iTunes 'cybersquatter' takes Apple name battle to High Court

The ex dot-com millionaire that lost the rights to the iTunes.co.uk domain name has announced he plans to take his legal battle to the High Court.

Last week, domain name registry service Nominet ruled that Benjamin Cohen must hand the iTunes.co.uk name to Apple. Although Cohen registered the name in November 2000, three years before Apple initially launched its online music shop of the same name, Nominet's dispute resolution procedure found in favour of the Cupertino-based company.

Cohen said he has been deterred from appealing directly to Nominet due to the cost - a £3,000 fee in addition to legal expenses - and feels the domain name registrar is biased in favour of large US corporations over small UK companies.

Apple offered to buy the domain name for $5,000 late last year but Cohen responded he would only be willing to sell for £50,000. Following several weeks of informal mediation which failed to resolve the dispute, a Nominet expert was appointed to rule on ownership of the domain name.

Cohen asked at the time that the expert not be a Mac user because "there is a 'cult' associated with the products of [Apple], which attract fanatical users", Nominet's ruling said.

Cohen, now CEO of CyberBritain, said he intends to refer the decision for Judicial Review in the High Court. Apple, which Cohen said branded him a cybersquatter, declined to comment.

Currently, the iTunes.co.uk domain name redirects visitors to another of Cohen's ventures, a shopping site called Quickquid.com.

Previously, the site was used as a music search engine and to redirect page visitors to skipmusic.com and later cyberbritain.com. Following iTunes launch in the UK, the site received over 4,000 hits a day.

Late last year, Cohen tried to sell the domain name to Apple's online music rival Napster. Although Napster declined the offer, for a brief period in November, iTunes.co.uk redirected its visitors to Napster.co.uk.

Nominet-appointed expert Claire Milne ruled the registration took "unfair advantage" of Apple's trademarks and decided "on the balance of probabilities, I find the domain name... is an abusive registration on the grounds of its use in a manner taking advantage of, and being unfairly detrimental to [Apple]".