The whois shows that it previously expired in April 2012. I thought most registrations were for 1 year increments, so this would be a strange time for a expiration.
There's a fairly long grace period after initial expiration when a domain is expired but can't be re-registered. It allows for the original owner to get it back (for a larger fee) before it's sniped by the next person.
Their twitter says it was on auto-renew, and their domain is through the same company as their hosting. If their autorenew didn't go through, their hosting probably wouldn't either, so it's hard to believe that their host would have let them skate by for five months without payment.
It's a domain squatter. He's not getting it back without a ton of money, and if we're naive enough to kickstarter, then everyone's domain will get steal-squatted for the rest of time.
Sadly, the current nature of domain protection law means either one has to scare the squatter (doesn't work,) find a squatter with a heart of gold (doesn't exist,) or get a new domain. :(
Now you have evidence of criminal intent. Someone took something through false manipulation of a system, then attempted to set a price to give you your own things back.
And they chose a price that's well into the serious range for just about every country (in the United States that's felony grand larceny.)
maybe, just maybe, people should renew their domains if they want to keep them? and if the domain was stolen calling the thief a "squatter" is inaccurate. A squatter is someone that obtains domains legitimately.
I don't think that's the case here. If you look at the whois record, the creation and expiration date is 4/18, so this wasn't a matter of the domain expiring and then being snatched up by a squatter.
In other words, it appears that this domain was stolen, and the rightful owner does have recourse in that case.
Edit: Their twitter seems to confirm that this was not an expiration problem.
This is why having a trademark can be invaluable. You can petition for a domain name with one, but without you're going to have to build a case that you're "doing business as" where hopefully you have a registered corporation with a name like the domain.
Squatters usually don't have trademarks as it's not cost effective, so they're likely to lose on an appeal. There is a cost associated with this option but it can be less than paying a huge ransom fee.
It doesn't look like it expired, it just looks like someone stole it from his account. I think more appropriately the person should be called a domain thief
Speaking from experience, getting a domain back after it has been hijacked is very costly and timely, and ends up being cheaper just to buy the domain back from the hijacker. It's stupid, but unless you have a contact with a registrar that understands what happened and is willing to work hard for you to get your domain back, you are stuck. I hope I'm wrong, and best of luck getting everything back to normal!
Don't f'ing pay those bastards. I realize that it's cheaper to pay them than fight them. I would love love to see you raise money online and fight them instead. I would buy into this cause in a heartbeat.
Anyone know how the domain was hijacked? If it wasn't an expiration issue, I'd like to know how to protect myself from this. Did they login to his DNS account?
I would like to know this as well. Considering the registrar itself is pretty secure maybe he had some kind of keylogger on his computer, and they logged into his account?
I leased my car for 3 years then I didn't renew it and they sent multiple notifications to my last contact address and finally repossessed the car a few months after I stopped making payments.
Now some car squatter has hijacked it and has my car on a parking lot. They're not even driving it!!! Why is this even legal!??!
Check the site's twitter and the whois. The domain didn't expire. It was on autorenew and, in any case, has an April expiration, so that explanation makes no sense.
Btw, I do completely sympathize with the situation itself, it sucks.
But name-calling the new owner of the domain, who almost definitely acquired it legally, and is the only person able to make the decision to return it, does not seem very smart.
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[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 91.1 ms ] threadThere's a facebook post from the official subtlepatterns.com facebook page acknowledging the hijacking here: https://www.facebook.com/subtlepatterns/posts/44043519600741...
This has happened in the past: http://www.out-law.com/page-4049
http://www.icann.org/en/resources/registrars/accreditation/e...
Skulduggery Afoot!
Sadly, the current nature of domain protection law means either one has to scare the squatter (doesn't work,) find a squatter with a heart of gold (doesn't exist,) or get a new domain. :(
Now you have evidence of criminal intent. Someone took something through false manipulation of a system, then attempted to set a price to give you your own things back.
And they chose a price that's well into the serious range for just about every country (in the United States that's felony grand larceny.)
In other words, it appears that this domain was stolen, and the rightful owner does have recourse in that case.
Edit: Their twitter seems to confirm that this was not an expiration problem.
Squatters usually don't have trademarks as it's not cost effective, so they're likely to lose on an appeal. There is a cost associated with this option but it can be less than paying a huge ransom fee.
Edit: And here is their famous photoshop .pat file containing all the patterns: https://github.com/subtlepatterns/SubtlePatterns/blob/master...
Now some car squatter has hijacked it and has my car on a parking lot. They're not even driving it!!! Why is this even legal!??!
But name-calling the new owner of the domain, who almost definitely acquired it legally, and is the only person able to make the decision to return it, does not seem very smart.