The first heavy metal domain dispute TechNewsReview is aware of. There are reports “the surviving members of Pantera are involved in a legal battle with their former webmaster over” Pantera.com. Pantera.com was once the band’s official web site, but since February 2003 the official web site has been located at www.officialpantera.com.”According to the Justia.com legal portal, which maintains a database of Federal District Court filings and dockets, Pantera.com webmaster L. Alfenas filed a lawsuit in the Michigan Western District Court on August 2, 2007 against the Pantera Partnership (consisting of Vincent Paul Abbott, Philip Hansen Anselmo, Rex Robert Brown, and the estate of Darell Lance [“Dimebag Darrell”] Abbott) over the domain, which has apparently been registered to Alfenas since 1998. The Pantera Partnership, meanwhile, filed a suit of their own in the Michigan Eastern District Court against Alfenas (who resides in Michigan) the very next day, August 3, 2007.”The court documents state prior to securing pantera.com, “the Plaintiff informed the DEfendents (Pantera) that the address was then owned by a third party (not a party to this litigation), and that the band Pantera could acquire the address from the third-party.” But the band declined to do so at the time, “respectfully” not the court documents.The plaintiff then obtained the domain name with the full knowledge of, and no objection from, the band. The court documents note the band has previously not objected to the website, despite having full knowledge of it. And, so the documents note, “the band not only failed to object to the Plaintiff’s website, but it even started taking affirmative and public steps to endorse, advocate, accept, and promote the Plaintiff’s website.” Even promoting the website on one of Pantera’s albums (Reinventing the Steel) calling it the “official Pantera website”. Likewise on the DVD, “Pantera 3: Vulgar Videos from Hell”.Meanwhile, news reports state the Pantera lawyer said, “Give us the domains or we are going to sue you.” Pantera.com webmaster L. Alfenas responded, “They could have saved a lot of money if they were just nice. You don’t treat someone that’s done nine years’ worth of work for you like a piece of shit. Especially me.”For more detailed news reports see:
– www.metalunderground.com/news/details.cfm?newsid=28587
– roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=79831.Court documents are available from:
– casedocs.justia.com/michigan/miwdce/1:2007cv00749/53543/1/0.pdf