How do I pursue copyright issues and/or domain name issues?

past employee stole ideas, content, and variation of domain

[erykalefrak]

SO this guy our company used to work with is a broker in our industry. When we stopped working with him he bought our domain name with an "s" at the end of it and put up a bunch of content about his other clients he does brokering for and specifically put our names there and commetns next to them indicating indirectly that we were no longer in operation. We sent legal letters to him to stop using our names and he did for a while. We also tried to pursue him to release the domain name as it was directly related to ours. He sent us an email which we have that stated he would sell us the domain for $10,000 and that his intentions were to take business from us and he has done just that. He recently found a way to include the exact name of our company in full in his content as part of the wording of the main page of this poser site. What can we do without spending 10s of thousands of dollars to pursue him?

[kwasher]

He sent us an email which we have that stated he would sell us the domain for $10,000 and that his intentions were to take business from us

This may be a case for arbitration dispute. Not $10k, but maybe $1k or so. Save that email. You can read up here:

[icann.org...]
[icann.org...]

--excerpt, see iii and iv --

b. Evidence of Registration and Use in Bad Faith. For the purposes of Paragraph 4(a)(iii), the following circumstances, in particular but without limitation, if found by the Panel to be present, shall be evidence of the registration and use of a domain name in bad faith:

(i) circumstances indicating that you have registered or you have acquired the domain name primarily for the purpose of selling, renting, or otherwise transferring the domain name registration to the complainant who is the owner of the trademark or service mark or to a competitor of that complainant, for valuable consideration in excess of your documented out-of-pocket costs directly related to the domain name; or

(ii) you have registered the domain name in order to prevent the owner of the trademark or service mark from reflecting the mark in a corresponding domain name, provided that you have engaged in a pattern of such conduct; or

(iii) you have registered the domain name primarily for the purpose of disrupting the business of a competitor; or

(iv) by using the domain name, you have intentionally attempted to attract, for commercial gain, Internet users to your web site or other on-line location, by creating a likelihood of confusion with the complainant's mark as to the source, sponsorship, affiliation, or endorsement of your web site or location or of a product or service on your web site or location.