Hitting the Right Brand Enforcement Notes With the UDRP
April 25, 2025
What did Taylor Swift and Snoop Dogg do when they found infringing merch and ticket sales online? They turned to WIPO – the global leader in domain name recovery services under the “UDRP” to protect their name online. Even famous celebrities face digital piracy. Learn how WIPO and the UDRP can help musicians and brands fight back against online infringement and safeguard their hard-earned reputation.
In today’s digital age, for artists and bands, a domain name is a part of their brand identity: it represents their name to the online world. It is often the first point of reference for fans, industry, and potential sponsors or business partners. As visibility and online presence complement and showcase offline success in the music industry, domain names are valuable assets essential for artists, labels, and streaming services.
A brand-related and easy-to-remember domain name can ensure connection with fans, serve as a professional communication channel, and enhance overall brand identity. Moreover, it can become a focal point for a marketing strategy, where artists can advertise new releases, announce tour venues and dates, and sell merchandise.
Failure to secure a good domain name or to protect against infringing similar domain names could result in fans and partners being misled and landing on unrelated or even harmful websites, damaging the artist’s reputation, losing sales, and reducing Internet traffic to the artist’s legitimate website.
Importantly, domain names are registered on a “first come first served” basis and independently of any trademark rights. As such, many artists and bands proactively register the relevant domain names when first developing their brand. Regardless, at any stage of an artist’s career, it is always a good idea to consider protection of your domain name as a crucial element of your brand protection strategy.
WIPO offers domain name dispute resolution services helping artists and business entities operating in the music industry resolve trademark-abusive domain name disputes using the WIPO-designed online enforcement mechanism called the UDRP.
The digital environment raises a number of challenges for the protection of IP rights in the music industry which, due to the global nature of the Internet, demand an international approach. W IPO provides trademark owners with an efficient, cross-border mechanism to deal with the abusive registration and use of domain names corresponding to their brand – the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). The UDRP was adopted in 1999 by the Internet Cooperation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) on the basis of recommendations made by WIPO.
Over the last 25 years, WIPO has administered over 75,000 UDRP cases (statistics are available here, with the ability to search in various categories).
The UDRP is limited to clear cases of bad faith, and remains in high demand from trademark owners – with over 6,000 disputes administered by WIPO in 2024 alone.
Importantly for musicians, in order for a complaint to succeed, the UDRP first requires the complainant to establish that it has rights in a trademark and that the trademark is identical or confusingly similar to the domain name at issue. While many artists have registered their brand as a trademark, having a registered trademark is not required for filing a UDRP complaint to protect your domain name. A complaint can equally be based on a claim of unregistered trademark rights resulting from use of a brand in commerce, which many artists could easily demonstrate through physical media, concert promotion materials, or other evidence.
After the trademark rights hurdle is overcome, it will be necessary to demonstrate (a) that the domain name holder (respondent) does not have rights or legitimate interests in the domain name, and (b) that the respondent has registered the domain name in bad faith and is also using the disputed domain name in bad faith.
Domain Names and Celebrities
For many music stars, their name is already registered as a trademark, and many artists have gone to great lengths to protect their names and, in the online environment, corresponding domain name(s). Madonna was among the first to use WIPO’s services to protect her brand against an abusive domain name registration. Artists like Celine Dion, Sting, Justin Timberlake, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Snoop Dogg, and (the estate of) Jimi Hendrix were also able to successfully claim and protect their trademark rights online.
Types of Abuse UDRP Helps to Stop
Artists often have commercial interests in a domain name, for example when it is linked to an online store where Internet users can buy concert tickets, albums, branded merchandise, and more. However, when a brand starts gaining recognition and popularity, it can attract cybersquatters who may register domain names that are confusingly similar to the trademark or brand name to take advantage of that brand’s reputation for their own commercial benefit.
In many such cases cybersquatters make every effort to create content that looks official or suggests a connection with the artist. For example, domain names such as <taylorswift-merch.shop>, <coachellatv.com>, <snooponthestoops.com>, <justintimberlakeonline.com>, <lumineerstour2025.com> have been subject to UDRP cases and were found to mislead visitors of the corresponding websites to mistakenly believe that the websites were connected to or approved by the respective brand owner.
These sites appeared to offer merchandise (or, in the case of <coachellatv.com>, copyrighted videos taken from Complainant’s official YouTube channel) or contained links for buying concert tickets under the complainant’s trademark. In other words, these domain names gave the impression that the sites attached to the domain names were official, while that was clearly not the case. A domain name which appears as an official site or endorsed by a brand owner, potentially causes loss of sales or damage to the brand. By obtaining a transfer of the respective domain names into their own accounts, the complainants were able to protect their official channels.
In addition, cybersquatters can register a domain name incorporating an artist’s or a band’s brand and use it for content completely unrelated to that brand and even to the music generally. Examples include gambling websites (<pinkfloydtributeshow.com>) or can go as far as a website with a mobile application purported to be used in connection with a surveillance camera for pets (<snoopdoggbush.com>). Such use has obviously harmful consequences and takes unfair advantage of the artists’ brand.
Conclusion
Whether for a new act on the scene, or a superstar filling stadiums, protection of domain names is vital for preserving brand integrity and keeping music lovers safe on the Internet.
ICANN’s launch of New generic Top-Level Domains (“gTLDs”) Program opens up further possibilities for the music community to enhance its digital presence in a dedicated online space. While the .MUSIC gTLD is already available, the upcoming 2026 round of new gTLD applications (you can visit the New gTLD Program site here) can be an opportunity for any artist or entity in the music world to open a new page in the online library of music and to create an Internet space reflecting its own brand.
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