Viacom Loses South Park-Based Domain Battle

Viacom has lost a domain dispute in which they sought to shut down a web site containing “copyrighted” material.

It seems Viacom had filed for arbitration under UDRP regarding the StansDad.com domain name.  Stan Marsh and his father are characters on their animated show, South Park.

The panel, however, said that there is no copyright infringement here:

The UDRP was designed to deal with the problem of cybersquatting. This problem arises when a party registers a domain name which consists of or contains the trademark of another, or some form confusingly similar thereto, which would lead a user to believe that if the user were to enter the domain name in a browser, the user would be taken to a web site which was sponsored by or affiliated with the trademark owner. The UDRP was designed to prevent such a registrant from profiting from the Internet users confusion. While Complainant may well have legitimate concerns regarding the conduct of Respondent and the content displayed on Respondent’s web site, the UDRP is not the vehicle to address such concerns. Nothing could be clearer than an examination of the first prong of the three part burden of proof which must be met by a complainant.

The “first prong” that they are referring to is that the domain name is confusingly similar to the complainant’s trademark. Viacom, however, asserted that trademark as “South Park”, not Stan’s Dad.

The domain name at issue is clearly not confusingly similar to any trademarks or service marks asserted by Complainant. stansdad.com is not remotely similar to SOUTH PARK. An Internet user who enters “www.stansdad.com” in his / her browser may have a myriad of destinations in his or her mind that are totally unrelated to Complainant’s television show. The domain name at issue does not incorporate Complainant’s mark or a semblance of Complainant’s SOUTH PARK mark. The Panel does not exclude the possibility of Complainant perhaps being able to succeed in some future proceeding if it was for example able to show rights in a mark such as STAN’S DAD. It has not done so here.

Complainant’s principle concerns are not it seems with the particular domain name, but are with what is occurring on Respondent’s web site. While the Panel acknowledges that Complainant’s concerns may be legitimate and perhaps entitled to legal redress, the UDRP is not the vehicle to provide such redress. The issues of possible copyright infringement and other possible concerns are far beyond that which the simple procedure established in the UDRP was designed to redress.