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Developer allegedly faces legal heat from Reliance Industries over 'JioHotstar' domain
A Delhi-based developer faces legal action from Reliance Industries after acquiring the 'JioHotstar' domain, aiming to leverage the Jio and Disney+ Hotstar merger. Reliance is pursuing legal steps to secure the domain, raising questions about trademark rights and small developers' challenges.
The developer and the owner of the domain, who has not been publicly identified, claims that Reliance had reached out via Ambujesh Yadav, AVP of Commercials. According to the developer, Reliance demanded £93,345, purportedly for an Executive MBA programme's tuition fees. The developer refused, prompting Reliance to consider legal action. However, this has not yet been independently verified.
On the website, the developer expressed feeling powerless against Reliance, a major corporation. They argued that at the time of purchasing the domain in 2023, no trademark for 'JioHotstar' existed, suggesting no infringement on intellectual property.
The developer also mentioned the imminent risk of losing the domain, potentially within hours, and appealed for legal assistance. They are uncertain about their next steps as legal proceedings loom, hoping for a resolution but recognising the possibility of losing the domain.
The statement on the website said, "I don't have the power to stand against Reliance. I don't feel I infringed any trademark when I bought this in 2023, since JioHotstar was not even in existence at that time. No body had trademark for JioHotstar when I bought it. I might automatically lose access of this domain in few hours. If any legal professional could help, I would be grateful."
- Can RIL steal the domain from the poor guy?61 votes
- Yes/Maybe47.54%
- No22.95%
- Show Results29.51%
Comments
Microsoft Settles Suit Over Browser's Name
https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19980702&slug=2759186
What a dumb guy.
Apple Computer Education (India) was forced to change its name to ApTech
Reliance Industries is not Microsoft i am afraid, i think they will not settle and will pursue legal action or the guy will simply transfer it over under pressure
Did you bother to read how long that Microsoft civil case was pending before it was settled?
Poor guy? He knew what he was doing, he got an offer which would pay for his tuition as I understand it, but, he choose to be greedy instead.
okay chill
Nissan is still fighting for nissan.com.
Did he publicly admit to cybersquatting lol?
He would be legally sued/forced/settled to give up the domain to RJIL.
similar case from past in .in tld
https://selvams.com/indrp-domain-name-dispute-cases/indrp42/
I mean, that’s up to the lawyers to decide, but I can 100 % see that claim being made looking at the text on the website. He shouldn’t have posted anything of what he did.
Cyber squatting:
Cybersquatting is a prevalent form of domain dispute worldwide, where individuals register domain names containing existing trademarks with the intent to profit by selling them back to the rightful owners. This unethical practice forces businesses to buy their own domain names at high costs, impacting their online presence.
Reverse Cybersquatting:
Reverse Domain Name Hijacking, also known as reverse cybersquatting, occurs when a trademark owner falsely accuses a domain name's rightful owner of cybersquatting through legal means. This tactic aims to intimidate domain owners, especially smaller organisations or individuals, into relinquishing their domain names to avoid legal costs. Larger corporations and famous individuals commonly perpetrate this practice.
The guy registered the domain in 2023 itself when there was no such thing as JioHotstar since the merger hadn't happened then.
I'm no legal specialist, but I'm sure Jio and Hotstar are already trademarked and a court might rule in RJIL favour.
opinions are my own, i don't know law, don't take my opinion as a legal one
Jio and Hotstar are not common words, not family names, and therefore it is extremely challenging to defend such copyrighted names.
— not a legal advice. This is my opinion shared.
Legal advice - lawyer up and sue the hell out of it.
in this case, parties settled the case and YouTube paid the defendant (Kohli) NZ $8k in exchange of transferring the domain.
Lol, I can’t even wrap my head around this. So this guy just put two well-known local brand names together, registered the domain to extort money, and cooked up a lame ass story about how he came up with the name—and he didn’t even hide his intentions. Cybersquatting or not, illegal in India or not, his intentions are clearly not good, and it’s just a case of blackmail.
https://archive.is/GAKma
This is exactly like the halfeatenpie.com incident 😂
Another day, another JamesRoi
Something like that happened with one of my friends. He had a domain name which was of interest by a large distributor of cosmetic products in Russia and neighboring countries.
They first contacted and offered some money to purchase and after getting denied, file UDRP. He replied himself without hiring any attorney and still won.
This may not happen with this case as this is clear infringement of the trademark. Someone from law can prove the trademark didn't exist before but as I read some disputes, there are cases where even with trademark was registered after domain name is acquired, the plaintiff was granted transfer of ownership.
So does this all mean that any domain that has X in it could be sued / taken by Elon.... I don't think so.
However from the response to Relaince, I think @DP pic is perfect.
Someone actually bought jiozomato and jioswiggy just today lmao (Zomato and Swiggy are the food delivery apps of India), probably after seeing this.
https://who.is/whois/jiozomato.com
https://who.is/whois/jioswiggy.com
What a legend 💀💀
HINT: take a dog/cat from a shelter a day before you buy domain like that, name it and just document it's life on a blog.
I wrote basically exactly this to someone earlier today regarding this
It s correct
Only Indians Know The Power of Ambani...
Take two of them, name one Disne and the other Yhulu, and suddenly disneyhulu.com is yours to sell for a fancy boat or something.
Oh, he better extend it to several years of ownership now because registrar is probably already rewriting the price tag to 6 digits.
So he registered the domain just to extort Reliance..?
The domain was registered on 20th Sep 2023. Rumors of Jio acquiring Hotstar were in public media from September 19th itself. So his claims of a magical “hypothesis” are all bollocks.