GoDaddy, an Internet domain registrar, prevailed in a website-squatting lawsuit brought by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which accused the company of illegally profiting off its trademarks, including for the Oscar telecasts. On Thursday, United States District Judge Andre Birotte in Los Angeles said the academy had failed to show that GoDaddy acted in bad faith by letting customers buy 293 domain names such as academyawards.net and oscarsredcarpet.com. The academy had accused the company of letting customers share in revenue collected from advertising on those pages. But Judge Birotte said GoDaddy “reasonably relied” on its users’ representations that their domain registrations did not infringe any trademarks. The academy said it would review its options for an appeal.
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