Constantine Roussos
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.music is a community-based top-level domain name (TLD) operated for the benefit of the global music community. It was one of the most highly contested new gTLDs, with eight applicants in contention. On April 17, 2019, the .MUSIC registry, the
International Federation of the Phonographic Industry The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) is the organisation that represents the interests of the recording industry worldwide. It is a non-profit members' organisation registered in Switzerland and founded in Italy in 1 ...
,
Confédération Internationale des Sociétés d'Auteurs et Compositeurs The International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (, ''CISAC'') is an international non-governmental, not-for-profit organisation that aims to protect the rights and promote the interests of creators worldwide. It advocates for ...
, the
International Federation of Musicians The International Federation of Musicians (, FIM) is a global union federation bringing together trade unions representing music performers. FIM counts member unions in 70 countries and three regional groups in Europe, Africa and Latin America. I ...
, the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies, the
Recording Industry Association of America The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...
, the
National Music Publishers' Association The National Music Publishers' Association (NMPA) is a trade association for the American music publishing industry. Founded in 1917, NMPA represents American music publishers and their songwriting partners. The NMPA’s mandate is to protect and ...
,
The Recording Academy National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, Inc. (NARAS), doing business as The Recording Academy, is an American Learned society, learned academy of musicians, producers, recording engineers, and other musical professionals. It is widely kno ...
, the
Independent Music Companies Association The Independent Music Companies Association (IMPALA), originally the Independent Music Publishers and Labels Association, is a non-profit trade association established in 2000 to help European independent record labels represent their agenda a ...
, the Worldwide Independent Network, the
American Association of Independent Music The American Association of Independent Music (A2IM) is a trade association that represents independent record labels in the United States, founded in 2005. A2IM is headquartered in New York City, with chapters located in Nashville, Chicago, North ...
, the NSAI, the
National Association of Music Merchants The National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) is a not-for-profit global trade association dedicated to the music products industry. Originally founded in 1901, NAMM is headquartered in Carlsbad, California, and represents 15,000 global memb ...
(NAMM), and the Independent Music Publishers International Forum (IMPF) announced that the global music community based application, that was supported by a global music coalition with members representing over 95% of global music consumed, was approved by the
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN ) is a global multistakeholder group and nonprofit organization headquartered in the United States responsible for coordinating the maintenance and procedures of several dat ...
(ICANN). The .MUSIC registry agreement was signed on May 4, 2021.


Applicants

# .MUSIC #
Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...
(Charleston Road Registry Inc.) #
Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology company * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek myth ...
# Donuts (Victor Cross) # Far Further # Top Level Domain Holdings Ltd. (TLDH) and LHL TLD Investment Partners # Radix # Famous Four Media GRS Domains


.MUSIC

A community priority application was applied for by .MUSIC under the legal name of DotMusic. MUSIC was headed by Constantine Roussos, who launched the .MUSIC Initiative in 2005 to gather support from the global music community for a petition to ICANN for the rights of .MUSIC. Associated organizations included the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies (IFACCA), the
American Association of Independent Music The American Association of Independent Music (A2IM) is a trade association that represents independent record labels in the United States, founded in 2005. A2IM is headquartered in New York City, with chapters located in Nashville, Chicago, North ...
(A2IM), and the National Association of Music Manufacturers (NAMM). The initiative's objectives included:Constantine Roussos Linkedin Profile
/ref> * Music education * Fighting
piracy Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and valuable goods, or taking hostages. Those who conduct acts of piracy are call ...
* Promoting the arts and global music * Innovation in music and the internet space * Promoting competition The team planned to operate the .music TLD using a multi-stakeholder approach. A portion of the revenue generated from registrations was marked for donation to selected non-profit music organizations. These registrations would be restricted to .MUSIC-accredited Community Member Organizations (MCMOs).
CentralNic Team Internet Group PLC (formerly named CentralNic Group PLC) is a British multinational internet services holding company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. Its subsidiaries provide services categorized in two segments: Online Marketing an ...
was selected as the back-end registry services provider.


Far Further

Far Further was founded by music professionals with the objective of uniting the global
music industry The music industry are individuals and organizations that earn money by Songwriter, writing songs and musical compositions, creating and selling Sound recording and reproduction, recorded music and sheet music, presenting live music, concerts, ...
by providing it with a secure domain space to promote music, protect intellectual property rights and help advance music education. They submitted a community priority application using .music LLC, a subsidiary of Far Further LLC. The company chose
Neustar Neustar, Inc. is an American technology company that provides real-time information and analytics for risk, digital performance, defense, telecommunications, entertainment, and marketing industries, and also provides clearinghouse and directory se ...
to provide back-end registry services. The domain was to be restricted to registrants qualified via association with a number of supporting organizations.


TLDH and LHL

On March 23, 2012, Top Level Domain Holdings Ltd. and LHL TLD Investment Partners signed a partnership agreement to apply for the .music TLD. Minds + Machines was to provide the back-end registry services.


Amazon

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology company * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek myth ...
's application was issued a
GAC Gac or GAC may refer to: *Gấc, pronounced £É™k̚˧˦ a Southeast Asian fruit of the species ''Momordica cochinchinensis'' *Gać (disambiguation), a common Polish place-name Acronyms Companies and organisations * GAC Group, a Chinese automo ...
Early Warning from representative of Australia and GAC Chair Heather Dryden. It stated that the applicant was "seeking exclusive access to a common generic string .that relates to a broad market sector," which Dryden noted could have unintended consequences and a negative impact on competition.


Radix

Radix received a GAC Early Warning from the U.S. Government. The issue did not relate to their technical capabilities or the content of their applications, but rather the inclusion of an
email address An email address identifies an email box to which messages are delivered. While early messaging systems used a variety of formats for addressing, today, email addresses follow a set of specific rules originally standardized by the Internet Enginee ...
associated with the U.S.
Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...
in a recommendation filed with Radix's application.


Objections

A Legal Rights Objection, as defined by the ICANN approved mediator
WIPO The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO; (OMPI)) is one of the 15 specialized agencies of the United Nations (UN). Pursuant to the 1967 Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO was created to pr ...
, is a third party "formal objection to an application on several grounds .When such an objection is filed, an independent panel ( one or three experts) will determine whether the applicant's potential use of the applied-for gTLD would be likely to infringe .the objector's existing trademark, or IGO name or acronym."


Official objection

An official objection was filed by DotMusic Limited against .music applicants since DotMusic Limited had registered trademarks for ".music" and "dotmusic" in nearly thirty countries.


Community objections

The American Association of Independent Music (AAIM) and DotMusic filed community objections against Google, dot Music Limited, Dotmusic Inc., Top Level Domain Holdings Ltd., and Donuts on the basis that they applied as open registries without enhanced safeguards or sufficient eligibility restrictions to protect music-related intellectual property and prevent music piracy. The AAIM also filed a community objection against Amazon because of its application's exclusive-access registry policies and discriminatory registration eligibility criteria that restricted registrations solely to Amazon and its affiliates. For the same reason, the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies and DotMusic filed a community objection against Far Further. The objections against Amazon and Far Further were based on the ICANN Registry Agreement which required that new gTLD registries be subject to the requirements of Specification 11, which mandates that a TLD Registry must provide non-discriminatory access to registry services to all ICANN accredited registrars that enter into and are in compliance with the registry-registrar agreement for the TLD. In February 2014 ICANN passed resolutions for the new gTLD program which mandated specific enhanced safeguards and prohibited applicants from operating a new gTLD as an exclusive-access registry for a TLD based on a generic term.ICANN Resolutions, ICANN.org
/ref>


References

{{GTLD
MUSIC Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...