I've had a domain for over 10 years and twice I have been offered $5000. We bought the domain for our company originally and we were going to do "great" things with it. Because of the "great" things we were to going to do with the domain we did not sell it the first time. It seems every other year someone contacts us asking if we would sell the name for smaller offers.

The second time someone offered to buy it for $5000 was within the last year. The potential buyer was using sedo.com as the broker so we do not know who the buyer was. But we knew there were some bigger players who are using the same name but did not have the .com that we have, so we felt it was worth more than was offered.

Since then a large media company has expanded one of its services that uses the same name and domain but obviously a different extension. We were alerted of this expansion about two months ago by a strange phone call from the other side of the continent by a fellow who would not tell us his name but told us of the news and that our domain was going to be worth a lot of money and we should think about retaining a lawyer.

So thats the story. Not really sure what to do next. We would be interested in selling obviously but not sure how to approach or attract the right people. Any suggestions? And to sell for how much? I hesitate to post the domain name because of its use by other companies. Is this something that I should be concerned about. Should I be talking to a lawyer?

If you have a lawyer FRIEND, definitely talk to him or her. But if you don't, you'll have to decide how much you are willing and able to pay in order to milk the most out of this potential money-maker. One of the options is to sell it for cheap (as in $5,000) and let the new buyer "get rich" or probably into some legal trouble. Your call.

probably into some legal trouble

Why would you assume that? If I found a parked domain name I liked, decided to call my new service by that same name, copyright my new service using that name, trademark my new service using that name or whatever.... It does not entitle me to the domain name.

Why would he get into legal trouble? He has probably owned the domain name for much longer than the existents of this media company.

Why would he get into legal trouble? He has probably owned the domain name for much longer than the existents of this media company.Nameslave refers to the new buyer who can either "get rich" or probably into some legal trouble.

If you were offered $5K don't even reply, if they are interested then they would approach you with better more realistic offer, don't forget its worth more to you for your "great" things, agree with hiring an attorney to cover any copyright and trademark issues.

Maybe you could contact the company using it as a brand and offer to sell it to them. Or retain a lawyer and have him do it. That's if you WANT to sell it.

If not hang onto it, use it and be happy you have a popular name.

A domain is only worth what someone is willing to pay, you could sell it for $5K, you could put a higher price on it, but Jaber is right, in the fact you purchased it for a "project" and that project could well be worth more than 5, 10 or even 15K.

At the end of the day you can approach the other company using a different extension yourself to see if they are interested, if they are, then get their lawyers details and your lawyer together, upto this point you have nothing to loose. The other option, keep the domain, wait until the other company pays out a shed load in advertising and brand recognition, and then do the above as it would be worth a lot more.

I agree that you should try the company that uses the less popular extension. Who knows, maybe they have their eye on your domain. What's the point of having a domain if you're not going to use it?

You might consider having an experienced company sell the domain for you. One that I very recently learned of is http://www.websiteproperties.com/ I don't know if they are any good, but wanted to at least give you the link so that you can explore further.

I would sell it over Escrow.com. I've had quite a few successful transactions with Escrow when it comes to selling domain names.

I think $5000 would be the top offer price from resellers, if you registered domain before they registered their trademark, you won't lost the domain cause pm issues.

This is a great opportunity for you to make some good money in this recession but always use your head. Get help with this dont go it alone

Why would you assume that? If I found a parked domain name I liked, decided to call my new service by that same name, copyright my new service using that name, trademark my new service using that name or whatever.... It does not entitle me to the domain name.

Why would he get into legal trouble? He has probably owned the domain name for much longer than the existents of this media company.
First, Techno is correct: I am referring to the new buyer. But that doesn't really matter, because when the other party is a *large* company, your chance of getting into some legal trouble will be much higher. And again, it doesn't really matter if you have a case or not, because it's the TROUBLE that is annoying. And don't even think it will just be some WIPO/UDRP challenge or a cease-and-desist letter, because the first thing you get may be a court summons. That is the kind of legal trouble I am talking about.

that is soo true nameslave. Once someone trademarks there name and so forth...bet your bottom dollar they will do what ever it takes to protect that name

Well let me suggest you this. How worth are for you the great things you want to build on it? I dont mean money. I mean, your time, your passion, your love, your fun, and potentially how much time are you willing to work and invest on your great ideas? Is it 50 hours, 100 hours, years, a life?
Then decide how much that is worth for you.

