Celebrity Domains - liability?

[traveleze]

I've seen a few domainers with a portfolio including celebrity .co.uk domain names. (ie, lesdennis.co.uk) Would these be a liability... or is there a fair argument there could be more than 1 person with the celebrity name and so perfectly ok to own.?

Just wondered.

steve

 

[Edwin]

It always baffles me why people hang onto those - the likelihood is that there is at best only ONE interested party, and they may well take action to recover the name rather than hand over ransom money...

While an oblique case might possibly be made for ownership for a fan site, that would be in the case of a REAL fan site i.e. comprehensive, well maintained, etc. Stockpiling it with the excuse that "it could be a fan site" is disingenious at best, especially if the stockpiler's generally making money out of selling domains i.e. if they're holding a portfolio of domains with the specific intent of resale.

Personally I wouldn't look twice at such names, even if there were hundreds of thousands of searches a month for that person.

 

[namealot]

I've seen a few domainers with a portfolio including celebrity .co.uk domain names. (ie, lesdennis.co.uk) Would these be a liability... or is there a fair argument there could be more than 1 person with the celebrity name and so perfectly ok to own.?

Just wondered.

steve

Is les dennis a celebrity how exactly do you think you can make £ from the names without running the risk of them coming after it if you have a product, service etc named the same you may have an argument if not your pretty much stuffed at making £ unless they buy and high chance is there go DRS you can try the fan site route but lotta work and possibly £££ with big chance of no return
?

 

[martin-s]

I picked up a few in my earlier days, but no one really wants them so I've set them as no longer required.

fabregas.co.uk (there are 2,000+ people on LinkedIn with this surname, so not quite so bad)
jenniferaniston.co.uk
joejonas.co.uk
rogermoore.co.uk

I also have alanturing.co.uk, but as a historical name I don't have the same issue with that one.

Anyone interested is certainly welcome to these.

Martin

 

[lee]

I've had a few in the past and I have a handful now.

Always great earners and never an issue selling them on. I sold on on here for 4 figures a couple of years ago.

 

[traveleze]

Interesting... and thank you for the replies.

Martin, surely fabregas.co.uk is a bit more ambigious and cesc would have no right to it. I would say that's a safe bet to own and promote? With what is another matter without targeting it directly at cesc.

I do own 2 celebrity domains, and yes i too marked them not to be renewed.

they are: barbarawindsor.co.uk & kenzie.co.uk (it was a quite a few years ago, and i was still a bit wet behind the ears). I've never done anything with them and like i say, i've marked them to expire. (in 2 years lol).

Steve

 

[AssetDomains]

With fabregas.co.uk and most real name celebrity names they cant do anything if you just own them.

The minute you put anything on it to make money from there name they can use legal means to take it from you and potentially sue you for damages to there image rights if they wish.

I'm guessing a lot of celebrities don't really care if its genuine fan site. You do get some like Prince who threatened to bankrupt some fans for sites that shared a videos of live performance earlier this year.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-e...for-22-million-in-piracy-lawsuit-9088733.html