Policies, Enhanced Safeguards & Copyright Protection

DotMusic is the only .MUSIC applicant with appropriate enhanced safeguards and policies that ensure that music artists, bands, industry professionals and organizations register a trusted, secure and verified .MUSIC domain — just like a .EDU or .GOV domain — and own their exclusive www.name.music web address.

DotMusic's community-based .MUSIC differentiates itself from .COM, .NET, .ORG and other domain extensions because of its music-tailored registration policies and safeguards. These include:

1. .MUSIC is exclusive only to legitimate members of the entire global music community;
2. .MUSIC is governed and controlled by the global music community. Each music constituent community type has a governance seat on the multi-stakeholder .MUSIC Policy Advisory Board (PAB);
3. .MUSIC’s community application is supported by organizations representing over 95% of music consumed globally (i.e. a majority) (See https://music.us/supporters);
4. .MUSIC has enhanced safeguards to protect intellectual property, prevent cybersquatting and eliminate copyright infringement;
5. .MUSIC has incorporated all RIAA/IFPI intellectual property protection provisions that include policies to stop domain hopping, takedown policies in the case of piracy, authorization provisions, permanent blocks, privacy/proxy provision, true name/address mandates and trusted sender complaint policies amongst others;
6. .MUSIC requires registrant validation through a mandatory two-step phone and email authentication process;
7. .MUSIC protects names of famous music artists and brands by giving registration priority to those entities during a priority-based launch phase. .MUSIC also gives registration priority to community members belonging to legitimate Music Community Member Organizations to spur adoption, trust and safety;
8. .MUSIC has domain naming conditions that eliminate cybersquatting and famous music brand trademark infringement. Registrants are only allowed to register their own name, acronym or “Doing Business As;”
9. .MUSIC only allows legal music content and legal music usage; and
10. .MUSIC will take down any domain infringing on any of its enhanced safeguards

 

Copyright Protection Provisions:

 

Stop Domain Hopping:

Absent a 2/3 vote from the Policy Advisory Board (PAB) to permit the site to remain live or credible evidence that the site has been authorized by most of the applicable rights holders to use the content in question, DotMusic shall ensure that all strings for sites on other gTLDs for which Trusted Senders (e.g. IFPI or RIAA or BPI etc.) have sent notices of over 10,000 infringements on such site, will be on the block domain list. Any strings on the block domain list will not be made available on .music. For example this means if notices of over 10,000 infringements on abc.xyz site have been sent, then DotMusic will ensure that abc.music is blocked, and will not be sold or resolve. The block domain list shall be continuously updated.

 

 Take Down Policies:

DotMusic will require all registrants on .music to have and implement policies that include the following: (i) upon receipt of a facially valid copyright take down notice, the registrant must search for all copies or links to access the noticed content on the site, and remove all such copies or links from its site; and (ii) it must implement a strong repeat infringer policy that terminates users from its site if they receive several copyright infringement notices associated with that user’s activity on the site. DotMusic will suspend the domain if the registrant fails to have or enforce such policies.

 

Stay Down and Repeat Offender:

DotMusic will suspend the domain if the registrant fails to have or enforce DotMusic takedown policies. Repeat offenders will be disallowed from registering .MUSIC domains.

 

 Authorization: 

In interpreting and enforcing its registration and other policies, DotMusic will interpret “content that they otherwise have the right to post” to mean that the poster must have express authorization to post the content, and that without such express authorization, they fail to meet this criteria.

If .MUSIC registrants have licensing agreements, they must disclose what license agreements or permissions they have in place and with whom for the activities they are proposing and, if none,  what stage they are at in obtaining the necessary license agreements or permissions and from whom.

If a registrant applicant claims to have or to be seeking a license or permission from a Trusted Sender then the Trusted Sender shall be notified. If the Trusted Sender is not satisfied that the registrant's clearance or does not have the license agreements or permissions necessary to operate their .music website without infringing one or more of the Trusted Sender's rights, then DotMusic shall suspend the registrant's domain.

 Permanent Block:

In the event that any site is de-registered or blocked for any reason on .music, that string will not be made available for registration by any third party absent two-thirds vote by the PAB to permit the string to be put back in the pool for registration.

 

Privacy / Proxy:

DotMusic will not permit any privacy/proxy registrations for a domain on .music unless the privacy/proxy service operator agrees to, and does in fact, reveal the beneficial registrant to the complainant on a prima facie claim of copyright infringement by any PAB member. If such disclosure is not promptly made, DotMusic will immediately suspend the domain in question.

 

 True name and address:

If a site on .music makes available any music owned or posted by a third party via the site (directly or indirectly), .music will require that the site prominently post on the site the true name of the website operator, a contact person at the operator, phone number, physical address, and email address at which the contact person may be contacted. In the event any site on .music fails to comply with this criteria within 1 week of notice thereof, DotMusic will immediately suspend the domain.

 

Trusted Sender Complaints:

If DotMusic receives a complaint from a Trusted Sender (e.g. the IFPI or RIAA etc) then DotMusic will suspend the site during the pendency of any dispute resolution that may occur regarding the complaint.