This news story [news.yahoo.com...]
calls he "the artist formerly known as Madonna", although it is not clear she is giving up the name Madonna. She chose Esther to reflect a change in life.
More power to her, but this brings up a question about the domain madonna.com. This domain was famously the subject of a dispute where she wrested ownership from a squatter. Now here's my question: if she really does give up the name Madonna, does she also give the domain back to the previous owner? With money to cover his legal expenses? Seems only fair.
And the whole situation would bring up questions about why she was allowed to get that domain in the first place.
Maybe the Vatican would be interested.
Basically - Madonna was able to gain madonna.com because she had trademarked her name, her image, her appearance - she was a brand backed by a large record label. I don't know what content was originally hosted on madonna.com - but it was probably a clear cut case of trading on the success of the singer. Now a smart cybersquatter would have put up a site selling "virgin mary" products and claimed that the popstar was infringing his brand. Anyone remember the baa.com case -> BAA Bitish Airways Airports. For about 4 years hosted a sheep related site.
Basically - Madonna was able to gain madonna.com because she had trademarked her name
And she certainly won't give that up - think of her back catalogue.
TJ
His art consisted of the biblical Madonna along with paintings of himself within historical events.
Pretty funny stuff.
It was to bad that he did not own the domain name.
Once the owners go wind of the value of the domain he was booted off.
