007 Gets His Name Back

Brosnan Gets License to Name

Cybersquatters never die. They just live to squat another day. Unless, of course, James Bond’s on the case.

Her Majesty’s current 007, Pierce Brosnan, has won a license to boot a well-known cybersquatter off a Website bearing the actor’s name.

In a decision handed down on Monday, arbitrators from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) ruled that Jeff Burgar had used the Irish actor’s moniker in bad faith to forward Netizens from www.piercebrosnan.com to a separate commercial Website with the intent to make some big money.

Brosnan’s attorneys told the United Nations panel that the defendant in question registered Brosnan’s domain name via a company called Alberta Hot Rods based in Alberta, Canada, and linked it to celebrity1000.com, a Website that, aside from publishing celeb biographies, also features lots of message advertising.

Calling Burgar a “notorious cybersquatter,” Brosnan’s legal eagles pointed out that the fifth Bond’s bio is nowhere to be found on the site, thus showing that the defendant had no interest or rights to the name other than to use it for commercial purposes.

The Geneva-based panel agreed.

Burgar’s actions “constitutes a pattern of conduct intended to capitalize on the goodwill associated with others’ fame for its own illegitimate purposes,” reads the ruling from the WIPO, a panel under the auspices of the United Nations’ copyright agency, which, since 1999, has arbitrated 91 cases involving celebrities and sided with them 77 times.

When it comes to cybersquatting, nobody does it better than Burgar, according to the U.N. crew.

The WIPO has previously ordered Burgar to vacate such celebrity domain names as the ones belonging to Pamela Anderson, Kevin Spacey, Michael Crichton, Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam and Celine Dion.

Burgar has 10 days to appeal the ruling, but given the fact that he didn’t mount a defense in the first place, it seems unlikely. After 10 days, piercebrosnan.com will revert back to Brosnan’s control.

“It is supremely reasonable that one is entitled to one’s own name,” says Brosnan. “I hope this helps set a precedent that prevents these sorry people from being able to blackmail an individual by registering his name.”