Advice required

[lesurf]

Hi,

I need some advice on selling a slightly dubious set of names. I have seen recently on this forum the sale of a few celebrities names and have a set of names myself which get good traffic that I wouldn't mind shifting.

Basically I have "thefamouspersonsname".com and co.uk. Both of which I caught when the famous person's agent at the time failed to renew. This famous person has since changed agents, the reason why I am guessing the domains weren't renewed.

I have had them parked at sedo for 6 months and haven't heard anything from this person's agent. They earn OK PPC rev but in a way I'd rather sell even if I only get a few hundred pounds.

My question is: If I just put these on ebay with no reserve ala fabio.co.uk (which I saw here & on ebay) I am OK to do this? The name is not a registered trademark and my expectations are pretty low in terms of what I'm after. What's the best plan of attack? Should I contact this person's people to offer them first refusal before ebaying or would this be unwise from a DRS point of view.

lesurf

 

[domaingenius]

Hmm, I tried that and ebay removed it in 1 day

DG

 

[retired member 1]

How can you trade mark a persons name?

Whoever they are i'm pretty sure there will be someone somewhere with exactly the same name.....if that is the case why does someone famous have more right to the domain than anyone else?

NetIdentity have both my first name .com and my last name .com, does that mean I can issue them a C&D?

 

[lesurf]

I must say I'm still a bit dubious on this. If I contacted the agent of the famous person aren't I pretty much admitting that I have registered it in bad faith?

Perhaps the best way is to ebay it but do it like it's just like any other name, i.e no mention of or pictures of the famous person in my listing just bland traffic stats and OV results, then I am not giving myself enough rope to hang myself?

My worry is that there have been non UK precedents set in the US already:

http://www.circleid.com/article/1080_0_1_0_C/

 

[IngB]

I would be hesitant to approach the person or agent of the name offering to sell it, I would think this would provide them with good evidence of bad faith, just my 2 cents

 

[lesurf]

My thoughts exactly, thanks for your input. I think this famousperson's name stuff is a bit of no-no, a bit like regging TM'ed names. To be fair I only caught these particular names as I had spare slots on dropcatcher and was curious as to the traffic that I would get. I was pleasantly surprised with the traffic so I think I will either hold on to the them as good type in domains or if I'm short of cash one month stick them on ebay and hope for the best