Thursday, February 12, 2009

Dispute over eMusic.ca - CIRA decision

DomainReport.ca - With thanks to Amanda Hall from Sedo's Legal Team, here is the story of the domain emusic.ca, and the dispute between emusic.com and Mogul Arts Inc.

In the recent case of EMusic.com Inc. v Mogul Arts Inc. (Nov.2008), the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) panel refused to order the transfer of emusic.ca to the Complainant, EMusic.com on grounds that it failed to demonstrate that the domain was registered in bad faith.

EMusic.com (“Complainant”), a U.S. based operator of an online music store since 1985, is the owner of the domain ‘emusic.com’. It has also owned the Canadian trademark ‘EMUSIC’ since in 1999. The registrant of the domain in question, Mogul Arts Inc., (“Mogul”) registered the domain ‘emusic.ca’ in 2001 under CIRA, after the launch of the Complainant’s website and filing date of the trademark but prior to its trademark registration date. Mogul Arts Inc. used the domain as an active web site intermittently from 2001 to 2007.

The Complainant failed to establish the third requirement of bad faith. The Panel noted that Mogul Arts had refused to sell the domain name to the Complainant at any price, despite an offer to buy the domain for $500. Furthermore, there was no evidence that Mogul Arts knew of the Complainant or its online music business at the time of registering the domain name.

Please click here to read the full story at Sedo.com
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Monday, February 9, 2009

Tucows reports 4th quarter results and share buy back

DomainReport.ca - Today Canada-based Tucows (a global domain name and internet services company) reported their fourth quarter results, and announced a 'dutch auction' to repurchase up to 4 million of their common shares (approx. 5.5% of the total outstanding). Not too many companies can afford to do a share buyback in today's economic climate, and it's interesting to read their fair to positive outlook for their company in 2009.

Under the share repurchase, shareholders will have the opportunity to tender some or all of their shares at a price within an expected range of $0.32 to $0.45 per share.

"We believe our shares to be an attractive investment and their repurchase by the Company to be a prudent use of cash that is consistent with our long-term objective to create shareholder value," said Stanley Stern, Chairman of the Board of Tucows.

Highlights of the fourth quarter

According to Elliot Noss, CEO, "The domain name component of our OpenSRS Wholesale business is exhibiting solid growth, especially relative to the rest of the domain name market. Our launches of Hover, Butterscotch.com and YummyNames in 2008 have set the stage for us to grow each of these units in 2009.

With our email migration, employee downsizing and more favorable Canadian dollar environment, combined with our recurring revenue model based on high-volume, low-cost transactions, we will produce solid cash flow from operations, which will support our share repurchase programs and generate value for our shareholders."

Net revenue for the fourth quarter 2008 increased 5.0% to $19.2 million from $18.2 million for the fourth quarter 2007.

Net income for the fourth quarter 2008 was $1.0 million, or $0.01 per share, compared with a net loss of $935,000, or $0.01 per share, for the fourth quarter 2007.

Net income for fiscal 2008 was $2.1 million, or $0.03 per share, compared with $2.7 million, or $0.04 per share, for fiscal 2007.

Tucows is a global Internet services company. OpenSRS manages over 8 million domain names and millions of email boxes through a reseller network of over 9,000 web hosts and ISPs. Hover is the easiest way for individuals and small businesses to manage their domain names and email addresses. YummyNames owns premium domain names that generate revenue through advertising or resale. Butterscotch.com is an online video network building on the foundation of Tucows.com.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

.ca domain sales of past week

DomainReport.ca - Ron Jackson of DNJournal released the past week's domain sales report, and there were four .ca domain sales listed under country codes. Two of those were already reported in this blog earlier (see below - words.ca and clasificados.ca), and there were two others I didn't know about.

The report actually covers the past two week's sales, since the author was away at a domain conference for part of that time.

The two other .ca reported sales were:

deep.ca $3,750 US

bio-rad.ca $3,000 US


The second one above, bio-rad, is a bit of a mystery to me as why it sold for such a high price, but there must be a story behind it.

Despite the down economy, the list of country code domain sales was much longer than usual. Country code domains still seem to have a good future, and are getting some recent good press from bloggers like at RickLatona.com

Country code domains in many countries around the world are becoming as common, or even more common, than .com domains. It isn't surprising, because as time goes by the number of good .com domains stays the same, and the demand for domains grows. Citizens of most countries in the world are finding it easy to embrace internet use with domains of their own country code.


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