TorrentFreak

The place where breaking news, BitTorrent and copyright collide

TorrentReactor.net Wins Trademark Infringing .Com Domain

TorrentReactor.net, listed among the ten most popular torrent sites on the Internet, has won a WIPO domain dispute against the owner of TorrentReactor.com. The latter domain was owned by Craig Pratka, a New York resident who used the domain to drive up revenues at a ‘dubious’ affiliate program. The decision ends a long domain name battle that started back in 2008.

torrentreactorIn recent months most domain name issues related to torrent sites or other file-sharing portals usually involved the US Government. Where many sites lost their domains left and right in three waves of seizures, a major torrent site has now managed to add one to its collection through a WIPO complaint.

Alexey, the owner of TorrentReactor.net, informed TorrentFreak that his company has won its domain dispute against TorrentReactor.com. The complaint was filed at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) on October 26 of last year, with Alex stating that the .com domain is abusing the brand TorrentReactor has built over the years.

New York resident Craig Pratka, the (former) owner of TorrentReactor.com, was not operating a website under the name TorrentReactor but had simply forwarded the domain to the affiliate site allcontentaccess.com. In his complaint, Alex argued that the sole intent of the .com domain was to mislead users of the .net domain.

According to WIPO, Alex stated that Pratka was “intentionally attempting to attract Internet users to his web site for commercial gain, since the web site associated with the disputed domain name is redirected and urges visitors to pay money in order to access its database.”

The WIPO arbitration commission reviewed the case and finally concluded that the domain was indeed registered in bad faith. Alex told TorrentFreak that the domain was transferred to his company yesterday, and that the case is now officially closed.

This successful dispute follows a failed one against the previous owner of the .com domain, Jinsu Kim, who offered to sell it to TorrentReactor.net for $150,000 a few years ago. Alex declined and offered $30,000 instead, to which Kim replied with a new price tag: “The price is $50k and not negotiable.”

In 2008 Alex tried to go for the cheaper option and filed a WIPO dispute. This request was denied because at the time he had not yet registered the TorrentReactor trademark.

In the years that followed the .com domain was sold to Craig Pratka, who owns several torrent site typo domains, and is currently in the process of registering the Pirate Bay trademark. How much Pratka paid for the .com domain is unknown, but based on the previous quotes it can’t have been cheap.

Thankfully there are trademark and copyright laws to stop such abusive behavior.

Related Posts

Previous Post | Next Post

  • Benniwestlake

    am i first

    • Anonymous

      No.

    • http://twitter.com/ltamake Link Tamake

      Kill yourself.

  • Pingback: Tweets that mention TorrentReactor.net Wins Trademark Infringing .Com Domain | TorrentFreak -- Topsy.com

  • Anonymous

    “Thankfully there are trademark and copyright laws to stop such abusive behavior.”

    Ha ha :D

    • Anonymous

      Hey, if they can abuse laws, precedents, and standards to take things from people, why can’t we?

      • holick

        no reason.just makes you flaming hypocrites.

    • http://anoxona.myopenid.com/ ANoXoNA

      Should be Trademark laws..only.

      Proper Trademark , reduces the risk of fraud…. as in this example.

      Anyone for a Sany tv ? or an Applee 1pod ?

    • Cords

      This Alexei, owner of Torrentreactor is clearly a hypocrite! For him to be calling on the IP/copyright law is pathetic. I do not use Torrentreactor and a true pirate don’t support IP or copyright AT ALL. If Alexei didn’t want anyone to use torrentreactor.com, he should have registered himself first.

    • Cords

      This Alexei, owner of Torrentreactor is clearly a hypocrite! For him to be calling on the IP/copyright law is pathetic. I do not use Torrentreactor and a true pirate don’t support IP or copyright AT ALL. If Alexei didn’t want anyone to use torrentreactor.com, he should have registered himself first.

  • AnonyWAAAAA?

    This successful dispute follows a failed one against the previous owner of the .com domain, Jinsu Kim, who offered to sell it to TorrentReactor.net for $150,000 a few years ago. Kistenev declined and offered $30,000 instead, to which Kim replied: “The price is $50k and not negotiable.” -> 150k ^^
    Otherwise, rofl’d hard.

  • http://crashsuit.blogspot.com crashsuit

    Good luck with the Pirate Bay trademark thing… didn’t something like that get shot down a year or two ago?

  • http://disqus.com/ Rob8urcakes

    Again we have business interfering and disrupting our beloved community. And now this Prat kant is going to try and steal the Pirate Bay name from us by registering it as a freakin’ trademark.

