ByteDance, the owner of the service and trademark TikTok, has submitted a complaint against the TikToks.com domain name to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The date of the dispute resolution under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy is not yet set, but the result seems to be obvious. Not only is the domain name almost the same as the world-known trademark and service, but the website offers paid services on increasing the number of subscribers and likes to TikTok users, Domain Name Wire reports.
The domain name belongs to two 20-year-old entrepreneurs from Australia. They purchased it at the beginning of 2020 for $2,000. According to them, they predicted that TikTok would become a new social media phenomenon. The forecast is, mildly speaking, perplexing because by the beginning of this year, TikTok already was such a phenomenon. But what is really interesting is that the the Australian daily Herald Sun gave a glowing description of the two businessmen’s story. It also wrote that the young people were offered $145,000 to sell the domain name, but rejected the offer preferring to use the domain name to develop their own business. It cannot be ruled out that it was due to this publication ByteDance learned about the situation. In any case, it is not clear why neither the Australian businessmen nor journalists who praised them so much did not think about the obvious copyright infringement.
