Keith Urban Files Suit Over Web Site
Country star Keith Urban is suing a New Jersey artist who shares his name, a rep for the singer confirmed to The ShowBuzz on Tuesday.
Urban, who is married to Nicole Kidman and recently left rehab, claims in a lawsuit filed Feb. 2 that the other Keith Urban owns the URL Keithurban.com and is trying to mislead users in search of information on the singer.
The Smoking Gun has posted a copy of a lawsuit filed in Nashville on its Web site. To see it click here.
The message on the Web site of New Jersey's Keith Urban says, "You have reached the site of Keith Urban. To those who don't know, oil painting is one of my hobbies." It includes a gallery of oil paintings that are for sale.
"The guy's been up there for a while, we've issued cease and desists in the past, not on the site but on the content of his site. Because it was clear as Keith's star rose, he was capitalizing on Keith's popularity," Urban's publicist Paul Freundlich told The ShowBuzz on Tuesday.Photos: Keith Urban & Nicole Kidman
The Smoking Gun reports that while the site does not list prices of the paintings, a previous version of it offered $93.50 prints of paintings such as "Al Bundy for President" and "Missing Child."
The lawsuit on TheSmokingGun.com says that the country singer is seeking a preliminary injunction which bars Urban from using the domain name. Eventually, the star would like the registration of Keithurban.com transferred to him.
"To be honest with you, it's also misleading for any fans of Keith Urban who perhaps don't realize that Keith is a dot-net or for new people who are just trying to find Keith on the Web," Freundlich says, adding that the New Jersey man's name is really Keith Urban.
Nicole Kidman's ex-husband, Tom Cruise, was involved in a similar lawsuit last year. In a judgment that was made public July 21, arbitrators ruled that the Network Operations Center/Alberta Hot Rods misused the domain name TomCruise.com and ordered that it be turned over to the actor.