Pop musician Sting has failed to evict an alleged cybersquatter who owns the website address www.sting.com.

The website owner, who says he has used the address for eight years, was accused of cybersquatting - registering the name in the hope of making a fortune from selling the name to the singer. Sting, whose real name is Gordon Sumner, took the case to the international domain name arbitration service of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva. The UN-run agency says celebrities have common law trademark rights to their names, but Sting failed to prove the name had been registered in bad faith and also that his name was a trademark. He is the first celebrity to suffer such a defeat. Sting claimed the American holder of the site, Michael Urvan, had offered to sell it back for $25,000 (Ј16,500). But Mr Urvan, from Georgia, denied the claim and Sting's lawyers offered no proof to support it. The WIPO panel acknowledged that Sting is a "world famous entertainer" known by that name but also ruled it was also a common English word, listing its multiple meanings in a dictionary.