Apple finally wins iTunes.co.uk

The war for the itunes.co.uk domain is over according to The Register.

The dispute between London entrepreneur, Ben Cohen, and Apple has been running for a few years now. Cohen, who claims he registered the domain before Apple even announced its iTunes service, has dropped the case, saying he cannot financially compete against Apple and Nominet with their big bucks.

Registering the iTunes domain - before Apple had even released iTunes - was not illegal, and the case does raise questions over whether Nominet has the right to take a domain off someone to give to a bigger company, even if the domain holder is making profit by diverting traffic.

The secondary issue is that since iTunes is now an Apple trademark, the iTunes domain was infringing on that trademark. But is that fair when the domain is registered first?

There are more details over at The Register and there are a couple of older bit-tech articles on the saga here and here.

What do you think of the case? Drop us your thoughts over in this discussion thread.