Jimi Hendrix Kin Win Domain Name

The ruling in favor of the family was among a number the U.N. World Intellectual Property Organization released Monday under a procedure to stop "cybersquatting" -- the registering of an address using famous trademarks by someone hoping to resell the site to the company with rights to it. Experience Hendrix took its case against Denny Hammerton of Minneola, Fla., to the organization, which ruled that Hammerton should hand over the Web address. Experience Hendrix, based in Tukwila, Washington, was formed in 1995 and, according to the ruling, owns and administers "substantially all rights relating to Jimi Hendrix, including rights in his music, name, image and recordings." Its president is the late musician's half-sister Janie L. Hendrix and it operates an official Web site at www.jimi-hendrix.com. Hendrix died in London in 1970. Hammerton, whose site was registered in the name of The Jimi Hendrix Fan Club, said he had registered the domain name before it registered its trademarks. But arbitrator Marylee Jenkins ruled that Hammerton was well aware of the trademark. Experience Hendrix said Hammerton had previously offered to sell names including elvispresley.net, jethrotull.com, lindamccartney.com, mickjagger.com and paulmccartney.com. It submitted copies of Web pages from a resale site where the name jimihendrix.com was being offered for sale for $1 million.