Keith Urban Vs Keith Urban In Website Lawsuit Hoedown
Then buzz it up
February 7th, 2007 at 16:30 by Stuart Heritage
Like most people, we're under the impression that one Keith Urban on the planet is one Keith Urban too many, so imagine when our horror to discover that there are two Keith Urbans in the world - and they're fighting to the death over a website.
One of these Keith Urbans is Keith Urban the Awful Cowboy Singer - the man who the bulk of people know only as the man with the strange hair who's married to Nicole Kidman. But there's another Keith Urban - an amateur painter - and he has control of the Keithurban.com website. This frustrates Nicole Kidman's Keith Urban so much that he's launched a lawsuit against painter Keith Urban to wrestle control of Keithurban.com back so he can rightfully call himself King Of All Keith Urbans Forever, much to the delight of the handful of creepily obsessive Keith Urban fans who are about to start leaving comments under this article about what arseholes we are for always writing about Keith Urban in a not very nice way.
Keith Urban has spent the last few months trying to make his life his own again. After he married Nicole Kidman in the world's most helicopter-less wedding, the almighty pressure that came with being married to a genuine global celebrity seemed to take its toll on Keith Urban. People kept looking at him for one, and it wasn't long before Keith Urban ran off to rehab to examine the state of his life.
Rehab was tough for Keith Urban but - despite stories of escape attempts, drowning in booze and missed awards ceremonies - he made it through the other side, apologising to fans and planning a new world tour. But even though Keith Urban has his physical life back on track, his virtual life is all over the shop. Some other Keith Urban owns the Keithurban.com web domain and, by Christ, Keith Urban wants it back, as the Hollywood Reporter reports:
Keith Urban, the country singer, has filed a lawsuit against Keith Urban, the painter from New Jersey, claiming the painter's Web site violates federal trademark laws. The lawsuit, filed Friday in U.S. District Court, says Keith D. Urban of Wayne, N.J., is using his keithurban.com domain in a deceptive manner and for commercial purposes. The Web site includes the statement: "You have reached the site of Keith Urban. To those who don't know, oil painting is one of my hobbies." It then directs viewers to a gallery of paintings and offers a limited edition of prints for sale. Urban — whose Web address is keithurban.net — argues that the New Jersey man is misleading people into believing the Web site belongs to him and is selling merchandise as if it were produced or endorsed by him.
All in all, cowboy Keith Urban accuses painter Keith Urban of "federal trademark infringement, dilution of a federally registered trademark, federal unfair competition and violation of the anti-cybersquatting consumer protection act and the Tennessee consumer protection act."
But let's just say that cowboy Keith Urban wins his lawsuit against painter Keith Urban and gets to use Keithurban.com for himself. The existing website wouldn't need to be changed too much - the line "You have reached the site of Keith Urban. To those who don't know, oil painting is one of my hobbies" would need to be switched to "You have reached the site of Keith Urban. To those who don't know, writing girly songs where I randomly pick from the words 'I,' 'Me,' 'Love,' 'You,' 'Wanna,' and 'God' to choose the titles, watching Smokey And The Bandit marathons in a big hat while I twirl a lasso above my head and drinking so much booze that I end up in rehab are some of my hobbies" but the rest could probably stay as it is.
Read more:
Related and recent:
- Keith Urban The Hilarious Alcoholic
- Keith Urban Almost Drowned In Booze Or Something
- Some People Stare At Nicole Kidman & Keith Urban
- Keith Urban: ‘Thanks For Sticking By An Old Drunken Cowboy’
- Nicole Kidman And Keith Urban Officially Engaged - This Time We Mean It
- Keith Urban Out Of Rehab And Ready For A Rootin’ Tootin’ Tour
- Nicole Kidman & Keith Urban Cowboy Wedding Details A-Go-Go
- Did Keith Urban Do A Daring Over The Wall Escape From Rehab?
February 7th, 2007 at 6:58 pm
Nothing?? What’s wrong with you people? You’re usually so quick to take the bait
February 7th, 2007 at 8:28 pm
How can you possibly say such horrible things about such a wonder–Oh, wait. I effing hate Keith Urban and all the other crazed lawsuit junkies like him. Um, nevermind. Tra la la.
