It appears the decedents of C.S. Lewis will be taking a family to court over the use of the Narnia.mobi domain name. We get the following scoop from the Minotaur caves of Yahoo:
A Scottish family have become embroiled in an intellectual property dispute with the estate of the author C.S. Lewis after buying a Narnia Internet domain name for their 10-year-old son as a birthday present. Richard and Gillian Saville-Smith, who live in Edinburgh, paid 70 pounds ($140) to purchase the domain name Narnia.mobi from the internet registration company Fasthosts in 2006 so their son could have it as an email address.
They were asked to return the domain name to the C.S. Lewis company, owner of the author’s estate, but refused. The family then received a 128-page legal complaint filed with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Switzerland. “We’d been saving it as a surprise for our little boy’s birthday, to coincide with the release of the Narnia film,” said Mrs. Saville-Smith, referring to the British release of Walt Disney Co’s “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.”
If this family is in fact saving the email address for their child, then I say let them have it. It isn’t the .com address so who cares. If the Lewis estate wanted the address they could have bought it years ago. Instead, they have decided to serve a family papers.
It could very well be that the family is using the child angle for sympathy and their entire story is bullshit; but I will give them the benefit of the doubt for now.
I personally don’ t see the logic in fighting this much over a .mobi address. I think the Lewis clan bringing this issue to court will do them more harm than good. With luck the entire case will be dropped, and fade from memory.
So much for the surprise email address.
