Musics.com Stays in the same city, but no money for Go Daddy

by Raymond Hackney on December 2, 2013

The much ballyhooed auction of Musics.com closed on November 18, 2013, Morgan gave his thoughts prior to the auction closing here.

The 16 year old domain had 58 bids and closed at $76,000. There had been a battle between bidder 1 and 13 before bidder 14 jumped in and won the auction.

The registrant info changed and the Musics.com stayed in the same city, the city where I live, Philadelphia.

The Go Daddy November Domain Report came out yesterday and I did not see Musics.com listed in the top 10 sales, so I wondered if maybe the domain was renewed and the registrant made a deal.

I spoke to Paul Nicks from Go Daddy today and he told me the domain was renewed so Go Daddy did not make any money on the deal.

Congrats to the buyer and seller.

This continues to be a complex issue that probably has no straight answer on resolution. The registrant getting some remuneration for their expired asset that is proven to have value vs auction participants spending their time and tying up money bidding on an asset class that can be pulled back without any compensation.

Some will say its the Wild West, some will say that’s just domaining, some will say Go Daddy needs to change their policy.

What do you say ?

{ 14 comments… add one }

Jaxy December 2, 2013, 10:23 am

I love these types of articles Morgan thank you. So Bob Parsons is out $76,000 ? Why they do this?

Reply
Samit December 2, 2013, 10:35 am

GoDaddy doesn’t lose anything on this ‘renewal’ except for a potential 10% sales commission.

The bidders must feel quite disappointed or relieved. Don’t even see why the price went so high unless the auction was ‘primed’, never did find out where Nelson went, did we?

The domain wouldn’t get $10k in a straight up sale, and that would be from a newcomer, not a regular investor.

Reply
Raymond Hackney December 2, 2013, 10:39 am

Samit this was expired they lost $76,000.

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Tony December 2, 2013, 10:41 am

Raymond, I didn’t know you were local?

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Raymond Hackney December 2, 2013, 10:43 am

Yes Tony I live in Center City.

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Dman December 2, 2013, 10:45 am

I say good for the buyer and seller, why should Go Daddy get $76,000 for someone else’s asset ? I think its good to see that the buyer found the seller and made a deal, that’ what businessmen do.

Thx for the story its nice to read interesting stories once in awhile.

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todd December 2, 2013, 11:25 am

The new registrant is a dentist and domain investor. He probably took a quick trip over to the old registrants house and struck a deal. Here is one of his websites

http://www.philadelphiadentists.com/

and he was also the buyer of CRMsoftware.com from Sedo in 2012 for $40,000.

http://nametalent.com/blog/?p=5994

Reply
Brad Mugford December 2, 2013, 11:40 am

It is hard to feel much sympathy for GoDaddy and other major registrars who are simply using their venue to sell other people’s assets and pocket the money.

At least the GoDaddy auction process is more free market than others. All the domains start at the same price, highest bid wins. However, with public anonymous bidding it is also easy to play games.

Other registrars like Tucows just keep the expired domains they like. Companies like Network Solutions selectively decide what domains to put higher minimum bids on @ NameJet, and if no one is willing to pay that some holding company ends up keeping it.

The way GD auction is designed it is great for domain owners to use it as a cheap real world appraisal and to generate interest in their domain. GoDaddy could change this if they wanted by just starting the auction 1 week later. If that was the case, when the auction ended the original registrant would no longer be able to renew the domain.

Brad

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Nick December 2, 2013, 12:10 pm

I say its the Wild West. If things like this happened in the physical real estate world, people would be up in arms. The domain name industry needs to mature like the residential and commercial real estate markets are. I am not say those two are examples of perfection. What I am saying is that there are rules and regulations that must be adhered to. It protects and is good for all parties involved. Seems like with domains anything goes.

Reply
Josh December 2, 2013, 1:51 pm

Notice who Snapnames and Namejet manage to properly auction expired domains—you know, they actually have the legal authority to auction and sell the domains. Once you win, you win. And you pay and you get the name. You know, because they have the authority to sell the domain to you.

But Godaddy runs auctions for which it might be able to sell you—if the seller doesn’t renew it? Why can’t Godaddy run an auction house like Namejet and SnapNames—you know, where they run an auction only when they have the legal authority to actually sell the domain.

Yeah, yeah I know, that’s crazy sounding. Morons.

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Donnym December 2, 2013, 5:35 pm

Yep they renewed like I said they would. Look how much free exposure this name got.
I am not saying this happened on this domain but like I said last time, You can have 5 fake bidders on ??????.com and then renew your domain name with GD at the last minute. This is a trend you will start to see happening with them. They will have to change the way they do things.

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Raymond Hackney December 2, 2013, 6:08 pm

I have spoken to Paul Nicks about this many times and he said that they will not change the policy, they know there is potential for the free real world appraisal, but their first responsibility is to the registrant and will give them every option up until day 45.

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Tony December 3, 2013, 7:34 am

Musics.com has gotten over 1,000 uniques over the past week alone.

Thanks for the free publicity, Raymond and Morgan.

Reply
- Morgan December 3, 2013, 12:10 pm
  
  @Tony – good to hear, that is musics to my ears 🙂
  
  Reply

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