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TorrentReactor.net wins TorrentReactor.com case

Kevin Murphy, January 21, 2011, Domain Policy

The World Intellectual Property Organization has handed the domain name TorrentReactor.com to the owner of TorrentReactor.net, one of the internet’s most-popular BitTorrent movie piracy sites.
Really.
TorrentReactor.net owner Alexey Kistenev filed a UDRP complaint over the .com version with WIPO last year and won it earlier this month.
It was actually the second time he had taken the domain to arbitration.
Kistenev’s first complaint was dismissed by WIPO in March 2009, on the grounds that he did not have a valid trademark.
A month later, he applied for a US trademark on “TorrentReactor”, which was granted in July last year, and the UDRP was refiled in October.
In the latest case, Kistenev was helped by not only the fact that he now owns the trademark but also the fact that the domain has changed hands since the original complaint.
I wonder how much the current owner paid. In 2008, the then-owner had tried to sell it to Kistenev for $150,000. When he countered with a $30,000 offer, the owner asked for $50,000.
TorrentReactor.net is a page-one Google hit for searches including [torrent movies] and [torrent music].
Its front page contains links to torrents of recent, copyrighted movies such as The Social Network, Red and Let Me In, as well as new software, TV shows and music.
What we seem to have here is a case of WIPO indirectly helping piracy.
I guess it shows that WIPO arbitration panels can apply the UDRP uniformly when they want to.