Disney’s Club Penguin, Gets to Keep Domain Name — Man Chastises
Calling Club Penguin’s membership base “minuscule”, domain owner convince arbitration panel to let him keep domain name.
Calling Disney’s Club Penguin and its 2.6 million registered users in 2006 a “minuscule and insignificant number”, a Florida man has convinced an arbitrator to let him keep the domain name ClubPenguin.mobi.
The domain name’s owner, Pedro Sierra, told a National Arbitration Panel that he registered the domain name to “market images of Men’s High Fashion and of Miami Beach lifestyle”. He registered the domain name following the children’s Club Penguin site was launched but ahead of official trademarks were granted. By 2006 the site had 2.6 million registered users, and Sierra didn’t register the domain name until 2007.
In response to the complainant’s assertion that Club Penguin was famous prior to Sierra’s registration, Sierra chastised Club Penguin as modest compared to the success of sites such as Facebook and Twitter. (Never mind that many of Club Penguin’s members pay $6 a month.)
The arbitrator ruled that Disney did not prove the domain name was registered and used in bad faith, in part since there were no trademarks on the books when the domain was registered and Disney failed to prove it had common law trademarks for Club Penguin back then.