    Honestly, when are these fucktards going to learn they can’t take anything of worth from us. We’ll simply adapt, improve and move on up to the next step in our evolution quickly and in a way that no business group could possibly keep pace with.

    See that tail waving in your face Mr Suit? That’s ours. Chase it for as long as you like, but you’d better get used to seeing it coz you can’t catch up with us.

  • DocGerbil100

    Umm… this may be a stupid question, but TorrentReactor’s owner offered $30,000 just for a domain name? That’s quite a lot of wonga. How much money must TorrentReactor be making, if the owner can afford an offer of such generosity? o_0

    • Anonymous

      I guess “some” torrent sites make that in a month… Depending on the type of ads they run.

    • Violated

      The most I have ever paid for a 7 letter .com domain was $100. The previous owner did not need it and selling was better than to keep renewing it or letting it expire.

      TorrentReactor is 14 letters and I doubt worth that much in the long term.

      Still I understand his goal when if you own a domain then .com is most desirable. Or it was until ICE made .com domain owners their bitches.

      • http://twitter.com/ip2k Hello There

        “TorrentReactor is 14 letters and I doubt worth that much in the long term.”

        ‘huffingtonpost’ is also 14 letters and AOL just paid ~$315M for it. Probably won’t be worth it in the long run, according to your logic: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/07/aol-huffington-post_n_819375.html

        It’s not about how long a domain name is, it’s about how RELEVANT it is to something people want.

      • http://twitter.com/ip2k Hello There

        “TorrentReactor is 14 letters and I doubt worth that much in the long term.”

        ‘huffingtonpost’ is also 14 letters and AOL just paid ~$315M for it. Probably won’t be worth it in the long run, according to your logic: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/07/aol-huffington-post_n_819375.html

        It’s not about how long a domain name is, it’s about how RELEVANT it is to something people want.

        • Lol

          Right, they paid $315M JUST for the domain name.. Idiot

        • http://otester.myopenid.com/ PiRat

          Read the article Hello There posted you idiot.

    • Meh

      Pratka was clearly an amateur. The price went from 150k to 50k within one conversation.

  • DLAtalanta

    The decision has nothing to do with their TM. It has to due with first use, and domain ownership date. torrentreactor.com was registered on 6-16-2003 and the torrentreactor.net on 10-20-2003. If Jinsu Kim still owned the domain, Alex would have lost the WIPO, but since the panels consider a domain sale as a ‘new registration’ date Alex won. It’s a flawed system. because the panels ignore original registration date.

    Domain Lawyer

    • Anonymous

      Well, this is what WIPO says…

      “The Panel finds that the Complainant has proven that the disputed domain name is identical to the trademark in which the Complainant has rights in accordance with paragraph 4(a)(i) of the Policy.”

      You’re obviously correct about the failed system, but I assume that it would have been a more difficult decision without the trademark…

  • Momo

    And hilariously enough, the US government will “disappear” that hard-earned domain from the entire internet in 3…2…1…

    • Anonymous

      Very true…

  • Thenutman

    “Thankfully there are trademark and copyright laws to stop such abusive behavior.”

    WTF, did you guys really just say that. Pigs must be flying when TF is for trademark and copyright laws.

    I just have to lol at the whole situation. A torrent site fighting for their trademark. Hypocrisy much?

    • Momo

      Trademarks are a wholly different legal beast from copyrights, even though they are usually bunched together under the false banner of “intellectual property”.

      On the one hand, copyright was invented to give some people special privileges over what others can do with property they’ve legally bought. On the other hand, trademarks were not invented to give companies control over specific words, but to protect the public from buying fake products.

      In this case, someone else is using the Torrentreactor name without permission — who knows what sort of spyware/viruses that someone could be uploading to the fake TR website! TR sued him and stopped him.

      • DocGerbil100

        I looked up copyright on Wikipedia (yes, I know). Assuming the entry’s correct, the original invention of copyright (in the Statute of Anne) was actually a very noble and worthy piece of legislation, a long, long way from the mechanism of institutional abuse we have today.

        It was, as I understand it, explicitly designed to create and encourage learning, to keep authors from dying in poverty and was presented as a pragmatic and equitable deal between writers, publishers and the public. It included the first legal concept of public domain works and “introduced measures designed to ensure that no monopolistic abuse could be established in the book trade”.

        I wish someone would slap Peter Mandelson round the face with a copy. :/

        • http://disqus.com/ Rob8urcakes

          Awfully well said Doc.
          I wish we could click the Like button multiple times for that ^ one.

