Chicago2016.com begins with a link to the official bid committee site. (ATR) The battle for a coveted Chicago 2016 domain name will be fought in federal court after a world arbitration panel declined to make a ruling.
The Chicago 2016 bid committee and U.S. Olympic Committee appealed to the World Intellectual Property Organization for the right to take over www.Chicago2016.comfrom Stephen Frayne, Jr., a college student who bought the rights to the name in 2004.
WIPO terminated the action nine days after Frayne filed a countersuit in U.S. District Court in Chicago.
"We filed an emergency motion to suspend or terminate the proceeding because we seek to proceed in federal court," Tim Schaum, Frayne's attorney, told Around the Rings.
Frayne's 31-page lawsuit says the Olympic groups are violating his free speech right. He also is seeking attorney's fees and damages.
"Money damages will be determined, and in what amount, when appropriate," Schaum said.
Chicago 2016 bid spokesman Patrick Sandusky said the committee has not yet been served with papers, but Schaum said "we intend to serve the defendants shortly."
Sandusky told Around the Rings that the committee, which now uses the www.Chicago2016.orgWeb site, still believes it will be awarded the disputed address, which it considers the logical default name for people seeking information on the Chicago 2016 bid.
"It just means it will take a little more time," Sandusky said.
"We hoped that it could have been resolved by now, because we certainly think that the .com The official site at Chicago2016.org. domain name is something that should fall under our purview. But at this point, we have to move forward with the legal proceedings and we hope to have this resolved in a beneficial manner for us as soon as possible."
Frayne, an MBA student at Northwestern University specializing in entrepreneurship, has been in Tokyo working on plans to launch www.Tokyo2016.com, one of about 40 other domain names he controls that combine a city name with a year. The Tokyo 2016 bid committee is not a party to the lawsuit.
Frayne launched his Chicago 2016 Web site in late August as a forum "to discuss, criticize and debate the pros and cons of bidding for and hosting the Olympic Games." He said he intentionally left Chicago2016.org available for the bid committee when he registered the domain name four years ago.
Each page of the Web site has disclaimers at the top and bottom that say, "This is NOT the official Chicago 2016 Olympic Bid Committee site. Find them at www.Chicago2016.org.”
Topics on the site include "Top 10 List of Issues in the opinion of professional economists," and an invitation to participants to send in essays expressing their thoughts on the impact of the bid and the Games on their lives. Donations are also being accepted for Frayne's defense fund in the fight to retain the Web site.
Written by Karen Rosen
For general comments or questions, click here
Últimas Noticias
Sinner-Alcaraz, the duel that came to succeed the three phenomenons
Beyond the final result, Roland Garros left the feeling that the Italian and the Spaniard will shape the great duel that came to help us through the duel for the end of the Federer-Nadal-Djokovic era.
Table tennis: Brazil’s Bruna Costa Alexandre will be Olympic and Paralympic in Paris 2024
She is the third in her sport and the seventh athlete to achieve it in the same edition; in Santiago 2023 she was the first athlete with disabilities to compete at the Pan American level and won a medal.
Rugby 7s: the best player of 2023 would only play the medal match in Paris
Argentinian Rodrigo Isgró received a five-game suspension for an indiscipline in the circuit’s decisive clash that would exclude him until the final or the bronze match; the Federation will seek to make the appeal successful.
Rhonex Kipruto, owner of the world record for the 10000 meters on the road, was suspended for six years
The Kenyan received the maximum sanction for irregularities in his biological passport and the Court considered that he was part of a system of “deliberate and sophisticated doping” to improve his performance. He will lose his record and the bronze medal at the Doha World Cup.
Katie Ledecky spoke about doping Chinese swimmers: “It’s difficult to go to Paris knowing that we’re going to compete with some of these athletes”
The American, a seven-time Olympic champion, referred to the case of the 23 positive controls before the Tokyo Games that were announced a few weeks ago and shook the swimming world. “I think our faith in some of the systems is at an all-time low,” he said.
