David and Goliath? DotMusic confirms .music win
Cyprus-based registry upstart DotMusic Ltd has confirmed that it has secured the rights to the .music gTLD.
Founder and CEO Constantinos Roussos tweeted the news overnight.
Excited to announce that after more than a decade, DotMusic has prevailed and will be the .MUSIC registry 🙂 https://t.co/XSnCkQVn28 #ICANN #DotMusic #DavidandGoliath #Music #Domains pic.twitter.com/tQX14eYyKu
— Constantine Roussos (@mus) April 11, 2019
It is not known how much DotMusic paid for the string, which I believe was auctioned in late March.
DotMusic fought off competition from seven other applicants, including some heavy-hitters: Google, Amazon, Donuts, Radix, Far Further, Domain Venture Partners and MMX.
MMX’s application was the last to be withdrawn, last night.
It’s not impossible that .music could launch before the end of the year, after DotMusic has completed the remaining pre-delegation steps such as signing its ICANN registry contract.
There will also be a couple of launch phases that give priority to members of the music industry.
Even when it goes to general availability, it won’t be a free-for-all, however.
DotMusic, in its efforts to secure support from the piracy-fearful music industry, proposed relatively strict “enhanced safeguards” for .music.
Registrants will have to verify their identity by phone as well as email in order to register a domain. They’ll also be restricted to strings matching their “their own name, acronym or Doing Business As”.
I don’t think the policies as outlined will be enough to prevent speculation, but they will add friction, possibly throttling sales volume.
In other news, it turns out Dewey did in fact defeat Truman.
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Congratulations to Roussos. This is truly a David versus Goliaths story. Well deserved and very happy for him. You called it Kevin!!!!
I love seeing the big boys fall!