SLIPKNOT Voluntarily Dismisses Cybersquatting Lawsuit Against Slipknot.com Domain

According to Domain Name Wire, SLIPKNOT has voluntarily dismissed the patent infringement lawsuit it filed last fall against the Slipknot.com domain for cybersquatting under the federal Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act and trademark infringement.

The lawsuit claimed that Slipknot.com was registered in 2001, several years after the band's formation in the mid-1990s. SLIPKNOT has since used Slipknot1.com as its official web site, explaining that the lawsuit was necessitated by the fact that the Slipknot.com domain name — whose owner was unknown to SLIPKNOT — was being used to profit from the band's name by providing pay-per-click ad links for "concert tickets", "SLIPKNOT merchandise" and "concert VIP packages".

Earlier this week, lawyers for the domain owner filed a motion to dismiss, stating that SLIPKNOT didn't serve the registrant within the time required by the court. The next day, the band filed a notice of voluntary dismissal. The dismissal is without prejudice, meaning SLIPKNOT's claims could be brought back in the future.

The federal Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act allows individuals and companies to assume control of domain names that are identical or confusingly similar to their own, as long as they can prove that the domain name holder acted in bad faith.

In SLIPKNOT's original lawsuit, the band's lawyer wrote: "The domain name was registered in an effort to profit off of plaintiff’s goodwill and to trick unsuspecting visitors — under the impression they are visiting a website owned, operated or affiliated with plaintiff — into clicking on web searches and other sponsored links.

"A fan of plaintiff or someone who otherwise wanted to purchase authorized SLIPKNOT merchandise would undoubtedly visit the slipknot.com website assuming it belonged to plaintiff and then purchase the SLIPKNOT merchandise linked to on the site, causing damages to plaintiff."

According to SLIPKNOT's attorney, "The name of the registrant of the Slipknot.com domain is not identified in WHOIS or ICANN records, but these records list a post office box address for registrant in the Cayman Islands. Elsewhere in these records, 'technical' and 'administrative' contact information is given. Here, an organization named 'Slipknot Online Services, Ltd' is listed along with the same address in the Cayman Islands. A search for this organization name however shows that it is not registered in any state in the United States."

The dismissal comes two months after SLIPKNOT completed a deal to sell its music catalog for approximately $120 million. The deal between members of the long-running metal band and HarbourView Equity Partners includes the rights to SLIPKNOT's publishing and recording masters royalties. It reportedly covers the band's archival catalog but does not extend to future releases.

Since releasing its debut album in 1999, SLIPKNOT has captured a Grammy Award alongside 11 nominations, scored a number of platinum and gold album certifications around the world, and logged billions of global streams and video views to date. Rolling Stone cited the seminal platinum-selling 2001 album "Iowa" among "The 100 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time," while The Ringer attested, "They're the most important heavy band of their era."

SLIPKNOT's latest full-length album, "The End, So Far", landed at No. 1 on Billboard's Top Album Sales chart and at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, marking their sixth Top 10-charting album on the Billboard 200. A new album from SLIPKNOT is a global event, and "The End, So Far" continued the band’s global chart rise, with No. 1 debuts in the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, Switzerland, and Mexico, as well as Top 3 debuts in Canada, New Zealand, Finland, Sweden, Japan, and Belgium. SLIPKNOT's previous album, 2019's "We Are Not Your Kind", marked SLIPKNOT's third consecutive No. 1 on the Billboard 200, along with No. 1 debuts in the official album charts of twelve countries around the world, including the U.K., Australia, Canada and Mexico, with Top 5 debuts in an additional twelve countries. including Germany, France and Sweden.

Photo credit: Jonathan Weiner