[Constantine Roussos] Question on EOI Draft Comments & Concerns about authenticity of ICANN process

[Marc Salvatierra <marc.salvatierra@xxxxxxxxx>]

Posted by ICANN staff on behalf of Constantine Roussos | .music



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From: Constantine Giorgio Roussos

Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2010 08:43:50 -0800

To: Rod Beckstrom

Cc: Doug Brent , Kurt Pritz

Subject: Question on EOI Draft Comments & Concerns about authenticity of ICANN 
process



Hello Rod / Doug / Kurt,



For starters I wish everyone at ICANN a happy new year. Thank you for your 
efforts on making new gTLDs such as .music a reality and congratulations on the 
new IDN launch. ICANN was positively featured in the press last Sunday here in 
Europe, even in Cyprus. I commend everyone at ICANN for their hard work.



I am writing to ask a simple question about the how ICANN evaluates comments on 
the EOI Draft because I see a worrisome trend of the International Trademark 
Association compromising the ICANN new gTLD process by urging its members to 
flood the comment period with "me too" comments and that registering with their 
opinion is good enough as a comment, lacking any deep analysis about the 
efforts of ICANN to protect trademark holder interests (which include myself 
since my companies own several trademarks as well) or knowing any of the issues.



It seems that the whole ICANN process is becoming a huge circus and is 
threatening the very nature of bottom-up approach which to me is quite 
troubling.



Our .music initiative has reach some milestones last week:



* We surpassed the "Free Tibet" petition and now the ICANN .music initiative 
petition received over 1.25 million signatures from the at-large music and 
internet community (http://www.music.us).

*

* We are now one of the top 10 most popular profiles on Myspace with nearly 1.5 
million friends (http://www.myspace.com/musicextension - most of which are 
bands)

* We have hundreds of thousands of followers across Twitter / Facebook and 
other social media I do not want to emulate what the International Trademark 
Association is doing because in my opinion I think it is unacceptable. I do 
realize ICANN has worked diligently to accommodate trademark holders such as 
myself. However, seeing the flood of comments coming from people who are 
unaware of all the work the IRT has conducted and progress being made is of 
great concern.



My question to ICANN staff is whether this is a popularity contest, which ICANN 
staff thinks is necessary to show the ICANN Board support for the EOI. If so, 
then I will be forced to rally the troops, the supporters, the petition and 
everyone else supporting new TLDs and take a more aggressive stance. I think 
one comment from .music that represents all those supporters is enough. But if 
hearing from everyone in our initiative saying "me too" is what is needed to 
get the process going, we are able to accommodate that.



I do not think it is useful for ICANN to be receiving thousands of emails from 
.music supporters about going forward with the EOI process. However, if ICANN 
staff believes a popularity contest is what is needed to get things rolling, I 
am ready to do whatever it takes.



I am quite disappointed that we have reached this level and be abused by 
numerous trademark holders, whose only goal is to stall the process, doing 
whatever it takes to achieve their goal. I have written some letters to some of 
these corporate "commenters" who allege that defensive registrations will be 
forced upon trademark holders, will confuse users and that there is no demand 
for new gTLDs or any value. for example, I asked Sabrina Hudson, who represents 
Heinz (ketchup company) if she would register the existing initiatives out 
there i.e Heinz.music, Heinz.basketball, Heinz.hotel, Heinz.gay, Heinz.radio, 
Heinz.horse, Heinz.poker etc and how it would confuse users. I have received no 
response by her or anyone else for that matter. You ask a 5-year old and they 
would tell you that they would not be confused because those TLDs have nothing 
to do with ketchup in the Heinz example.



I hope that we do not compromise the ICANN process and we can work together to 
do what is right for the ICANN community, the internet community as well as 
ensure trademark holders are protected in the classes that they are known for 
or can be confused in (in the Heinz case it could be .ketchup and .food). These 
measures were already addressed by the IRT though. Seems we are going around in 
circles and falling prey to one interest group. In this case, I see the process 
being gamed by the same parties that are trying to protect their trademarks 
from being "gamed" through squatting/phishing.



My question is how does ICANN take these comments and do we have to follow suit 
and play the same game others are playing to be noticed or be considered.



I wish you all and your families a great new year and hope we can work together 
to make new gTLDs a reality.



Regards,



Constantine Roussos

.music

www.music.us<http://www.music.us>

www.myspace.com/musicextension<http://www.myspace.com/musicextension>

www.twitter.com/musicextension<http://www.twitter.com/musicextension>

Blogs: www.musicmusic.com<http://www.musicmusic.com> / 
www.fightpiracy.org<http://www.fightpiracy.org>



468 N Camden Dr #123, Beverly Hills, CA 90210

19 Mesolongiou St, Limassol, 3032, Cyprus

Mobile: +1 310 985 8661 (USA) +356 99433161 (Europe)



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