'The Boss' Not Master of Domain

By Serena Kappes

Monday May 25, 1998 12:00 AM EDT

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Bruce Springsteen, 51, has lost his cybersquatting case to evict a fan club from an Internet Web site bearing his name, reports Reuters. A three-member panel from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a United Nations agency which protects trademark and patent rights, granted Canadian Jeff Burgar, who runs the Bruce Springsteen Club, the right to continue to use brucespringsteen.com as his Web site domain name. (Cybersquatting refers to the practice of people registering famous names as domains to profit from it.) According to the ruling, Burgar had "demonstrated that he has some rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name and (Springsteen) has failed to demonstrate that the domain name was registered and has been used in bad faith." It's rare for celebrities to lose the right to use their own name to cybersquatters (Julia Roberts, Madonna and Venus and Serena Williams all won similar cases). Sting, 49, was another unhappy celebrity when he too lost a cybersquatting case last year. Maybe they can team up and start their own Web site together.