Berkens’ firm sues musician Bryan Adams over bizarre trademark claims

Musician’s “sheriff” tries to scare the wrong guy.

Domain investor Michael Berkens’ firm Worldwide Media, Inc. has sued (pdf) musician Bryan Adams and his firm Adams Communications Inc following the musician’s representative sent a bizarre demand letter.

Berkens bought the domain PointLookout.com in February 2017 when it was auctioned off in an expired domain name auction. He was apparently drawn to the name since it represents a number of geographic locations.

On April 1, 2017 Adams’ representatives at Web Sheriff sent a bizarre demand letter to Worldwide Media. The letter is chock-full of scary terms like “criminal fraud”, ” anti-moneylaundering” and “criminal remedies”. Essentially, it was demanding that Berkens hand over the domain name PointLookout.com to Bryan Adams.

Apparently Adams owns a vacation home called Point Lookout.

Web Sherrif appears to mostly represent musicians around piracy matters, hence the crazy language in its demand letter.

Since of the threats, Worldwide Media, with the help of attorney John Berryhill, filed suit against Adams and his firm asking for declaratory relief and for the threats to cease.

Once again, this is a reminder that firms ought to be careful ahead of firing off broad demand letters without fully evaluating the circumstances and parties.