Company sues Clear Channel to keep domain name
Radio giant contends RadioAid is using Web site to divert consumers
By Jonathan Osborne
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
A small Austin Internet company filed suit against Clear Channel Communications on Tuesday over a Web site domain name that criticizes the San Antonio-based radio giant.
RadioAid.com, an online promoter of unsigned and independent musical artists, purchased ClearChannelSucks.net in January 2002 after learning that Clear Channel already owned ClearChannelSucks.com.
RadioAid's founders used the domain, which redirects browsers to the company's home page, to promote RadioAid and to protest the established music industry, which they claim stifles creativity, promotes uniformity and treats musicians unfairly.
Last December, a lawyer for Clear Channel sent RadioAid a letter asking the company to stop using the domain name. RadioAid refused.
In May, Clear Channel filed a complaint with the National Arbitration Forum, the first stop in dealing with such disputes as required by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.
Clear Channel won the case earlier this month, theoretically gaining control of the domain.
However, the lawsuit filed in federal court Tuesday prevents that transfer for the time being.
Clear Channel did not immediately respond to inquiries about the suit Tuesday.
However, in a letter to RadioAid founder Rob Vining and in its original complaint, Clear Channel argues that Clear ChannelSucks.net uses Clear Channel's name to divert consumers to its competition -- that is, a business that directly relates to broadcasting music.
RadioAid's lawyer, Pete Kennedy, said that RadioAid's business philosophy and mission are, in part, to criticize what the company sees as an overly commercialized and overly consolidated music industry.
"Whether they're right or wrong, they believe they have the right to make that criticism, and this domain name, they believe, is part of that critique," Kennedy said. "RadioAid.com believes it has First Amendment rights just like individuals."
Kennedy said that in similar cases across the nation -- and there have been many -- the courts typically favor the critics. RadioAid's case is different because most of the past "sucks.com" or "sucks.net" cases involved domain names owned by individuals or advocacy groups -- not other corporations.
Vining, who runs the company out of his South Austin home, said his site features about 500 artists worldwide who pay RadioAid for Web sites and music storage space.
The company's officers decided to purchase the ClearChannelSucks.net site because, in Vining's words, "We've always been upset about how radio was just becoming bland and boring."
