I’m a domain name attorney. I love listening to podcasts. And I’ve been playing around with some artificial intelligence (AI) tools recently — like everyone these days.
So, what better way to combine all of these interests into one than to publish the first-ever “GigaLaw AI Podcast”! This 20-minute audio file is based on the just-released issue of GigaLaw’s quarterly Domain Dispute Digest for Q4 2024, which provides detailed data about decisions under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) and the Uniform Rapid Suspension System (URS).
The Digest is a 16-page PDF with my overview of some of the most important takeaways about UDRP and URS decisions in the quarter (as well as for the year overall). It includes about 20 charts with detailed data from all five of the ICANN-approved UDRP service providers, a glossary with nearly 30 important terms about cybersquatting for trademark owners, and more.
In other words, the Digest contains a lot of information.
But sometimes, I know, not everyone wants to, er, digest everything in the Digest. Maybe a podcast about the data would be a friendlier — or, at least, an additional — way to present it.
While I’ve spent a substantial amount of time creating YouTube videos about domain name disputes, I spent almost no time creating this new podcast. Instead, I simply fed the Digest and my blog post about it into Google’s NotebookLM tool, which promises to summarize sources and “make interesting connections between topics, all powered by Gemini 2.0’s multimodal understanding capabilities.”
One way that NotebookLM can present its results is by creating a podcast. Not just a robotic recording, but instead what The Wall Street Journal has called “one of the most compelling and completely flabbergasting demonstrations of AI’s potential yet.”
So, without further ado, I invite you to listen to this AI-generated podcast about domain name disputes.
Of course, I have to issue a disclaimer: I take neither credit nor responsibility for the audio content. Although it is derived from my writing and my data compilation, analysis and presentation, I did not — and could not — directly edit the audio in any manner. Therefore, to be clear, the audio is entirely generated by an AI tool and may or may not be consistent with anything I would actually say or endorse.
That being said, I confess that I think the podcast is pretty darn good!
Just a few observations:
I did not do anything to influence one of the AI hosts to say, “Doug’s the best.” Seriously. No, seriously.
I certainly agree with the host’s comment that “the UDRP is proving to be very effective.”
Perhaps the most important legal error in the podcast is when the hosts discuss only two of the three elements required in every UDRP and URS case and conclude that a trademark owner who can establish both of them has “a strong case for getting the domain name transferred or suspended.” That’s not wrong, but it overlooks a critical element — the bad faith test — that applies to every UDRP and URS proceeding.
I love the host’s analogy about how privacy and proxy services create new challenges for filing UDRP complaints: “It’s like trying to file a lawsuit against a ghost.” I never said that, and the phrase doesn’t appear anywhere in the Digest. But I like it.
I also like the explanation about why some trademark owners might reject a settlement from a domain name registrant, because they want to obtain a published UDRP decision: “A public win can be a powerful deterrent.” Many of my clients take that position.
I wouldn’t characterize the URS as an “underdog” dispute policy that “plays a significant role.” But the hosts otherwise describe the URS, and filings under it, appropriately.
When the hosts discuss active filers of UDRP complaints and mention Lego, I love the question, “Seriously, who’s trying to cybersquat on Lego?” Unfortunately, the podcast never mentions any of the interesting Lego domain name disputes, such as those involving pornography and (separately, fortunately) Donald Trump. If I publish another podcast, maybe I’ll try to influence the discussion to focus on something that I know listeners would want to know more about.
In their conversation about popular top-level domains in UDRP cases, the hosts mention .tech for some reason, even though it is not listed among the top 10 gTLDs in the Digest, and they seem to confuse gTLDs with two-letter country codes, or ccTLDs (though, admittedly, AI voices aren’t the only ones to speak about these two types of TLDs interchangeably). I’m also baffled why the AI hosts wanted to focus on the .ro ccTLD (for Romania) and why they said it “was showing up so frequently in the Digest” — when it actually appeared in only two UDRP cases last quarter.
I laughed when I heard one of the AI hosts say, when speaking about future issues in domain name disputes: “It’s something that keeps me up at night, to be honest.” I didn’t know AI-generated voices even needed to sleep!
The “fascinating examples” of UDRP decisions that the hosts discuss are certainly not those that I would ever highlight. In fact, none of the cases were among those I recently discussed as some of the most interesting and informative decisions of the year. And the domain name mentioned in one supposed case doesn’t even exist! Obviously, those AI hallucinations are real.
