18(b) How do you expect that your proposed gTLD will benefit registrants, Internet users, and others?

Prototypical answer:

gTLDFull Legal NameE-mail suffixDetail
.MUSICDotMusic ⁄ CGR E-Commerce Ltdmusic.usView

.MUSIC will benefit the registrants and Internet users by providing an immediately-identifiable exclusive domain for the Music Community to use as their online home. Registrants will have the opportunity to register their preferred domain under .MUSIC which might not be available today under .COM or other preferred TLDs.

(i) The.MUSIC goal is to provide an exclusive, trusted, safe music-branded domain for the Music Community. .MUSIC will enable the Community to project identification, accountability and transparency to Internet users under a unique, music-themed domain.
TRUSTED gTLD
Trust will be achieved via protection policies and associated compliance functions to increase legal music consumption and ensure monies flow to rightful owners not pirates. Relevant, trusted content will enable search engines to rank .MUSIC domains higher in music-related searches than illegal sites.

PREMIUM CHANNELS
DotMusic has conducted an extensive communications outreach campaign and research activities within the Community to identify needs for value-added services beyond .MUSIC domains. It has been affirmed that the Community has a need for (i) a faster, easier and simpler way to license songs on a global basis and (ii) differentiated online resources of information about music, containing regional, national and local Community member information, powered by their associated dynamic content, services or products.
Premium Channels will offer opportunities to promote cultural diversity and unique music content. The level of information and content shared in the Premium Channels will be at the sole discretion of registrants. Registrants can promote themselves, their content, share contact information, communicate, network and engage in commerce with music consumers and each other. Unlike using search engines, the Premium Channels will provide Internet users a quick and intuitive search mechanism through direct navigation discovery. For example, a music consumer searching for reggae music can directly visit “reggae.MUSIC” to find registrants that offer reggae-related music, content, services and products. Premium Channels will:
• Promote Community members
• Increase legal commerce⁄business⁄collaboration
• Facilitate the sharing of contact information & enable more efficient communication
• Provide a quick and intuitive reference to music-related content through direct navigation
• Offer networking opportunities & increased exposure
• Promote cultural diversity, the arts & music education
• Differentiate Community members from each other
• Promote interaction, communication & support amongst the Community
• Promote music innovation
The Premium Channels will also include the development of a global Song Registry to facilitate a faster, easier and simpler way to legally license registrant songs.

(ii) .MUSIC will advance competition, differentiation and innovation in many ways. It will provide competition to TLDs that Community members might otherwise choose. .MUSIC domains restricted only to the Community will provide members branding differentiation along with the opportunity of registering their preferred domain under a self-explanatory music-themed TLD that clearly identifies them.

