9th
Karma
I recently had someone contact me for advice based on a post I did on buying domain names on Tim Ferriss‘ Four Hour Work Week blog.
Their question involved a .com domain name that they had purchased a few years ago. It turns out that before they got the domain someone had filed for a trademark for the same name and has since been issued the mark, they have the .net.
The person with the mark offered to buy out the .com person for a decent number. The name is very long and in my opinion worth much less then the amount offered. So my advice was to just take it and live happily ever after.
Well the owner of the name wanted more, feeling that because the .com was a better extension for the business that they deserved more. Oh and by the way both people do the same exact thing which means that the .com person is stomping all over the trademark.
I first tried to give some broad advice around trademarks, if someone has the mark and you are doing the same business you are basically cooked unless there are millions at stake and then it might be worth a fight. But that advice did not seem to matter and they kept asking me how do they get more.
So I told them how I make many of my decisions in situations where you could go both ways, Karma. If you feel that the decision is good Karma then things always seem to work out correctly, when you go against Karma, at least for me, you always get screwed.
I get asked for advice based on my experiences frequently. Since I myself do not have all of the answers I try and steer people to the right answer by giving them examples of similar things that have happened to me. Usually I find working with people for things like this to be very fulfilling.
This was probably the first time that I have felt my time was really wasted. Today I received an email that the .com person was going to ask for more money, very bad karma. My bet is that now instead of getting a few dollars, they are going to lose their domain by force and have nothing. And if that happens Karma will win again.
