Record Labels Join Effort To Keep .music Domain Control From Google, Amazon
It feels like we've been waiting for the .music domain forever. When released, it will open up to possibility for thousands of musicians and music companies to have a domain name more reflective of their offline moniker, as well as, some interesting lawsuits.
Cyprus based Constantine Roussos of DotMusic Limited has received backing from one of the most influential trade groups in music, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) in his effort to win the rights to sell all internet addresses ending in dot-music. (Read the official statement here.) The IFPI represents 1300 record companies including the major labels Universal, Sony and Warner Music.
If Roussos's tiny company wins, he will be beating major internet players like Google and Amazon to control rights worth tens of millions.
His chances lie in a process called "community evaluation". Basically, if the community being served – in this case musicians and the music industry – expresses strong preference either for or against an applicant to control and sell a domain, the internet domain governing body IFCAN will lean in that direction.
Russsos has already gathered endorsements from 100+ global music organizations so far, but the IFPI nod is by far the largest. "Our community-based initiative for .music has assembled the largest global music coalition in the history of music to support a music cause," he told El Reg. "It represents over 95 per cent of music consumed globally."
.Music's Mission
"The DotMusic mission is create a safe haven for legal music consumption under a trusted, secure and authentic .music top-level domain," Roussos told The Register. "Our objective is to create the standard for validated music websites operating under music-tailored policies that enhance legal music consumption, protect copyright and eliminate cybersquatting."
Thank you for the post on the .music community-based initiative by DotMusic.
Some inaccuracies and clarifications from this article:
1) The governing body of the internet is ICANN (not IFCAN).
2) DotMusic’s initiative is a “community-based” effort, not an independent effort by one single individual. DotMusic’s designation of the .music application to ICANN is “community” i.e. it is multi-stakeholder community-governed with community-based music-tailored policies (unlike Google and Amazon, which are non-community, corporate efforts).
3) There is also inaccuracy on how ICANN determines if the “community” wins .music or if it is auctioned out (which favors Google and Amazon). Simply put, the DotMusic community-based initiative can win if it fulfills 3 primary criteria: (1) Appropriate music-tailored policies serving the music community (Eligibility, Name Selection, Content & Use, Enforcement); (2) Establishing a “Community Definition” that represents the string .music while not excluding any type of music constituent type (e.g. commercial, non-commercial and amateur music entities worldwide are all part of the Community Definition and Eligibility); (3) Support of the majority (i.e. over 50%) of the global music community as defined in the “Community Definition.”
The “community rules” do not apply to Google and Amazon.
For a description about DotMusic’s community-based effort go to: http://music.us/what_is_dotmusic
For a list of the community-based .music supporting organizations go to: http://music.us/supporters
Thanks again for the post.