On the day of August 7, 2000, the Jimi Hendrix family obtained the rights to “jimihendrix.com”. A UN arbitrator awarded the family the domain name as a worldwide effort to fight “cyber-squatting”. The term refers to a technique to buy the names of the famous and noteworthy personalities in the hopes of turning a hefty profit later on buy selling it.
Experience Hendrix, run by his half-sister Janie L. Hendrix at the time, took its case against Denny Hammerton of Minneola, Florida, to the UN World Intellectual Property Organization, which ruled that Hammerton should hand over the Web address.
Before the website, Experience Hendrix operated an official website at jimi-hendrix.com which redirects to the new website now.
Experience Hendrix had said that Hammerton had previously offered to sell the names including elvispresley.net, jethrotull.com, lindamccartney.com, mickjagger.com and paulmccartney.com. Likewise, jimihendrix.com was being offered for sale for $1 million.
Arbitrator Marylee Jenkins ruled that Hammerton had shown “a pattern of such conduct of registering and offering for sale domain names incorporating well-known names.”
Hammerton had registered the site in the name of The Jimi Hendrix Fan Club, but Jenkins said he was not operating it as a fan club address or in connection with any legitimate offer of goods or services.