An exclusive and uniquely identifiable .MUSIC TLD will provide the Community differentiation that also benefits users who are searching for music-related content from international regions. DotMusic will provide Premium Channels and a Song Registry where the Community and Internet users can network, share information and engage in commerce in a trusted, secure ecosystem – a safe haven for legal music consumption and song licensing ensuring monies flow to the Community not unlicensed sites.
.MUSIC will compete with existing TLDs and be aligned with the FCC on principles affirming that “free and open competition benefits consumers and the global community by ensuring lower prices, new and better products and services, and greater consumer choice than occurs under monopoly conditions. A competitive market promotes innovation by rewarding producers that invent, develop, and introduce new and innovative products and production processes. By doing so, the wealth of the society as a whole is increased (FCC, Competition in Telecommunications Services, www.fcc.gov⁄connectglobe⁄sec5.html).”
Through its value chain, DotMusic will prevent TLD commoditization and achieve a competitive advantage by developing a unique differentiated TLD with Premium Channels offering registrants a more compelling value proposition than existing TLDs.
Stimulating competition and innovation is paramount to DotMusic’s Mission. The .MUSIC rotating, all-inclusive, global multi-stakeholder Advisory Committee and Policy Board will not only represent the interests of all constituents but will also ensure any policy incorporated is consistent with the .MUSIC Use Policy and Mission⁄Purpose benefitting a multi-stakeholder model of neutral, equal and fair representation deterring anti-trust⁄anti-competitive practices. .MUSIC will be run in an all-inclusive manner serving the global Community as a critical public resource benefitting and empowering all constituents in a non-discriminatory and fair manner irrespective of size, locale or commercial⁄non-commercial status.
To mitigate any anti-trust or privacy issues associated with registrant user data (such as highly-sensitive private or trade proprietary information) that compromises the confidentiality of Community members, DotMusic will incorporate Community membership eligibility restricted only to members verifying themselves as Community members based on NAICS⁄ISIC classifications and agreeing to Community-focused Use policies and dispute resolution⁄takedown mechanisms to benefit the .MUSIC Mission⁄Purpose and multi-stakeholder mission and to protect DotMusic from privacy and monopoly laws. Any violation of the membership criteria, Use and other Policies might lead to the cancellation of membership status, including domain takedown if deemed appropriate.
Community members will be able to use their membership credentials to be included in the uniquely-classified Premium Channels that are sorted according to NAICS⁄ISIC classifications. For example, music publishers (NAICS code 512230) will be able to organically self-categorize themselves in a highly relevant manner and be included in the Publishers.MUSIC Premium Channel using their membership credentials to participate.
DotMusic will also stimulate innovation through intellectual property (IP) protection (National Economic Council, A Strategy for American Innovation: Securing our Economic Growth & Prosperity; www.whitehouse.gov⁄innovation⁄strategy, 2011). By promoting innovation and protecting IP rights DotMusic will harness the inherent creativity of its Community. Innovation, the process through which new ideas are generated and commercialized, is a key force behind Music Community global economic growth and competitiveness and the creation of new and better ways of producing goods⁄services (Maddison, Angus, The World of Economy, Organization for Economic Co-operation & Development, 2006).
Innovation protected by IP rights is paramount to creating new music jobs and growing music exports having a positive pervasive effect on the entire Music Community with benefits flowing both upstream (supply chain) and downstream (distribution) to every constituent fueling creativity, commercial distinctiveness and promoting open, competitive markets.
DotMusic’s incorporation of enhanced safeguards will protect creators from unlawful use of their work and be consistent with ESA⁄USPTO perspectives outlining that effective IP protection spurs innovation, competition, and technology advancement in markets in which IP is transacted (ESA & USPTO, U.S Department of Commerce, Intellectual Property & U.S Economy, www.esa.doc.gov⁄sites⁄default⁄files⁄reports⁄documents⁄ipandtheuseconomyindustriesinfocus.pdf, 2012).
DotMusic will:
- Harness an environment that promotes creation & innovation
- Protect creators from unauthorized IP infringement
- Facilitate legal exploitation of rights
- Stimulate new innovative music business models & licensing opportunities
- Enable a more efficient market


(iii) Traditional search engine results pages are agnostic whether music-related domains are legal or not. Despite the fact that are less than 1000 legal music download stores on the web, the number of illegal sites significantly outnumber legal sites resulting in rampant, widespread music piracy and hundreds of thousands of monthly URL takedown requests. Piracy continues to adversely affect music sales and hurt the Community. However when visiting .MUSIC sites Internet users are provided with immediate music identification and a level of confidence and trust not available today.
Many legal music download stores do not offer songs directly through an open web browser but require consumers to use their proprietary software to access and buy songs. Since there are only a few search engine-friendly legal music sites to compete with illegitimate sites, most music-related search rankings are dominated by unlicensed sites. In many cases, 80% of artist-related top search engine results are infringing sites according to the IFPI: ʺMass numbers of takedown notices are sent to search engines each month asking them to delist links to non-legal content. However, response times vary and delays still occur…there are also sometimes restrictions on the number of non-legal links that rights holders can notify. These need to be removed, and search engines should take measures to prevent notified infringing links re-appearing in results (www.digitalmusicnews.com⁄permalink⁄2012⁄120124search).ʺ
Premium Channels will reduce exposure to pirated content to Internet users by serving secure and high quality relevant content to search engines to achieve top search engine results for a long tail of music-related keywords served by the differentiated, unique and niche Premium Channels incorporating local, national and regional searches. This type of search result ranking criteria is already implemented by search engines with existing TLDs (such as .DE for local content served to users in Germany).
Search engines will modify their algorithms to accommodate relevant, high quality and unique content, especially if it can be used as a filter to counter copyright-infringing sites and provide better search results.
.MUSIC domains can serve as trusted signals for search engines and used as filters for legal, licensed and safe music sites with relevant, quality content. .MUSIC domains will be validated to belong to Community members, who can only use the domains under Community-focused Policies. This way, Internet users will experience trusted interactions with registrants and be confident that any interaction is with legitimate Community members.