          The greedy corporations have indeed corrupted the concept of copyright and transformed it into copywrong. We do indeed need to go back and restore the rights these corporate fucktards have wronged us with. and the original artists and authors of course.

    • Violated

      I doubt it was about trademark but about the pathway to their house.

      It is like their .net domain was their main path and used by most. There is also a back more scenic .com path that originally ran behind their house to another property until that other house got vacated.

      So the old owner wanted to sell but the price was too costly. No problems so far.

      It is then the case a shifty person purchased this path and land to use in dishonest ways.

      Worse yet some valid visitors took the wrong path by mistake and were now inflicted to a virtual mugging.

      So this is like having the local government pass control to him so that the drugs den can be closed and visitors free to use both paths.

    • DocGerbil100

      There are three possibilities – either: you have no sense of humour; you have a sense of humour that is (perhaps temporarily) broken or; you are attempting to troll with the painfully hackneyed and lulz-exhausted deliberate-misunderstanding tactic. Either way, Thenutman, you need a better sense of humour. :P

      • holick

        the whole point of the joke is how laughably ironic this is.you do get that don’t you?.

        • None

          holick, how much does the MPAA pay you to troll?

      • holick

        the whole point of the joke is how laughably ironic this is.you do get that don’t you?.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Sean-Mcintier/1146574107 Sean Mcintier

    That was my very first thought when I clicked into the article.

  • Meh

    Now you see what happens when Cyber Squatters lose. Let that be a lesson to the rest of you, you know who you are and they’re coming for you!!!
    These parasites are worse then spammers just by the fact that they try to capitalize on the legitimate site’s name.
    Whats funny is now Mr. Pratka is out by how ever much he paid for it. Greed factor got in the way, as it usually does when it involves scammers and cyber-criminals, and he lost.

    • holick

      I know.They’re almost as bad as pirates.

      • Anonymous

        NO, thier far worse, and so are you for watching the news and actually believing it.

        Oh, and while I’ve got your attention, do you think that all those people you see on software websites urging you to buy legal software will actually get any more money if everybody bought thier software. Nope, just the shareholders. They get paid a salary, and either the company can afford it, or they can’t. Simple.

        And its not like buying a car or some pc parts. It costs money to manufacture every single part, then more money to distribute them to stores. How much does it cost to copy software? How much does it cost to put on the web. Nothing. Nada.

        • holick

          Oh great, then produce your own content and put in on the web.You now, since as you say it costs next to nothing.

        • DocGerbil100

          Quite a lot of people already have – if you want to go look for this content, try Googling for “the internet”. :)

  • Pingback: TorrentReactor.net Wins Trademark Infringing .Com Domain | LatinoTorrent.com

  • Mr.Afghanistan

    Very Soon ICE will SEIZE both domains.

    .COM and .NET

    Don’t celebrate, you will lose both domain names very soon ;)

    • Anonymous

      Explain exactly how and why this would happen instead of making ambit claims

      • Momo

        Well, it appears most US citizens don’t give much of a crap about what their government does in their name with their tax money, so it’s not unthinkable to expect that very soon more websites will be getting censored from the internet.

        As the latest US president and his advisors seem to be convinced that more copyright and patent enforcement can lead to more innovation (because the corporate lobbyists told them so), they are using the most draconian and quite possibly illegal means they have to crack down on “piracy”.

        Where “piracy” is a propagandistic conflation of “counterfeiting” and “infringement”, of the type we see in ACTA. You must have heard of ACTA, the “executive agreement” that president Obama is in full support of.

        Have you not been paying attention?

        • Anonymous

          Indeed the elected officials of the US government represents the will of the US citizens. Therefore the domain seizures are the will of the US citizens. If you disagree then why do you let them represent you. Because it is not like they are your lord and master right?

        • Momo

          Either you are right and US citizens are seriously fucked up in the head, or you are wrong.

          As for me, I am more politically active than most people, thank you very much.

        • DocGerbil100

          I think the unfortunate reality of people is that we’re all fucked in the head. To paraphrase Terry Pratchett, as individual people we are as smart or as average or as stupid as we happen to be – but as part of a larger body of people, we are only as smart as our most stupid members. We become mindless sheep, voting for whichever candidate looks and sounds most authoritative in the circumstances, no matter how many times they’ve lied to us in the past. Depressing, but sadly true, I think. :/

  • anonymous

    “Thankfully there are trademark and copyright laws to stop such abusive behavior.”

