BAD AIMSTER

A National Arbitration Forum panel has informed file-sharing company Aimster that it must give up its domain names, according to industry bible Billboard Bulletin.

The panel, composed of three lawyers, voted 2-1 to strip Aimster of the domain names, after finding that the names Aimster.com, A1mster.com, AimsterTV.net, and AimsterTV.com violated AOL’s trademarks. The panel ruled that the names had been chosen "to financially benefit from [their] close resemblance and ensuing user confusion with respect to [the AIM service]."

The dissenting lawyer said he felt a decision would be better determined by a trial court.

Aimster had already turned over two other domain names it had registered—Icqster.com and Ic2ster.com, which seemingly cash in on the AOL-owned ICQ instant messenger.

Aimster will have to transfer all the domain names to AOL Time Warner.