• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, November 6, 2009

An arbitrator has rejected controversial talk show host Glenn Beck's contention that the domain name glennbeckrapedandmurderedayounggirlin1990.com infringes his trademark. World Intellectual Property Organization arbitration panelist Frederick Abbott ruled Friday that the less-than-flattering domain name was protected by fair use principles because the URL, when combined with the site's content, constitutes protected speech.

 Abbott wrote that the site's creator, Isaac Eiland-Hall, "can be said to be making a political statement," which is a "legitimate non-commercial use" of Beck's name.

Eiland-Hall had argued that the site parodied Beck by using the same rhetorical techniques that Beck uses on the air. In legal papers filed on his behalf by First Amendment lawyer Marc Randazza, he referenced a YouTube clip of Beck interviewing Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), a Muslim, during which Beck asked Ellison to prove that he was "not working with our enemies."

Eiland-Hall also argued that the site doesn't infringe on Beck's trademark because there's no likelihood that Web users wrongly think he's affiliated with it. "Only an abject imbecile could believe that the domain name would have any connection to the complainant," Randazza wrote.

The domain name itself stems from a Web meme originating on Aug. 31, when a commenter on Fark.com posed the question: "Why haven't we had an official response to the rumor that Glenn Beck raped and murdered a girl in 1990?" The following day, Eiland-Hall set up the site.

The decision appears to mark a significant win for digital rights advocates because a ruling in Beck's favor could have encouraged other subjects of online parodies to take their complaints directly to the WIPO rather than U.S. courts, which are bound by the First Amendment. Some U.S. courts have ruled in other cases that parody sites don't infringe in trademark, even if they use a famous name in the URL.

Sam Bayard, assistant director of the Citizen Media Law Project, cheered the ruling for that reason. "It's good to see that this WIPO arbitrator had no interest in allowing Beck to circumvent the guarantees of the U.S. Constitution," he said in a blog post.

Although he won the case, Eiland-Hall on Friday offered to transfer the domain name to Beck. "I want to demonstrate to you that I had my lawyer fight this battle only to help preserve the First Amendment," he wrote in a public letter to Beck. "Now that it is safe, at least from you (for the time being), I have no more use for the actual scrap of digital real estate you sought."