(iv) DotMusic has implemented measures to protect IP rights in registrations under .MUSIC, and to ensure that .MUSIC domains are used in a manner benefitting the Community resulting in reducing bad behaviors that currently exist relating to IP infringement.
Policies are built to match Community needs based on Community feedback and experience from the previous ICANN new gTLD launches. They are established to ensure a higher security level for .MUSIC domains than what is considered standard requirements for gTLDs.
.MUSIC will be launched with all standard gTLD registration rules (See response 27 for .MUSIC lifecycle). DotMusic will also adhere to all ICANN-mandated rights protection mechanisms and consensus policies (See 20e response).

RESERVATION PROTECTION: Second-level names will be reserved per ICANN requirements, including country-territory names (see response 22) and names for registry operations.

INNOVATIVE PREMIUM NAMES RESERVATIONS: Premium name reservations to develop the Premium Channels (e.g Rock.MUSIC) to promote registrants and enable music discovery.

RIGHTS PROTECTION & NOTIFICATIONS SYSTEM:
• Globally Protected Marks List (GPML) will reserve and protect domains of major music brands and established artists, such as RIAA-certified platinum-selling bands against cybersquatting.
• Trademark Clearing House will be implemented per ICANN specifications.
• Names Selection Policy ensuring that only music-related names are registered as domains under .MUSIC; restrictions:
1) The name of (entire or portion of) the musician, band, company, organization, e.g. the registrant’s “doing business as” name
2) An acronym representing the registrant
3) A name that recognizes or generally describes the registrant
4) A name related to the mission or activities of the registrant

THREE TIME-RESTRICTED LAUNCH PHASES: (i) Sunrise for and to protect trademark holders (ii) Music Community Member Organization (MCMO) Landrush for registrants with demonstrated MCMO memberships (iii) a premium names Landrush period.
Multiple applications for the same domain will be decided upon via a mini-auction after each phase. Following the completion of these phases the .MUSIC domain registration is available to the Community members on a first-come-first-serve availability (General registration).

USE POLICY for all domain registrants under .MUSIC regardless of the applicable launch phase; incorporated in the registration agreement for all registrants. The primary goal of the policy is to allow registrars and DotMusic to take down domains that violate Policies and IP rights (See response 20).

ANTI-ABUSE POLICY for all registrants under .MUSIC; incorporated in the registration agreement for all registrants to prevent malicious use of domains which can lead to security and stability issues for the registry, registrars, registrants and Internet users (See response 28).

REGISTRY DATA VALIDATION: DotMusic will validate elements of the received WHOIS data as a requirement for domain registration, also providing access to Premium Channels, such as the registrant’s:
- Email address through validation links
- Phone number through validated PIN-codes

COMPLIANCE & ENFORCEMENT
DotMusic will take proactive and reactive measures to enforce its Policies. Proactive measures are taken at the time of registration. Reactive measures are addressed via compliance and enforcement mechanisms and through dispute processes.
Allegation that a domain is not used for legitimate music purposes or otherwise infringes on Policies shall be enforced under the provisions of the .MUSIC Policy & Copyright Infringement Dispute Resolution Process (ʺMPCIDRPʺ); described in question 28 response.
The MPCIDRP is not a replacement for alleged violation of the UDRP⁄URS⁄PDDRP⁄RRDRP, which shall be enforced under the provisions contained therein.
The DRPʹs are required in the registrarsʹ registration agreements with registrants. Proceedings must be brought by interested 3rd-parties in accordance with associated policies and procedures to dispute resolution providers.
DotMusic will conduct random compliance checks across all the .MUSIC Policies. Periodically a sample of .MUSIC registrations will be verified for compliance with all established Policies.
If a registrant is found out of compliance with any of the .MUSIC Policies the registrant will be notified that the domain will be placed on registry lock. The registrant will have a reasonable time period to fix the compliance matter or the domain will be terminated.
Repeat offenders of Policies will be placed on a special monitoring list that DotMusic will conduct additional compliance checks against. DotMusic holds the right to prohibit repeat offenders from registering .MUSIC domains for a period of time or indefinitely.
DotMusic will review all policies and processes on a regular basis with involvement from the .MUSIC Advisory Committee and discussed publicly at Community events.

