The estate of the popular musician Prince Rogers Nelson will likely receive the rights for the PRINCE.COM domain, although on different terms. Prince passed away in April 2016 without leaving a will. Over 700 people could be considered his heirs, but the claims of his sister and five half-brothers were acknowledged. Since then, Prince’s estate has been managing his property as well as closely monitoring the use of the name.
The domain space was no exception: last year the estate filed a lawsuit on cybersquatting against Domain Capital that owns PRINCE.COM. The lawsuit looked quite dubious, because the word ‘prince’ is a word found in dictionaries and cannot be considered the dead musician’s trademark. In addition, Domain Capital owns the domain on legal terms. It specializes in financing large purchases in domain industry. Sometime ago it even gave a loan to the previous owner of PRINCE.COM, and when the owner defaulted the company took over the name. Domain Capital filed a counter-suit against the estate accusing it of reverse domain name hijacking.
It seems that Domain Capital’s arguments were convincible. According to Domain Name Wire, the site of the probate court in Carver County, Minnesota, published a planned settlement agreement. The document is heavily redacted and does not publicly display terms of the agreement. Nevertheless, it suggests that Domain Capital will probably transfer the domain to the estate and drop its counterclaims in return for a cash settlement.
