A million “free” .music domains up for grabs
The new .music gTLD registry says it will give away up to one million first-year domains over the next five weeks as part of its launch program, but there are of course plenty of catches.
DotMusic says the domains are available to what it calls “Music Community Member Organizations” — think record labels and the like — until May 24 or it reaches a million names, whichever comes first.
With not much more than a month to get on board and a fairly complex, multi-layered registration and verification process, it seems more likely that the promo will time out before it hits seven figures.
.music is a “community” gTLD only available to entities with a nexus to the music industry. The names are only available as exact matches of music performers or professionals or the organizations they belong to.
They’re also only resolvable after the registrants verify their identities via DotMusic’s sister company, ID.music, which costs $1.99 per domain during the promotion.
It’s not exactly “free”, but compared to the usual price of defensively registering during sunrise periods, it’s an absolute bargain. DotMusic’s regular, ICANN-mandated sunrise period ended a few months ago, with dozens of domains registered by the usual suspects — the likes of Apple and Amazon.
More details on the promotion can be found here. General availability begins June 25.
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