Mason Malmuth Talks Dutch Boyd Lawsuit

Mason Malmuth released a statement on the TwoPlusTwo.com website, for which he owns, related to the purchase of domain name TwoPlusTwoPoker.com by professional poker player Dutch Boyd.

None of this should surprise anybody as Boyd does not have the best reputation in the online poker community.  He was the president and co-founder of the PokerSpot online poker cardroom, which ceased operating in 2001 and screwed Customers in the process.

Below is Malmuth's statement:

I wanted to post to explain some of the details behind our suit against Dutch Boyd, and clear up some of the misinformation that's been posted by Boyd and others.

Our lawyers at Greenberg Traurig ran a domain name audit for Two Plus Two, and found several infringing registrations, including <twoplustwopoker.com>. GT has filed hundreds of domain name lawsuits and UDRP actions, and they told us that they have rarely seen such a blatantly infringing, bad-faith registration. The domain name contains our entire trademark, along with the term "poker," which describes the services we offer. Even worse, the domain name was linked to a fully interactive poker-themed website containing poker-related links, graphics, and banner ads.

The registration info for the domain was initially shielded, but in July of 2009 GT discovered that the <twoplustwopoker.com> domain name was registered by Dutch Boyd on behalf of business appropriately named "Jacknames.com." Boyd had registered and owned the <twoplustwopoker.com> domain since at least July of 2004, and has been earning substantial revenue from the website for at least the past five years.

We instructed GT to retrieve the domain and to get some more info on Boyd's registration and infringement. We sent an initial demand letter to Boyd in early August noting his apparent copyright, trademark, and domain name infringement, and the damages he could face if we were forced to file a lawsuit. A copy of this demand letter is attached here. Boyd responded to this letter with a brief email stating that the domain name had expired.

Due to the length of time the registration was owned by Mr. Boyd, and his blatant infringement, we informed Boyd that the expiration of the <twoplustwopoker.com> would not resolve the dispute. At the very least, we needed to know exactly how much revenue the domain name and website had generated and how much traffic the site received. We also demanded that the domain be reclaimed and transferred back to us, as any expired domain places a mandatory 60-90 day hold before it can be registered to a new owner. A copy of our second demand letter is attached here. Boyd again refused our demands, and stated that he was "not afraid of being sued" and that Two Plus Two was "wasting its time."

After additional back and forth emails between our lawyers and Boyd, Boyd continued to refuse our demands for a full accounting of the domain and website, and refused to enter into any sort of reasonable settlement. We sent a final demand letter to Boyd letting him know that we were out of options, and that if he didn't want to cooperate by providing the domain name data or entering into settlement negotiations, we'd have no choice but to sue him. Boyd responded to our attorneys with a two-word email: "F*** off." We filed our suit the next day.

We never enter into litigation lightly, and it is never our attempt to "bully" anyone. However, we take protection of our intellectual property very seriously. We've spent decades building up our brand from our first days as a small book publisher in Las Vegas. Today, we have sold millions of books around the world and our website continues to grow beyond anything we expected. In fact, we recently hit the one-million unique visitors per month milestone. Due to the time and money we've spent building our brand, and the prominent role of the Internet in our success, we cannot afford to take this type of blatant infringement lightly.

We are still open to resolving this matter amicably, but any of our prior settlement offers were made before filing the complaint was necessary, and are now off the table. If Dutch Boyd wants to reach out to our lawyers in a more civil manner to discuss new settlement terms, he is certainly free to do so. But until we get some reasonable cooperation from Boyd, we've instructed our lawyers to pursue this litigation and seek all damages, attorneys fees, and costs to which we're entitled.

Best wishes,

Mason