New generic top-level domain .music is considered one of the most promising, therefore there are a lot of applicants. One of them, Far Further, attempted to avoid the auction that in these cases usually determines who will administer the domain. Far Further conducted an extensive campaign to attract record labels and other music companies and professional musicians to support the application. The results turned out to be spectacular – Far Further application was supported by tens of companies and hundreds of thousands of different music association members in 150 countries of the world. Total number of application supporters in around 4 million.
On this basis Far Further claimed to represent interests of the world music community. In case a domain is representing interests of a particular social group, according to ICANN rules, it is managed by representatives of this group. Far Further wanted exactly that. However during the Community Priority Evaluation Far Further attempt miserably failed. ICANN’s Jury has simply refused to acknowledge that united music community exists, so Far Further can’t represent its interests. In their opinion, even by very modest estimates, the number of amateur musicians is hundreds of millions, much more than 4 million supporters of Far Further application. No company or organization can claim to represent interests of all musicians and music fans in the world alone.
Thus, the fate of .music domain will most probably be determined on the auction, the bids are expected to be very high.
