Tom Cruise Is Sue Happy

First it was the South Park boys and now it's Jeff Burgar. Tom Cruise won the right to own http://www.tomcruise.com after Jeff purchased the URL in 1996 to redirect users to his own website, http://www.celebrity1000.com. Even though I don't particuarlly care for Tom Cruise, I do think he deserved this win. Jeff was making tons of money off of Tom's image as he does with hundreds of other celebrity-named URLs.

Lawyers for the Mission: Impossible star argued that Cruise had "common law trademark and service mark rights" to the term Tom Cruise; that Burgar was making money off the actor's name through third-party ads on his Celebrity1000.com site; and that visitors to the site might be confused into believing that Cruise was somehow affiliated with it.
In response, Burgar claimed that the site was a fansite that included a biography of Cruise and that his use of the domain should be protected by free speech.
However, the WIPO panel disagreed, stating in its decision that "free speech does not by definition entail a right to take unfair commercial advantage of a trademark." (source)