Rock star Bruce Springsteen has lost his bid to evict a fan club
from a web site sporting his name on the grounds that the owner of
brucespringsteen.com could show some rights or legitimate interests
in the name.
A three-member panel of the World Intellectual Property
Organisation (“WIPO”) ruled that a Canadian, Jeff Burgar, and the
Bruce Springsteen Club had not violated Bruce Springsteen’s rights
by registering the web site brucespringsteen.com.
Although the WIPO panel was split, the majority ruled that
Burgar had “demonstrated that he had some rights or legitimate
interests in respect of the domain name and [Springsteen] has
failed to demonstrate that the domain name was registered and has
been used in bad faith”.
Bruce Springsteen failed to present any evidence that Burgar had
attempted to sell the domain name at any time.
