A cybersquatter has been occupying slipknot.com for over two decades, allegedly using the URL to advertise counterfeit merchandise for the metal band. Slipknot are only now suing for the domain name.
Slipknot filed a federal lawsuit on Wednesday (Oct. 15) that says slipknot.com has been taken by an anonymous host since 2001. Consequentially, Slipknot's own website is slipknot1.com. Slipknot are bringing claims under the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, a 1999 federal statute that allows individuals to reclaim domain names through litigation. They’re seeking ownership of slipknot.com as well as unspecified financial damages due to alleged trademark infringement and unfair competition.
According to Internet Archive pages, in 1998 slipknot.com was registered to the Gaithersburg, MD web development company Slipknot Communications. By 2001 it was a link depository run by RealTimeInternet, Inc. Due to Wayback Machine limitations it’s unclear when the site began redirecting visitors to find “concert tickets” and “slipknot merchandise,” but you can see that now at slipknot.com (though the hosted links are not currently active). However the band’s claim that the alleged squatter was infringing on anything in 2001 is dubious; in addition to being a generic word, SlipKnot was a mid-‘90s Windows-based web browser, which is possibly why a web developer bought slipknot.com before the band came on the scene.
Like the alleged cyber-squatter, Slipknot were once intentionally anonymous.
