Katherine Ok
Slipknot.com has a surprisingly bare-bones design.1 A visitor might expect great blasts of fire, gory blood-splattered imagery, and the band’s infamous masks, but instead lands on a flat, slate-gray page with only three oversized blue buttons labeled “Slipknot Merchandise,” “Concert Tickets,” and “Concert Vip Packages.” Now, how about slipknot1.com? With its official visuals, tour announcements, merchandise links, and photo galleries, this shoddy URL looks to be the band’s true digital site.2
On October 15, 2025, Slipknot brought a federal lawsuit in Virginia, targeting the mystery individual who has owned the domain slipknot.com since 2001.3 The band claims that the domain holder has misled fans with its links and ads for unofficial merchandise, such as non-official masks and derivative apparel sold on Etsy.4 According to the complaint, this website goes beyond merely legitimately using a domain name, and actually amounts to exploiting the metal band’s identity for commercial gain, triggering liability under the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act.5 Slipknot also argues that this conduct constitutes trademark infringement under Section 32 of the Lanham Act.6
Slipknot’s case reflects our reality where domain names function like valuable real estate that either serve immense commercial or symbolic purpose.7 Indeed, slipknot.com is obviously a sham based on its design and content, but to algorithms, casual users, and general search traffic, the URL is Slipknot’s bona fide name, which can mislead and appropriate digital and commercial value. And, moreover, to the band and fans themselves – Slipknot is the band’s real name, not Slipknot1. But can’t slipknot.com argue that it is the true owner of the domain, since it got there first?
Courts now generally have clear rules for this kind of conduct as opposed to during the internet’s early stages. In 1999, Congress passed the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA), 15 U.S.C. § 1125(d). This statute enabled trademark owners to have a federal cause of action in response to someone registering a domain name “identical or confusingly similar” with a bad-faith intent to profit.8 To figure out bad faith, judges weigh factors like whether the registrant has used the name before in a legitimate way, whether they offered to sell it for profit, whether fake contact information was used, and whether the site tries to mislead consumers.9 But, at the same time, this statute has exceptions for parody, criticism, and noncommercial fan use, and this area also requires balancing. The law tries to protect legitimate brands without granting them absolute control over every online reference to their name. Parody sites and commentary about artists or companies all exist in the same digital space, and the law tries to distinguish between bad-faith exploitation and lawful expression or fandom. Slipknot’s case turns on this. The band argues this isn’t a matter of valid parody or “first come, first served” claim to domain, but instead a deliberate effort to cash in on Slipknot’s identity.
In the end, parties in a cybersquatting lawsuit may just settle. Notably, in Microsoft v. Mikerowesoft, a Canadian high-school student named Mike Rowe registered “MikeRoweSoft.com” as a pun.10 He used this site to showcase his personal graphic-design projects. Rowe was shocked to receive a cease-and-desist letter from Microsoft which accused him of cybersquatting and demanded he surrender the domain. Soon however, public reaction turned against Microsoft, and the company eventually chose to settle. Rowe subsequently gave up the domain and was compensated with meager funds and Microsoft products.11
Slipknot’s dispute highlights the ongoing struggle to regulate online identity sensibly. Overly aggressive enforcement risks allowing powerful trademark holders to sweep up domains that were fairly obtained wholesale, while underenforcement arguably rewards opportunists. The task for courts is to get to a middle ground that preserves fair competition while combatting harmful misinformation.
[1]Slipknot.com, https://slipknot.com.
[2]Slipknot, https://slipknot1.com/.
[3]Joe Smith, Slipknot Sues Over ‘Slipknot.com’ Domain, Bootleg Merch, Rolling Stone, Oct. 20, 2025, https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/slipknot-lawsuit-slipknot-com-domain-bootleg-merch-1235449965/.
[4]Slipknot, Inc. v. Slipknot.com, Complaint at 26, No. 1:25-cv-01777 (E.D. Va. Alexandria Div. Oct. 15, 2025), https://domainnamewire.com/wp-content/slipknot.pdf.
[5]Id.
[6] Id.
[7]Marcia Rosenberg, Internet Domain Names: The Most Valuable Real Estate for Your Business, Forbes (Aug. 27, 2022), https://www.forbes.com/sites/allbusiness/2022/08/27/internet-domain-names-the-most-valuable-real-estate-for-your-business/.
[8]Sue Ann Mota, The Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act: An Analysis of the Decisions from the Courts of Appeals, 21 J. Marshall J. Computer & Info. L. 355 (2003).
[9]Cybersquatting, Typosquatting, and Domaining: Ten Years Under the ACPA, JW News & Insights, Jackson Walker (Aug. 27, 2009), https://www.jw.com/news/insights-cybersquatting.
[10]Daniel Sieberg, Teen Fights to Keep MikeRoweSoft.com, CNN (Jan. 20, 2004), https://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/01/20/rowe.fight/index.html.
[11]MikeRoweSoft Names His Price, Wired (Jan. 26, 2004), https://www.wired.com/2004/01/mikerowesoft-names-his-price/.