    :D … love you for that comment

  • http://www.facebook.com/eric.boehm Jack Murdock

    What would the pirates say? Something like “torrentreactor is stiffing innovation by locking up the domain name for themselves”? Or maybe they are greedy because they are “creating a monopoly on domain names”? File sharing talking points are utterly hypocritical.

    • spel

      Jack off Murdock

      • http://www.facebook.com/eric.boehm Jack Murdock

        Clap clap clap

        What an insightful, well thought our responce.

        • http://anoxona.myopenid.com/ ANoXoNA

          You don’t know “Jack” !

          Trademark and copyright are two COMPLETLY different things.
          Trademark prevents false/fake/fraudulent products and services from fake companies/individuals.
          Eg… A company who sells fake CocaCola made with sewage. Or Viagra made with poison. ALL while pretending to be the original valid product ..or… aka… fraud.

          Copyright as far as digital media is concerned ,is as you ,cry “hypocricy” !

          A product that can be ENDLESSLY copied at ZERO cost.. is basically worthless.

          Limiting the distribution and use of such products is “stiffing innovation”
          People trying to limit distibution of such items … are greedy and PREVIOUSLY DID have a monopoly.

          so…. What where you saying Jack ?

        • Anonymous

          No he can say that. He doesn’t have to give a proper response to you. Because you are a troll and you always say the same shit that we already disproved ages ago. Jack off Murdock

    • Momo

      Stiffing innovation?? But I thought it was fisting it!

      And like I explained above, you are wrong.

      So, jack off already.

  • Lolama Bin Samsun

    Hypocrisy much ??? torrentreactor sucks anyway :o

  • check this out
  • Anon

    The problem that is destroying the freedom of our information are the restrictions set in place by laws including copyright and trademark.

    Abusing and Meddling in these deprecated laws will continue to subjugate us. We not need to begin to rely on them, we need to go all out and destroy them.

    Get rid of the law and you get rid of the problem.

    • http://disqus.com/ Rob8urcakes

      I agree, and if the Egyptian people can get rid of a leader after 30 years in power, we can get rid of copywrong laws that are indeed merely holding us all back.

      The internet has changed the need for copyright, and we now need to get our politicians to change the law to make it more fair for ALL concerned and not just some middle-men parasitically living off the work of artists and the cash from the people.

    • http://disqus.com/ Rob8urcakes

      I agree, and if the Egyptian people can get rid of a leader after 30 years in power, we can get rid of copywrong laws that are indeed merely holding us all back.

      The internet has changed the need for copyright, and we now need to get our politicians to change the law to make it more fair for ALL concerned and not just some middle-men parasitically living off the work of artists and the cash from the people.

      • holick

        Yeah and you expecting them to spend time and energy creating content just to give it away to you and everyone else for free clearly aren’t one.

        (They won’t do that, btw).

  • JokesOnYou

    I think it is great when our side can take the laws our opposition has lobbied strongly for, and show them that not only are those laws not theirs to use exclusively, but that they easily cut in both directions. Is it hypocrisy? Let me ask you this. Say someone is trying to kill you, and they drop their gun. Do you pick it up and use it?

  • Deville

    “Thankfully there are trademark and copyright laws to stop such abusive behavior.”

    Lol

  • Pingback: TorrentReactor.net Wins Trademark Infringing .Com Domain | Systema

  • BTGuard - BitTorrent Anonymously

NewsBits

Even more news...

  • 404 Fail: Six Strikes’ Piracy Alternatives Go Missing

    After years of negotiating and planning the “six strikes” copyright alert system finally saw the light...

  • Google Doesn’t Believe Kim Dotcom is Real

    Those who enter Kim Dotcom into Google’s search box will get millions of results. Still, Google...

  • Nintendo’s Miyamoto: Piracy More Concerning Than Used Games Market

    In an interview with Computer and Video Games, Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto says that his company...

  • Monitoring BitTorrent Activity on a Network Using WireShark

    As all readers should know by now, BitTorrent activity is public and can be easily logged...

  • The Pirate Bay Suffers Downtime

    The Pirate Bay is not responding at the moment and most proxies appear to be down...

MostDiscussed

Below are TorrentFreak's most discussed articles of the past month. Join the discussion if you like.

CopyQuote

Left Quote

“The Pirate Bay has been one of the most important movements in Sweden for freedom of speech, working against corruption and censorship.

Peter Sunde Left Quote

PopularArticles

A selection of some TorrentFreak's classics dug up from our archives.