All Edinburgh couple Richard and Gillian Saville-Smith wanted to do when they bought the Narnia.mobi domain name was give it to their 10-year-old son as a birthday gift around the launch of Walt Disney’s (NYSE: DIS) The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian movie. But that didn’t stop a letter from author CS Lewis’ lawyer landing on their doormat, along with a 128-page give-it-up order from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
The family says the domain was only intended to be used for the son’s email account, though it’s currently displaying Narnia-related mobile ads from domain parking agency Sedo, in the week of the movie’s release. “We’ve never made any money out of this domain and have no interest in doing so,” Mr. Saville-Smith told Reuters. “We don’t have the money to hire intellectual property lawyers, so we’re saying ‘help’. If the WIPO decides in favor of the CS. Lewis estate, that would be the end of it for us. However, I don’t expect they will, because their case is flimsy and we’ve done nothing wrong.”