(v) .MUSIC will use best practices around privacy and data protection. Afilias, the back-end registry provider will administer specific WHOIS protections per response 26, and promote WHOIS accuracy per question 28 response.
Most Community members want to be discovered and have as much visibility and exposure as possible. DotMusic will provide this unique and branded visibility. The domain registration services and Premium Channel participation offered to registrants will be designed to respect the privacy of personally identifiable and confidential information, including applicable laws.
Information provided by registrants for inclusion in Premium Channels will be publicly accessible. All other information provided by registrants to establish compliance with the Policies will remain private.

(vi) To meet the benefits described in responses to 18b (i-v) DotMusic has conducted ongoing outreach activities to serve the global Community.
Pursuant to its mission, DotMusic has been publicly conducting global outreach to the Community since 2008 to explain the intended benefits of .MUSIC, requesting support, letters of intent or interest by partners and MCMOs for .MUSIC.
A complete list of events relating to the ongoing outreach efforts can be found at www.music.us⁄events.htm. Extensive use of differentiated .MUSIC sites, social media presence, marketing and thousands of discussions⁄media mentions were conducted on the web in an open, publicly-accessible manner. Over 1,500,000 have signed the .MUSIC TLD Initiative petition. Support letters are attached in response to question 20f. The most updated list can be found on www.music.us⁄letters. Other outreach efforts include:
- Earned media (broadcast, online, print): Forbes, Billboard, Hollywood Reporter, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, World Trademark Review (www.music.us⁄news.htm), other major mainstream publications, online press, and thousands of blogs⁄social media mentions.
-Google and Bing search engines have ranked the official DotMusic website (www.music.us) on the top of search engine results for term “music” ((#23 Google, #25 Bing – March 6th, 2012), which is one of the most competitive keyword terms on the web according to Google Adwords (277m global searches on Google, costing advertisers about $9k a day in clicks for top rankings www.music.us⁄adwords⁄google-adwords-keyword-music.jpg ).
-The official DotMusic site ranks on the top of both Google’s and Bing’s search engines for TLD terms such as “DotMusic”, “dot music”, “music domain”, “music TLD”, “music gTLD”, “music top-level domain”, “music generic top level domain” (www.music.us⁄seo).
-Social media: Participation of over 5 million social media followers across the most popular social media websites, active since 2009 with hundreds of thousands of communication⁄status updates for participants, including:
Myspace, the Internet’s largest music artist community (4.2m friends: www.myspace.com⁄musicextension)
Facebook, the world’s largest social media site (Over 100k likes on www.facebook.com⁄musicextension and www.facebook.com⁄dotmusic and about 5k group members on www.facebook.com⁄groups⁄46381289474)
Twitter, the world’s largest micro-blogging site (200k+ followers on www.twitter.com⁄mus, about 50k followers on www.twitter.com⁄dotmusic, about 60k+ followers on www.twitter.com⁄musicextension, about 31k+ on www.twitter.com⁄dot_music, about 21k+ followers on www.twitter.com⁄musicdomain) and other social media sites.
DotMusic sponsored major Community events globally, including SxSW, Midem, Billboard, CMJ, Digital Music Forum, SF Music Tech, SoundCtrl, Social Media Week, ASCAP Expo, Popkomm, Miami Music Festival, Future of Music Policy Summit, Bandwidth, New Music Park Thing, and domain events such as ICANN meetings in Seoul⁄South Korea, Brussels⁄Belgium, Cartagena⁄Colombia.
Outreach has spanned all geographical continents and segments of the Community. DotMusic will continue its global outreach throughout 2012 and beyond

Similar gTLD applications: (0)

gTLDFull Legal NameE-mail suffixzDetail