Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach might be considered a nice guy in most parts of Alberta, but he obviously isn’t the sharpest tool in the “political shed” if he didn’t have the oresight to buy edstelmach.ca long before he became the next premier of Alberta. Surely he has to be the only provincial premier in Canada who lacked that foresight. I think it’s hilarious that University of Alberta student Dave Cournoyer has bought the rights to the domain, and I think it’s even funnier that Stelmach has threatened to sue Cournoyer to obtain the rights to that domain name.
I wonder how much it’s going to cost Alberta taxpayers for Stelmach to get the rights to edstelmach.ca, now that he has hired the high-priced law firm of Walsh, Wilkins and Creighton LLP. It certainly isn’t going to be cheap.
And about the content of the letter the law firm sent on behalf of their high-profile client; in order for something to be stolen, it has to be in the rightful possession of the person who is alleging the threat, and it should be obvious to most of my readers that if Cournoyer was able to buy edstelmach.ca, then the premier wasn’t in possession of the domain in the first place, therefore no theft occurred.
And one more thing; I hope for the Alberta Premier’s sake he doesn’t decide to use the term “Honest Ed” during his tenure in office, otherwise he is going to piss off a few folks in Toronto, Ontario and he too might find himself on the receiving end of a lawsuit.
If I was Ed Stelmach I would tread carefully in this particular instance otherwise he is going to look like a bigger fool than he already is for not having enough brains to purchase the domain name when he began campaigning for office.
As for Cournoyer I would hold out until the price is right before I bowed to Stelmachs’ demand. That too is going to cost the Alberta taxpayer a pretty penny, and all because of Stelmachs’ own stupidity.
If this is an example of how much attention Stelmach pays to what is going on around him, then one can only imagine how much attention he is paying in the Premier’s Office.
Keep an eye on this Conservative folks because something tells me this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the kind of stupidity Albertans can expect from him.
Good on Cournoyer for making the Alberta Premier look like an idiot and I hope it pays big dividends for him.
Take a bow Cournoyer; you deserve a pat on the back.
Alberta Premier threatens to sue over domain name
5 responses so far ↓
1 Canadian Gypsy // Jan 9, 2008 at 4:24 PM
I visited http://www.edstelmach.ca and I found the sarcasm very funny. Way to go Dave!
2 Guy C // Jan 10, 2008 at 2:08 AM
Nice of Cournoyer to read the CIRA agreement he agreed to before registering the URL address. “Do you have legal right to the trade name or mark you are registering?” Cyber-squating should be a jailable offence – and the people that engage in it for “fun and profit” need to be prepared to face the legal music when the rightful copyright holder decides they would like to register the name. If this student doesn’t have the deep pockets for the fight, then they should not have fired the first salvo.
3 Canadian Gypsy // Jan 10, 2008 at 1:44 PM
Guy, the CIRA requires that if you wish to register a .ca domain one of your contacts must have a Canadian address. I should also mention there is nothing fraudulent in what Cournoyer has done. Last I heard Ed Stelmach name wasn’t copyrighted. I wonder how many people in Canada are named Ed Stelmach, any idea?
The honourable Mr. Stelmach screwed up and Cournoyer capitalized on it.
If Mr. and Mrs. Simpson registered TheSimpsons.ca, do you think Matt Groenig would have a leg to stand on if he tried to prevent them from registering such a domain?
4 Canadian Gypsy // Jan 10, 2008 at 2:00 PM
And another thing, he’s getting the publicity because Stelmach chose to take his case to high profile lawyers in Calgary, what would you expect? There likely wouldn’t have been much publicity had Stelmach chosen a different path when dealing with this matter.
He registered a .ca domain, he didn’t sign a contract. The CIRA laws are vague and if Cournoyer was committing fraud then I would agree with you, but he isn’t committing fraud. He isn’t claiming to be Ed Stelmach, he would have been required to register his account with a verifiable Canadian address should for legal reasons somebody wanted to contact the owner of the domain. He would have likely purchased the domain name using his credit card, not Stelmachs. Tell me, where is the crime, or the violation of any agreement. He never pretended to be Stelmach.
5 Canadian Gypsy // Jan 10, 2008 at 2:29 PM
Hey there Guy, I just registered crookedincanada.ca and had the opportunity to read the agreement, by-laws, blah, blah, blah. Unless Cournoyer misrepresented himself, in other words if he registered the account in Stelmach’s name, than he didn’t break the law. As for crookedincanada.com and crookedincanada.ca being copyrighted or trademarked, I’m working on that, but the most important thing for me is I now have the domain rights to crookedincanada.ca. While I don’t intend to do anything with crookedincanada.ca at the moment, other than redirect it to crookedincanada.com, I wouldn’t call that cyber-squatting would you?
The CIRA laws don’t go far enough perhaps, but what Cournoyer did isn’t against the law. No crime has been committed and as far as Stelmach goes, well I made that quite clear in the title of the blog entry you commented on. Stelmach effed up, not Cournoyer.
If what Cournoyer did was wrong or illegal, then I guess as a pet owner I should have trademarked or copyrighted my pet’s name, after all my neighbor gave his pet the same name and if I was in a Stelmach frame of mind, I guess I could have threatened to sue him if he didn’t change it. Bad analogy perhaps, but I’m sure you get what I mean, though I’m not sure I even know what I mean.
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