February 8th, 2007 at 9:43 am
He wants the painter to post a disclaimer on keithurban.com stating he’s not the singer — I wonder if he will also post a disclaimer on keithurban.net stating he’s not the painter so people won’t be mislead into believing he has an actual talent??
February 8th, 2007 at 10:24 am
While I don’t agree with the lawsuit, would it really hurt the painter man to just put a note on his website informing people that he is not the singer!!
And clearly you people, and particularly you Stuart, obviously don’t appreciate good music and talent when you see/hear it! I suggest, again, that you take time out to actually see Keith (the singer) live, you might just change your opinion!
February 8th, 2007 at 10:39 am
Stuart, you are actually starting to make me laugh!! I love the “creepily obsessive Keith Urban fans” bit.
Now that all true ‘Keith Urban The Singer’ fans have established that you are just jealous and a bit sad (and we assume tone-deaf
as you don’t appear to like decent music) I think we will all take great joy in laughing at your articles….
…. please write some more!
As regards the lawsuit, it is unfortunate that Keith lives in the “if it moves sue it” culture that is the US. But really if you look at the other guy’s website, now way would you think it belonged to our Keith.
February 8th, 2007 at 11:40 am
There is only ONE Keith Urban. The lightest of brush stokes, the capture of the light over the little girl’s red balloon, the expression on the face, the magenta hues…. I can only suppose the strange bloke that sings (the one who is famous for marrying Nicole Kidman) is hijacking the site for publicity. Shame on him.
February 8th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
wait, this is the guy that won American Idol last year, right?
February 8th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
I didn’t realize someone could get a trademark on their name. Does this mean if your last name is Urban, you will be prohibited from naming your child Keith?
February 8th, 2007 at 6:35 pm
I don’t think that Keith Urban’s noise can actually be called music.
February 10th, 2007 at 2:58 am
Gosh, I mean really folks. Is anyone else sick of egotistical showbiz people. So Mr. Keith Urban, the so-so country musician and so-so wife of Nicole whats-her-name has decided that HE and not the Mr. Keith Urban, the current rightful owner of his namesake domain, should be the rightful owner. He didn’t change his name to Mr. Keith Kidman?. First, let me make sure there aren’t any Keith Urban albums in my collection, oops, found one, FFFLLLUUUSSSHHH, then let me just state for the record, he is really not a very good country artist, and now it is obvious he is not much of human being either.
February 14th, 2007 at 3:06 pm
While I could really could care less about Mr. Kidman’s personal traumas, such as his issue with anyone else using his name, I must point out a few of things that need to be emphasized here:
1. Keith Lionel Urban, the country singer, is not even using his birth name. “Urban” is his STAGE name. Keith isn’t his first name, NOR is Urban his real last name. His birth name is Richard Keith Urbanski. Even IMDB.com (internet movie database) list him as Keith Urban (II) because there was another Keith Urban, who is a special effects coordinator, listed before he was, in 1995, on such movies like “John Carpenter’s Village Of The Damned” and “Men Of Honor”. Hmmmm, do I smell another lawsuit??
2. The keithurban.com site has been registered for 8 years. Mr. Kidman’s only having an issue with it NOW?? Perhaps its only because he’s only sober enough to realize that he should be pissed off about it. Don’t they show you in rehab how facing your problems is part of your recovery? Perhaps he was drinking himself to death because of all of the pressure, but I think it’s because this whole trademark thing bothered him so much that he had to drink. Maybe it’s just all of the pressure of showing TALENT.
3. The site, keithurban.com was created in 1999. Urban-country-singer didn’t even release his debut album until 2000. DOH!
3. I see nothing on keithurban.com that indicates that Jersey’s Keith Urban is anyone other than a painter. So by “not” including a disclaimer, he is automatically guilty of trademark infringement? A friend of mine is named “Michael Jackson” but he doesn’t go around making sure people know that he’s not the guy that fondled a bunch of little kids (although, he might want to think about that, just in case).
4. I think the painter should counter-sue and make the country-singer-Keith put a disclaimer on all of his records that he’s not to be confused with the painter whose name he borrowed without asking. Then again, maybe Mr. Kidman should either just officially change his name to Kidman (that’s what everyone knows him by, after all), or he should just revert back to his birth name: DICK. (So where does “Lionel “come from?? Perhaps Mr. Ritchie should sue…)
December 16th, 2007 at 6:26 am
pretty much all of you who posted here are idiots