IndianFantasyLeague.com

Published by inforum on Tagged Indian Domain Names

It was reported today that the Madras High Court had issued an injunction today on behalf of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) restraining Sandeep Goyal and Rediff.com from using the domain name IndianFantasyLeague.com.

The BCCI is the main governing body for Cricket in India. In March, BCCI announced plans to set up a fantasy cricket league, based on the Indian Premier League. Unfortunately, they did not register a domain for this as far as I can find out. In any event, one Sandeep Goyal registered the domain name IndianFantasyLeague.com. He has already been developing and promoting the domain, and has obtained significant sponsorship for his fantasy league.

It looks like the basis for the injunction was that the domain name and the logo is similar to that of the Indian Premier League. The injunction seems to have been given on an ex parte basis - without any response by the defendants. It appears that the case will be heard by the court on June 10, at which time I would expect the defendants will have a chance to submit their defences.

Rediff.com has issued a statement that they were simply the registrar in the case and simply issue domain names on a first come, first serve basis when they are applied for. Indeed, it seems to me that BCCI has way overreached in this case, and Rediff has been improperly included as a party.

While the news report on this is quite scarce on details, the whole case stinks to me. It’s not clear what was so urgent that an injunction had to be granted so quickly and without any defences being submitted. This looks to me like a bullying tactic by BCCI to force the defendants to respond under immense time pressure (they have days to respond - it can take days just to find a lawyer). All the while, BCCI had two months to properly prepare its case and arguments.

Further, suing Rediff seems like clear overreaching to me and its unfortunate that a company is drawn into a legal battle for a transaction in which they made only a few dollars. Finally, the domain name itself seems very generic. Unless there is some trademark that hasn’t been reported, the whole thing smells of a bullying attempt to me. I hope that Sandeep Goyal stands up to this bullying. And in the future, companies should realize that before they make a public announcement about something, they should register all the relevant domains.

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