blastfromthepast
17th May 2006, 11:17 AM
Summary:
• In January 2007, Russia will declare void all previous trademark and intellectual property laws, and a new Section 4 of the Civil Code will take effect. Part of this Code deals with domain names and defines their legal status.
• The proposed code, drawn up by the administration of President Putin, allows for "reverse domain hijacking" by new trademark applicants, ie. an existing domain could be taken away by a new trademark applicant; not that the domain could be used by the new trademark holder: the new code prohibits the use of trademarked names as domain names.
• Makes both the domain owner and the registrar liable for content associated with the domain itself.
• Section 4, despite being prepared "in haste" for Russia's entry into the WTO, has drawn the ire of the WTO itself as being highly restrictive and not protecting intellectual property.
.RU NIC's legal team responded with this interesting language: "Responsibility for breaking the law would be put on both the registrar and the holder of the domain... We should note that those who would like to register domain names in .RU always have an alternative to register domains in other TLDs, therefore, we would expect .RU registrations to greatly decline. The negative aspects of those who choose to migrate to other TLDs is that interested parties would have difficulty obtaining registration data from foreign registrars. In any case, foreign registrars would have difficulty being bound by any decisions of Russian courts, for example, obeying an order to void registration or to cut off the broadcasting of information that was declared to be in violation of the rights of other parties, or to put an "arrest" on the domain name for the purpose of excecuting the decision of a Russian court, or revoking its registration entirely. Reducing the level of registrations in .RU will also reduce the governments income from taxes on registrations."
Full text in Russian: http://info.nic.ru/st/13/out_1226.shtml
• In January 2007, Russia will declare void all previous trademark and intellectual property laws, and a new Section 4 of the Civil Code will take effect. Part of this Code deals with domain names and defines their legal status.
• The proposed code, drawn up by the administration of President Putin, allows for "reverse domain hijacking" by new trademark applicants, ie. an existing domain could be taken away by a new trademark applicant; not that the domain could be used by the new trademark holder: the new code prohibits the use of trademarked names as domain names.
• Makes both the domain owner and the registrar liable for content associated with the domain itself.
• Section 4, despite being prepared "in haste" for Russia's entry into the WTO, has drawn the ire of the WTO itself as being highly restrictive and not protecting intellectual property.
.RU NIC's legal team responded with this interesting language: "Responsibility for breaking the law would be put on both the registrar and the holder of the domain... We should note that those who would like to register domain names in .RU always have an alternative to register domains in other TLDs, therefore, we would expect .RU registrations to greatly decline. The negative aspects of those who choose to migrate to other TLDs is that interested parties would have difficulty obtaining registration data from foreign registrars. In any case, foreign registrars would have difficulty being bound by any decisions of Russian courts, for example, obeying an order to void registration or to cut off the broadcasting of information that was declared to be in violation of the rights of other parties, or to put an "arrest" on the domain name for the purpose of excecuting the decision of a Russian court, or revoking its registration entirely. Reducing the level of registrations in .RU will also reduce the governments income from taxes on registrations."
Full text in Russian: http://info.nic.ru/st/13/out_1226.shtml