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From Godwin Tsa, Abuja
A Nigerian, Mr Chianugo Peter, has filed a $150 million compensation suit against Google and GoDaddy.com over allegations bordering on the shutdown of his YouTube Audio domain name after eight years of promotional and marketing work.
The suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/238/2023 was filed before Justice Obiora Egwuatu of the Abuja division of the Federal High Court by his counsel, Emmanuel Ekpenyong. He listed GoDaddy.com LLC and Google LLC as first and second defendants.
The plaintiff is urging the court to declare that he registered the YouTube Audio business name, commenced trademark registration on the logo of the business name and secured the YouTubeAudio.com domain name from the GoDaddy in good faith to carry out genuine business to host his application, thereon, to attract users.
He also sought a declaration that since GoDaddy and Google encouraged him to make use of the YouTubeAudio.com domain name for the past eight years, “they are estopped from claiming that the domain name infringes any of their trademarks or deny the plaintiff the use of the YouTubeAudio.com domain name.
“A declaration of this Honourable Court, that the plaintiff is entitled to compensation from the defendants for the loss of the YouTubeAudio.com brand and goodwill, which has accrued on the brand and domain name for eight years of promotional and marketing works from July 2, 2015 to December 7, 2022.
Peter, therefore, sought an order directing the defendants to pay him $50 million for promotional and marketing works on the YouTube Audio business name and YouTube Audio.com domain name for eight years from July 2, 2015 to December 7, 2022.
“An order of this Honourable Court directing the defendants to pay the sum of $100, 000, 000 to the plaintiff for loss of anticipated profits associated with the brand equity and goodwill of YouTube Audio and YouTube Audio.com domain name.
“An order of this Honourable Court directing the defendants to pay the plaintiff the sum of N50, 000, 000, to enable the plaintiff to carry out fresh registrations of its new name and secure an alternative domain name to host its application to attract users. An order of this Honourable Court directing the defendants to pay the sum of N10, 00, 000 to the plaintiff’s counsel for prosecution of this suit.”
In the statement of claim, Peter said he was the owner of YouTube Audio, also known as YTAudio, which could be accessed through platforms such as Google Play Store and Apple Store in Nigeria.”
He said YouTube Audio is a creative mobile application that encourages users to be more creative and enjoy utilising audio as a primary source of entertainment, information, and expression. He said sometime in 2015, he acquired YoutubeAudio.com and YoutubeAudio.ca. domain names from GoDaddy without any caveat that it infringed the YouTube trademark or any other products of Google.
He further averred that in that year, when he applied to GoDaddy to obtain the YouTubeAudio.com and YoutubeAudio.ca domain names, GoDaddy carried out an availability check and confirmed that the names were available for him. Peter said GoDaddy did not inform him that neither YouTubeAudio.com nor YoutubeAudio.ca domain name was similar to YouTube or any trademark of Google.
“It was upon this premise that the plaintiff consistently paid for the domain name and carried out promotional and marketing works on the domain name,” he said.
Besides, he said from 2015 to April 2022, when he carried out extensive promotional and marketing works on the domain name, Google did not lay claim to the domain name or insisted that it was similar to the YouTube trademark.
Meanwhile, the case has been adjourned to October 11 for mention. The plaintiff said he even paid Google to host the YouTube Audio.com application on the Google Play Store in 2021 without any query that the domain was similar to the YouTube trademark or any of its other trademarks.
Peter said the YouTube Audio was duly registered on February 22, 2016 as a business name with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), under the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as BN 2395035 and continuously filed tax returns with the Federal Inland Revenue Service in Nigeria (FIRS).
