Mark Madsen case leads to first domain theft criminal charge

August 5, 2009 |

Mark Madsen case leads to first domain theft criminal charge

By John Lister

Mark Madsen case leads to first domain theft criminal charge Is it a crime to steal something which doesn’t physically exist? Prosecutors in a domain name dispute in New Jersey believe so.

Daniel Goncalves has been charged with theft after allegedly hacking into an e-mail account belonging to the legal owners of the domain name p2p.com. (While it had originally belonged to a company named Port to Print Inc, the name had potential value because it coincided with the abbreviation for peer-to-peer filesharing.)

Goncalves then allegedly used information from an e-mail in the account to log in to and take control of the domain name. He then sold it on eBay for $110,000 to basketball star Mark Madsen. The LA Clippers player regularly invests his earnings in domain names; there is no suggestion he was aware p2p.com had been stolen.

The original owners are now in dispute with GoDaddy.com, the domain registrar which oversaw p2p.com and have launched a civil suit claiming negligence.

Meanwhile Goncalves has been charged with three offences: theft by unlawful taking or deception, identity theft and computer fraud. The first is the most interesting as it’s believed this is the first time anyone in the U.S. has been charged with theft in a domain name case.

Though it’s rare, there is no requirement for property involved in a theft case to be a tangible good. The key, as explained in an article by Tateru Nino of online games site Massively.com last year, is that the person who owned the property must be permanently deprived of it.

That’s why people who copy software or audio/video content are charged specifically with copyright offenses. Despite some misleading publicity, copying a CD, DVD or computer program is not legally classed as theft: nobody is deprived of the original in the same way as if the thief stole a physical CD from a store.