Court gives sex.com owner right to sue

Los Angeles Times

Gary Kremen won a major legal victory yesterday in his long and expensive fight to be reimbursed for what is no doubt history's greatest theft of virtual property.

Kremen had the foresight to register the domain name "sex.com" in 1994 — and the misfortune to have it swindled away from him in 1995. That happened when a forged letter from a convicted felon, Stephen M. Cohen, convinced Internet registrar Network Solutions Inc. that ownership of the domain name had changed hands.

It hadn't. And so, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled yesterday, Kremen may sue Network Solutions and attempt to recoup damages.

Kremen — described by the appeals panel as a "computer geek turned entrepreneur" — had tried to wrest away the estimated $40 million Cohen made from sex.com. A court ordered Cohen to hand over $65 million in compensatory and punitive damages, but he went on the lam.

So Kremen moved into Cohen's stripped-down mansion in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., and offered a $50,000 reward for his capture, so far to no avail.