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Last
December
I
told you that a convicted domain
thief named Daniel Goncalves would
likely be spending five years in
prison after pleading guilty in a
plea bargain arrangement with the |
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New
Jersey Division of Criminal Justice (NJDCJ).
That is the stretch in the Big House that
the NJDCJ recommended and today it
became official. Goncalves was
sentenced to five years for stealing the
domain name P2P.com from Internet
entrepreneur Marc Ostrofsky and
selling it on eBay.com for $121,000
to former NBA basketball player
Mark Madsen.
Goncalves was sentenced before Superior
Court Judge Stuart Peim in Union
County, N.J. following a guilty plea
to multiple criminal counts. Had
he not pled out, Goncalves could have
received 15 years in the slammer.
In
this landmark case, Goncalves became the
first domain thief in history to be
criminally prosecuted in the |
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United
States. Ostrofsky and his partners Albert
and Lesli Angel worked to track down
Goncalves with the New Jersey Cyber
Crimes unit. The successful
prosecution sets a major precedent
in that there are no laws currently in
place to protect domain name theft. States
like California consider an
internet domain name similar to a piece of
real estate. If it’s stolen the owner
may have a remedy to get it returned but
it’s a long and expensive process,
However, most other states like New
York or New Jersey consider the
domain name a piece of “intellectual
property” similar to a copyright or
trademark, and owners have no legal
recourse to get back that stolen asset. Domain
name owners hope that this case will
instigate new legislation that will
protect these valuable properties. |
Ostrofsky,
a domain industry pioneer, is also author of the
New York Times best-selling book Get
Rich Click!, The Ultimate Guide To Making
Money Online. He initially gained
famed for selling Business.com in a transaction
valued at $7.5 million in 1999. High
profile transactions like that one helped to
fuel interest in domain names as investment
assets, but laws creating remedies for victims
of domain theft have lagged behind market
developments.
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Albert
Angel |
Marc
Ostrofsky |
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Albert
Angel, who spoke at the sentencing, said
“in our effort to redress the injuries
inflicted on us, we came to appreciate
how undeveloped this area of the law is,
and how victims of domain theft face an
unmarked and totally uphill battle to
get a remedy. Today’s sentencing helps
to define a path for other victims and
law enforcers to follow, and reinforces
the likelihood that the theft of a
domain can and will be prosecuted.”
The
industry owes a debt of gratitude
to the Angels and Ostrofsky for the
years they spent pursuing this criminal
and bringing him to justice. The
prospect of going to jail is something
other domain thieves will now have to
take into consideration when
contemplating whether or not they want
to commit this crime. |
(Posted July
22, 2011)
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