When he started juliaroberts.com a year and a half ago, all Russell Boyd wanted to do was pay tribute to America’s favorite $20-million-per-picture woman. But on Friday, the 34-year-old systems analyst from Princeton, N.J., was deemed a “cybersquatter” by the United Nations and ordered to surrender his Web address to the highest paid actress in Hollywood, without so much as a thank you.
A case of an ungrateful star stomping on an admiring fan? Or a greedy Internet entrepreneur getting his comeuppance for trying to hold Roberts’ own name hostage?
Probably neither. Roberts, who took her case to the World Intellectual Property Organization (the UN’s trademark agency) in Geneva, Switzerland, is just one of many stars and other famous people who are trying to win back their names from other people who have beaten them to the punch and registered them as Internet domains.
“I think it’s a groundbreaking, precedent-setting case,” Boyd tells Hollywood.com.
“The issue is: Does everyone have a trademark in their name? We all work, and we all have names. Does fame automatically give you a trademark? It’s an interesting legal question.”
Boyd was ordered to transfer his domain name to Roberts within 45 days, unless he files a civil suit challenging the UN agency’s ruling within the next 10 days. However, Boyd doesn’t have an attorney, and he’s hoping a benevolent lawyer will take the case pro bono. In the meantime, Boyd has posted his side of the story (and Julia Roberts‘ side, including a copy of the complaint she filed against him) on his Web site.
If he ends up losing his battle, Boyd won’t say yet whether he plans to start another Julia Roberts Web site (juliaroberts.net?). He’s ticked that Roberts’ attorneys painted him as a money-grubbing cybergeek and said he offered to sell the coveted domain name to the actress at a profit, for $2,500 (hey, when you’re making $20 mil per movie, that doesn’t sound exorbitant to us). Boyd insists that he put the URL up for auction, as is customary, with the opening bid at $1.
Still, he’s not planning to do anything rash, like boycott her films.
“Even though she didn’t have what I consider the decency to call me and discuss this before she sued me, I have no reason to think anything bad about the woman herself,” Boyd says. “This is just the way the legal system operates.”
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