If you where working on it for 10 years, then of course you would never sell it below all the time and money you invested in 10 years on it. If you never actually developed your ideas on it in 10 years, then you probably are never going to do it anyway, so sell it. Thats why you said "great ideas", and ideas alone are worth probably nothing. You need to convert this ideas into something.

Its very easy to calculate whats worth for you. Just see how much money you earn in a year and divide it by the hours you invested on the domain, and those great ideas, plus the full money. A domain could be worth 10$ or 10 million$. It depends on what someone wants to pay for it. It could be worth thousands for you, but nothing to someone else.

Now let me say you this. If you really never made anything with the domain yet. Sell it. Put an auction on sedo and see how many bids you get. You could make hundred thousand with 5,000$ if you know how to invest your money or you could spend it all on a new HD home theater online in 25 minutes. Dont work for the money, let the money work for you.
So if you need it, and you know you can do allot with the 5,000$, take the offer, and make an empire out of it. Otherwise, keep your ideas and go forward, but what ever you do, never look back and regret it, because time never comes back my friend.

Here's another idea: if the company attracts a large traffic, you can squat on your domain and redirect traffic to him and collect comission.

I've had a domain for over 10 years and twice I have been offered $5000. We bought the domain for our company originally and we were going to do "great" things with it. Because of the "great" things we were to going to do with the domain we did not sell it the first time. It seems every other year someone contacts us asking if we would sell the name for smaller offers.

The second time someone offered to buy it for $5000 was within the last year. The potential buyer was using sedo.com as the broker so we do not know who the buyer was. But we knew there were some bigger players who are using the same name but did not have the .com that we have, so we felt it was worth more than was offered.

Since then a large media company has expanded one of its services that uses the same name and domain but obviously a different extension. We were alerted of this expansion about two months ago by a strange phone call from the other side of the continent by a fellow who would not tell us his name but told us of the news and that our domain was going to be worth a lot of money and we should think about retaining a lawyer.

So thats the story. Not really sure what to do next. We would be interested in selling obviously but not sure how to approach or attract the right people. Any suggestions? And to sell for how much? I hesitate to post the domain name because of its use by other companies. Is this something that I should be concerned about. Should I be talking to a lawyer?

First some of the advice here is not very accurate.
The body governing domain names is NOT bound by local laws. As such, the other company can make a case for the name based on it not being used, it infringes on their name or product etc.
They can at your discretion award the name to another. Domain names are NOT owned by you, you are just licensing the right to use them for a period of time.
As an example, I have myspace.vg, I still have a lot of work to do on the site, but if Newscorp wanted to get the name they would have to argue that I am encroaching on some sort of indent or product. I am not, I call it Myspace Video and Graphics and it compliments their product. Also, the .net and others are owned by many others.
People have registered SONY.COM and names like that way before the actual company... Only to loose the right to the name later.
SO
-keep your site up to date with content and not just a landing page
-do not offer confusing or competing products or services
-make sure your whois info is correct, this alone is grounds to cancel the name.

Well this is a great thread. Wish I had your problem, but there is some advice in here that is just too general.

You should consider retaining a lawyer with intellectual and data property rights experience. It will be a good investment into a domain that cost you <$10 to register.

Companies with deep pockets will as standard operating procedure, stop at nothing to protect what they have, no matter if they had it after you or not. They could claim they are actively promoting their brand while you could be seen to be sitting on their name. There are just too many variables not to have a legal opinion. It is now a very time sensitive issue, it depends who did what and when. Only a lawyer can untangle that.

If it was me, and I had a plan to use the domain name for a great site, then your business idea has to be worth more than a $5K domain name.

So follow your passion and do what you planned with the site, but protect your name legally first.

I watch this thread with bated breath.

--Michael

Selling a domain is definitely something I suggest you use a 3rd party company. They might cut into a 10% or so, but it will be worth it in the past.

I've had some offers in the past to purchase a domain off me for $3,500. Kind of an insult as it brings in about $400/mo in advertising. Still was nice to see an offer at least. It was registered in 1998, PR5, has about 65k pages on Google, and no i'm not going to list it ;P

What is the name of the domain ? (PM me if you are hesitant in posting it here)

What is the name of the domain ? (PM me if you are hesitant in posting it here)

Welcome MacMax,

Don't you think the OP would have said the domain by now if he wanted us to know what it is?

Just out of curiosity, what would you hope to learn and to help the OP with, if he was to divulge the domain name to the thread or to PM it to you?

Since we cannot PM the OP, nor can he PM you MacMax, because he only has 1 post, so I will assume your question was not serious.

If I could PM you 9Yards, I would counsel you not to reveal the domain name.

