World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner Russell “Dutch” Boyd may be best known for his career as a professional poker player, but he has also supplemented his income over the years by cyber-speculating, registering a number of poker-related domain names and making money off the traffic that goes to those sites. Boyd’s side job appears to have gotten him in hot water, as the owners and operators of TwoPlusTwo Publishing have filed a suit over his ownership of the domain name TwoPlusTwoPoker.com.
The Las Vegas Sun broke news of the suit earlier this month. The Sun story said TwoPlusTwo Publishing accused Boyd of cyber-squatting on the domain and considered it to be an instance of trademark infringement. Within the article, Boyd commented on the legal action, noting, “It is never fun to be sued, especially by someone you look up to and respect professionally.” Boyd had choice words for TwoPlusTwo owner Mason Malmouth in particular, whom he accused of bullying. Boyd was not the only alleged cyber-squatter sued by the publishing company. A lawsuit was filed against Anthony Scocozza, who purchased a similar domain name at the beginning of the year. Boyd originally purchased his URL in July of 2004, but has since transferred ownership of the site over to the publishing group.
The article in the Sun proved to just be the beginning of the story though and the drama continued, appropriately enough, on the TwoPlusTwo Poker Forums. Boyd responded to a thread linked to the article and offered his side of the story, stating that he regretted registering the domain name in the first place, but confirmed that the ownership of the domain name was transferred over to Greenberg Traurig, the law firm representing the interests of TwoPlusTwo.
A week later, Malmouth posted a thorough explanation of why the company filed suit, including scans of two cease and desist letters sent to Boyd by Greenberg Traurig on behalf of the company. Malmouth also offered an explanation as to why TwoPlusTwo did not drop the suit since they now have control over the domain name in question: “Due to the length of time the registration was owned by Mr. Boyd, and his blatant infringement, we informed Boyd that the expiration of the TwoPlusTwoPoker.com would not resolve the dispute. At the very least, we needed to know exactly how much revenue the domain name and website had generated and how much traffic the site received.”
Malmouth went on to report that their representation repeatedly tried to settle out of court with Boyd, but the two parties were unable to come anywhere close to an agreement. According to Malmouth, a final e-mail from his attorneys to Boyd letting him know they were left with no choice but to file suit was met with a terse response of “F*** Off.”
Under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), registrants cannot register any domain names that infringe upon the rights of a third party. More specifically, the URL cannot be identical or similar to a pre-existing trademark and the registrant cannot use that domain name in bad faith. Boyd responded in the thread, posting an excerpt of trademark law that suggests because TwoPlusTwo did not meet the notice requirement necessary in order to obtain profits or damages. Moreover, Boyd asserted that the site earned no more than $200 in profits during the five years it was under his ownership.
This is not the first time Boyd’s purchase of domain names has landed him in the spotlight. In October of 2008, Boyd went to arbitration with online poker room PokerHost over his use of the website, PokerHost.net. Boyd registered that URL in 2004 and PokerHost alleged his usage of the site was in violation of UDRP since the company obtained the URL PokerHost.com two years prior. However, because the online site did not launch its gaming services until after Boyd registered the domain name, the judge arbitrating the case ruled in favor of Boyd, saying the term was a generic domain name at time of registration and not a pre-existing trademark.
