YouTube Domain Name: Nigerian seeks $150 million compensation from Google, GoDaddy
A Nigerian, Chianugo Peter, is seeking $150 million in compensation from Google and GoDaddy.com over allegations related to the shutdown of his YouTube Audio domain name after eight years of promotional and marketing efforts.
Mr Peter, through his lawyer, Emmanuel Ekpenyong of Fred-Young & Evans LP, filed the lawsuit before Justice Obiora Egwuatu of a Federal High Court in Abuja.
In the application marked FHC/ABJ/CS/238/2023, Mr Peter sued GoDaddy.Com LLC and Google LLC as the first and second defendants, respectively, seeking a court declaration that he registered the YouTube Audio business name, commenced trademark registration on the logo of the business name, and secured the YouTubeAudio.com domain name from GoDaddy in good faith to carry out genuine business and host his application to attract users.
He is also seeking a declaration that since GoDaddy and Google encouraged him to use the YouTubeAudio.com domain name for the past eight years, “they are stopped from claiming that the domain name infringes any of their trademarks or deny the plaintiff the use of the YouTubeAudio.com domain name.”
The court document showed that Mr Peter also sought an order “directing the defendants to pay the sum of $100,000,000 to the plaintiff for the loss of anticipated profits associated with the brand equity and goodwill of YouTube Audio and YouTube Audio.com domain name.”
It added, “An order of this honourable court directing the defendants to pay the plaintiff the sum of N50,000,000 to enable the plaintiff to carry out fresh registrations of its new name and secure an alternative domain name to host its application to attract users.”
Mr Peter also wants the defendants to pay N10,00,000 for “the prosecution of this suit,” claiming he owns YouTube Audio, also known as YTAudio.
According to him, YouTube Audio is a creative mobile application that encourages users to be more creative and enjoy utilising audio as a primary source of entertainment, information, and expression.
He said sometime in 2015, he acquired YoutubeAudio.com and YoutubeAudio.ca domain names from GoDaddy without any caveat that it infringed the YouTube trademark or any other products of Google.
He further averred that in that year, when he applied to GoDaddy to obtain the YouTubeAudio.com and YoutubeAudio.ca domain names, GoDaddy carried out an availability check and confirmed that the names were available for him.
Mr Peter said GoDaddy did not inform him that neither the YouTubeAudio.com nor YouTubeAudio.ca domain names were similar to YouTube or any trademark of Google.
The plaintiff said he paid Google to host the YouTube Audio.com application on the Google Play Store in 2021 without any query that the domain was similar to the YouTube trademark or any of its other trademarks.
Mr Peter, who stressed that GoDaddy registered the YouTube audio.com domain name, assured him that he had acquired a right over the name.
During the report of service of originating processes on the defendants, only the plaintiff’s lawyer, Ekpenyong, and counsel to Google, Mark Mordi, SAN, were present in court.
The case was adjourned until October 11 for mention.
(NAN)
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