity. By setting his company up as similar he infringed the rights of the Mxit company. The ruling was accurate, it was a deceitful business practice.
 
kilps said:
The fact that he registered it before mxit began operating makes all the difference ... if he did it afterwards then it becomes messy with trademarks and so on - but otherwise it should be mxit's fault

But I suppose his using of keywords like 'chat' does make it more complicated...
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I hate those flipping parked sites. They do nothing more than make money off someone else's brand name and success. whenever I end up there by mistake I leave immediately. I'm glad this precedent is against them.
 
Stupid. That's what this was. MXIT made themselves look like a bunch of bullies with big guns. If I wanted to get rid of mixit.co.za, I'd have contacted the owner and arranged to buy it. It's got a LOT more PR value than simply bludgeoning someone out of their rightfully-acquired domain name, and it's the right damn thing to do.

mixit.co.za was there first. The fact that the keywords were later altered to "chat" and "mxit" should also have been ruled irrelevant. There is no possible way that Steyn could have been making enough revenue off that domain to pose any real threat to MXIT. And if he was, it implies that he was receiving an enormous amount of traffic from people looking for (and finding) the address to MXIT.co.za. Either way, MXIT was winning.

Now they look like a bunch of retards with clubs.

This is the sort of thing that discourages the local internet community from setting up fan sites, and expanding the influence of their brand. If they want to be like microsoft, then by all means. It's not as if I even used MXIT anyway.
 
Garyvdh said:
I hate those flipping parked sites. They do nothing more than make money off someone else's brand name and success. whenever I end up there by mistake I leave immediately. I'm glad this precedent is against them.
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Exactly.

At first I thought it was unfair considering he registered the name before Mxit existed, but the fact that he added keywords such as "chat" and even "mxit" is just riding off of the success of Mxit.
 
I hate all of these guys and hope there will be many more of these types of decisions. Lets see it start costing these twits money to do this.
 
I also hate those crappy parked sites.

Yes, this guy may have owned the site before mxit came into existence, but he then took advantage of the similarity in names to generate revenue for himself.

If the parked site had content irrelevant to mxit, he would has got away with his site, but the greedy bugger went for directly relevant content to mxit. Half a loaf is better than no bread:p.
 
This is bull, if mxit wanted the domain they should have bought it from him, he had it first before they even launched. If he registered it after they launched it is a different story.
 
Step 1: Think of a brandname

Step 2: Check if domain exists
YES: Go back to Step 1
NO: Register Domain

Step 3: Launch Product.
 
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