As the anniversary of the last Squamish Valley Music Festival fast approaches the company behind the now-defunct event, have recently won legal battles over its Canadian and American domain names.
On May 30, the producer of the festival, Live at Squamish (Brand.Live), won the right to the Canadian domain name, squamishvalleymusicfestival.ca, in a decision by the British Columbia International Commercial Arbitration Centre. The week previous, the U.S. decision by the National Arbitration Forum (NAF), returned the domain to the event producers.
Squamish developer Doug Day had registered the domain names in October of 2013, on a whim, he said.
“We were looking at doing some camping arrangements with Brand.Live on our golf course,” said Day, adding the deal eventually fell through. “In the course of those earlier negotiations I noticed that they didn’t have their website so I said… I will just get their website. It is not like I was posting lewd photographs. It was a completely dormant domain name that was never activated.”
There were never websites set up, he added.
In April, Live at Squamish Limited partnership filed a complaint with the British Columbia International Commercial Arbitration Centre, which resolves domain name disputes in Canada and with the NAF in the U.S.. Day said he chose not to file responses to the complaints.
“I never showed up for any of the hearings,” Day said, adding he would have given the domains back to the festival “for a Subway sandwich,” if he had been asked nicely.
According to the Canadian decision, festival representatives argued the wording used in the domain name was well associated with the festival since November 2012.
“The Complainant and Brand.Live have adopted and continue to use the Complainant’s Mark in association with the festival, festival camping and each of their businesses, service and wares throughout the world,” reads the position of the complainant in the 13-page Canadian decision. The festival representatives also argued that Day had registered the names “in bad faith.”
“He registered the disputed domain name primarily for the purpose of disrupting the business of the complainant, who is a direct competitor.”
The festival announced in March it would not return to Squamish this summer for its three-day August music festival.
Day acknowledges he tossed around the idea of resurrecting the defunct festival on his former property at the Garibaldi Springs Golf Course, but said he wasn’t serious.
“As I tend to do, thinking out loud with my finger on a keyboard,” he said. “I don’t think it ever would have happened. If everybody had said ‘Yeah, Doug, go for it.’ I would have said, well, wait a minute, I don’t want people mucking about on my beautiful property.”
A single arbitrator heard both decisions. The reasons for the decisions echoed each other. In her May 13 decision, Canadian panelist Elizabeth Cuddihy cited several reasons for transferring the name back to the festival. According to the Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy of the Canadian Internet Registration Authority, the company had proven that the domain name was “confusingly similar” to its own name, and that Day had registered it in “bad faith” and had no legitimate interest in the name.
The Squamish Chief made repeated requests to Brand.Live for comment but the appropriate spokespeople are out of town until the middle of August.
