Owners of the mtwellingtoncablecar.com.au satirical website have transferred the website to http://www.mtwellingtoncablecar.org. The move follows a decision yesterday by a dispute resolution panelist that the .com.au domain should be transferred to the Mt Wellington Cableway Company (MWCC) – since it is “confusingly similar” to the company’s name.

The owner of the domain, South Hobart resident Louise Sales says “Obviously we are disappointed by the ruling. The phrase ‘Mount Wellington Cable Car’ has been in use for over thirty years and we have just as legitimate a right to describe what is proposed for our mountain as anyone, but a company is appropriating the phrase.”

“We will continue to provide information about the proposal on our http://www.mtwellingtoncablecar.org website.”

Bernard Lloyd, the website developer, says “MWCC has previously threatened legal action over the contents of the satirical website and now claims it also breaches their copyright. The MWCC will use any tactic, and any threat to silence its opponents, but it will not succeed. We have a legitimate right to protest.”

MWCC has also registered at least 22 domain names including respectthemountain.com.au (the name of a local group opposed to the cable car), nocablecar.com and kunanyi.org. [1] Last year the company redirected a number of these domain names to a Parliamentary petition supporting the Mount Wellington Cable Car Facilitation Bill, in an apparent attempt to hoodwink people opposed to the cable car into signing the petition. The Bill (now Act) allows the Government to compulsorily acquire land within Wellington Park for the proposal.

“MWCC has no genuine legitimate interest in possessing these domain names, is using them in bad faith, and there is a strong legal case against this domain name hijacking ‘cyber-squatting’. But small community groups such as Respect the Mountain and the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre lack the financial resources to challenge MWCC,” says Mr Lloyd.

“The MWCC claims that they registered domains such as nocablecar.com for future potential commercial opportunities. Who would believe that? I find it frankly appalling that the proponents would stoop as low as buying up a suite of anti-cable car domain names and diverting them to a pro-cable car petition. This company are clearly prepared to stop at nothing to try to get this deeply unpopular project off the ground.”

In response to outrage from the Aboriginal community over the purchasing of the kunanyi domains MWCC’s CEO Adrian Bold is quoted as saying that the internet belongs to no one: “It’s first in, best dressed.”[2]

Ms Sales says “To claim that no one owns the internet, and to then threaten local community members with legal action when they establish a website opposing the proposed cable car and accuse them of acting in bad faith is a staggeringly hypocritical.”

“MWCC is acting in an outrageously acquisitive, covetous and predatory fashion. They want to monopolise the name kunanyi/Mount Wellington. We oppose that. This is a matter of free speech,” says Ms Sales, “and we will not be silenced.”

[1] Websites registered to cable car proponent Adrian Bold’s company Riser & Gain include: nocablecar.com, nocablecar.net, nocablecar.org, respectthemountain.com.au, respectthemountain.info, respectthemountain.net.au, nokunanyicablecar.com, nokunanyicablecar.info, nokunanyicablecar.net, nokunanyicablecar.org, nomtwellingtoncablecar.com, nomtwellingtoncablecar.info, nomtwellingtoncablecar.net, nomtwellingtoncablecar.org, kunanyi.com.au, kunanyicablecar.net, kunanyi.org, kunanyicablecar.com, kunanyi.net.au, kunanyicafe.com, kunanyicablecar.com.au, kunanyicablecar.net.au

[2] Bold Bid on Kunanyi Domain, http://ourlanguages.org.au/bold-bid-on-kunanyi-domain/
Louise Sales, Bernard Lloyd