INTERNET  Don Henley & The Eagles Sue Over Domain Names

A bad trend has been flooding the Internet. People swoop down on famous people's names and buy them as domain names, sometimes knowing that when the celebrity ends up wanting to create a site for himself and realizes his or her own name is already taken, that person will be forced to pay the owner of the domain a fee to get the name back. It happened recently with Don Henley and the Eagles.

That's exactly what Mark Elsis allegedly did with the Eagles and Don Henley, and Henley & Co. have filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against Elsis over various domain names using Henley and Eagles-related wording. The domain names under fire are don-henley.net, don-henley.org, donhenley.org, theendoftheinnocence.com, and e-a-g-l-e-s.com.

The suit was filed Thursday (Oct. 7) in United States District Court for the Central District of California for trademark infringement, false designation of origin, unfair competition, dilution, and violation of right of publicity.

Henley's attorneys are asking for a jury trial and damages exceeding $75,000.