So! The Jio/Hotstar merger. Atu told me about it the other day. I was fascinated.
I must admit right away that I am no authority on legalities and I have zero knowledge of international laws on domains. I barely can start up a Google spreadsheet.
But from what I understand, Disney’s Hotstar and Jio Cinema is in talks to form a merger. Which, by the way, I support. I hope they have good movies.
Anyhoo, after it was officially announced, this one Delhi techie put up a note on the jiohotstar.com website saying that he bought this domain in advance when he heard rumours of a merger. And that he wants to study in Cambridge and all he wants is one crore INR for the site, which is nothing for Reliance. Which is true.
But!
Ok so this is where it gets good. Jio already owns jiohotstar.in. But most corporations would like to co-op all versions of their sites so that people aren’t misdirected to the wrong one. So after his announcement, Jio came out saying that they have filed a legal case because this is domain squatting, which is illegal.
I'm guessing if Delhi Boy was using his site for anything, then it’s still fine. Technical loophole and all that. But with his own announcement, he basically admitted to having bought the site specifically to get money from Jio. Sounds very extortion-y. I don’t think any mega corporation would want to look weak by caving to his demands. Even if the one crore was pocket change to them.
So instead of one crore, he got a legal case from a corporation that has bottomless money.
And then news broke that he has sold it through a third party to some other people in Dubai, which is now covered by international law. But people are saying that he could still be liable because the case filed against him happened before the sale!
It’s a lot of drama. Apparently his parents are also scared because they think he’s taking on the Ambanis and no one wants to do that. Also it seems he is facing a ton of hacking attempts on his site. Very stressful.
But this is what I’m thinking that one wants to support the underdog but some underdogs can be really stupid. Some people really can NOT keep quiet to save their lives these days!! It's like people need to know how brilliant we are. Or powerful. Or pretty. Or happy. Or rich. Or right. If anything happens to me, I seem to need to ‘tell my story’ which is usually code for ‘explain why I am right’. And social media has fed this narcissism like an IV injection straight to our veins. We all have our own platforms and we feel heard, like we have an audience, which is code in our heads for ‘fans’.
Some people actually begin to think they are important. The idea that Pride goes before a fall has never been so universally applicable. Now that everyone has a platform, we all just keep falling off our own pedal stools.
I don’t know how else to put it, honestly. What do you do when you want to support the Underdog but the Underdog is really stupid? Is it in the word? Because the response of an excited dog is to bark. Dogs don’t stay quiet. They aren’t like snails. Snails keep quiet. They don’t champion their ‘side of the story’ without thoughts of repercussions. More people need to learn this from snails.
I call it the Chengkawl Policy. I blogged about it last year too. I still consider it solid theory. Even when we are right, not all stories need to be told all the time. Some stories don’t need to be public. Some stories require a limited audience. Some stories need to brew for some time before they’re told. Some stories don’t even need to be told.
You know, returning to Delhi Boy, apparently domain squatting was made illegal after people started doing this during the early years of the dot com era. When big websites and tech companies were starting out. So tech boy did his research but not nearly enough. And he was bragging about his plot like he was Mojo Jojo or Voldemort. People had to know how brilliant he was!
He didn’t apply Chengkawl Policy. He should have.
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