Celebrity Domain Names, What are the dangers?

[WalkinDude]

Interested in any information or stories about ownership of Celeb domain names. I get the feeling if someone owned DavidBeckham.co.uk they'd get hit with a Writ faster than they could sit down. But what if you own say BarackObama.co.uk or Shakira.co.uk who are overseas Celebs and probably not interested? Then of course it depends what you use the domain for. Apparently if it's a fan site it's protected by freedom of expression laws and you are only in danger if you set up the website for commercial reasons.

Any comments and analysis welcome. Thanks.

 

[Edwin]

Complete waste of time and energy. Even ff you set up a pure fan site, what next? As soon as you monetise it in any way (e.g. Adsense) then they have a much stronger lever to go after you with. And if you never monetise the site, what was the point?

 

[doodlebug]

I use to own marshallmathers.co.uk dint make any money from it, I think you would have to be a die hard fan to bother doing it for free.

Personally I dont think they are worth bothering with, you see them selling for peanuts between domain traders.

 

[WalkinDude]

Okay saw Kylie Minogue go on DL other day. So lets say it's a 'fansite' going up. And lets say because this is a pure fansite there's a half chance it's kosher, and lets say there's no banner ads, nothing for sale, just purely Kylie Worship,but somewhere discreetly there's a couple of links to other sites which ARE monetized? What then?

 

[Edwin]

Okay saw Kylie Minogue go on DL other day. So lets say it's a 'fansite' going up. And lets say because this is a pure fansite there's a half chance it's kosher, and lets say there's no banner ads, nothing for sale, just purely Kylie Worship,but somewhere discreetly there's a couple of links to other sites which ARE monetized? What then?

Then you'll have put in a lot of work for a couple of links that could be taken off you at any minute. Better to put that energy into a couple of great blogposts that act as "linkbait" (i.e. that are useful/funny/interesting enough for others to link to them spontaneously)

 

[doodlebug]

The CTR on your links would be low then the amount who click on an ad on that site would be low and then the conversion rate on the merchant site would be low, on top of that your commission will probably be low so leaves you with not much :-(

It's not worth it !

 

[killaclown]

I would set up a fan site that would require sign up via FB connect, link up a facebook page and market, sell via FB.

Zero ads on that site.

Never done it, but thats what id do.

Edit. That kind of makes me sound like a money grabber, that would infringe on celebritys' image rights and branding rights. I wouldn't.

 

[bulkcorn]

Is to safe to name your next baby(or deliberately have one), or even change your own name by deed poll to e.g David Beckham to try get away with owning davidbeckham.co.uk or .com? :lol: ROTFLMAO!