@9Yards

I would not be saying anything on a public forum that could be a red dye to lead someone to discover the domain name or your tactics. Even the owners of the .com domain could be monitoring or participating in this forum and using it to work out their next move against you.

Just my personal advice. I am not an attorney.

--Michael

Do not contact the other user of the domain and offer to sell it to them - it will help them prove bad faith and they can use it to take the domain without paying you anything.

Registering a domain name does not give you any trademark rights - you have to have actual use in commerce. Have you used, and continued to use the domain? If so, what was the type of usage? If you haven't used the domain before this other company, then they now have priority usage rights to the name for the usage. You may be able to use the domain for something entirely unrelated, but you can't use it in a similar manner.

This other company may contact you to buy it, but if you hold out for too much, then can file a lawsuit or a WIPO to take it if you did not use the domain. It would probably cost them about $4K or $5K to have a law firm handle a WIPO, so asking much more may force their hand.

Consult with an intellectual property rights attorney that has domain name experience. Ari Goldberger or John Berryhil are two of the best.

Welcome MacMax,

Don't you think the OP would have said the domain by now if he wanted us to know what it is?

Just out of curiosity, what would you hope to learn and to help the OP with, if he was to divulge the domain name to the thread or to PM it to you?

Since we cannot PM the OP, nor can he PM you MacMax, because he only has 1 post, so I will assume your question was not serious.

If I could PM you 9Yards, I would counsel you not to reveal the domain name.

@9Yards

I would not be saying anything on a public forum that could be a red dye to lead someone to discover the domain name or your tactics. Even the owners of the .com domain could be monitoring or participating in this forum and using it to work out their next move against you.

Just my personal advice. I am not an attorney.

--Michael

Thanks for the welcome Michael :)

Well I know that he didn't want to post the domain name on the topic because he was hesitant but he never said that he didn't want to disclose it at all.
If you know the name of the domain then you could probably make a better suggestion because if the domain is owned for example by Google, Yahoo, Microsoft ... etc then it's better to let go of it and take the $5k deal.
But it's still always best to contact someone who has dealt with problems like these.

And I honestly didn't look at the number of posts he's made, my bad.

If u had ideas to develop ur .com domain and somebody else is building a famous site over a domain with the same name, I'd just implement ur idea.

Unless this name is a trademark, they will be 2 independant sites, and u'll get a lot of visits from ppl that was going to the other site.

Now, if u want the maney, keep it. Remember wii.com history!

You don't need a lawyer for this instead, like others here have suggested, just use sedo or a comparable service.

I have a close friend who knows nothing about SEO or IM but he had a LLL.com domain which he sold for $3500. He never turned back since and have used it for it well for his family. Had he kept it, it might go for more today BUT cash at hand is king for him at the moment.

If you are not planning on doing anything, go ahead and sell it. It is of no value to you today.

I would transfer your domain to namecheap.com if your not making $5k from it and use the marketplace to sell it. Never sell it via paypal. If you do, make sure you use fraud protection like Maxmind.

YIkes, there are some scary statements out there.....I just posted a long comment about UDRP and domain names, and also have a blog post about this on my site....check it here:http://tinyurl.com/y9anyso

Basically, don't offer to sell to the guy independently if you plan on using it. Ask if they have any rights to use the domain...check the USPTO for any trademarks of the name to see if someone might have registered something recently, or one of the big players has prior rights (though I doubt it...they would have UDRP'd already if they did).

Hope that helps.

I've had a domain for over 10 years and twice I have been offered $5000. We bought the domain for our company originally and we were going to do "great" things with it. Because of the "great" things we were to going to do with the domain we did not sell it the first time. It seems every other year someone contacts us asking if we would sell the name for smaller offers.

The second time someone offered to buy it for $5000 was within the last year. The potential buyer was using sedo.com as the broker so we do not know who the buyer was. But we knew there were some bigger players who are using the same name but did not have the .com that we have, so we felt it was worth more than was offered.

Since then a large media company has expanded one of its services that uses the same name and domain but obviously a different extension. We were alerted of this expansion about two months ago by a strange phone call from the other side of the continent by a fellow who would not tell us his name but told us of the news and that our domain was going to be worth a lot of money and we should think about retaining a lawyer.

So thats the story. Not really sure what to do next. We would be interested in selling obviously but not sure how to approach or attract the right people. Any suggestions? And to sell for how much? I hesitate to post the domain name because of its use by other companies. Is this something that I should be concerned about. Should I be talking to a lawyer?
If possible please PM me the domain name.
I may be able to either advice you how much does it cost or even buy it myself.