The more than decade-long battle over the .music top-level domain extension (TLD) has finally come to an end. The victor: DotMusic Limited, a company founded by Cypriot entrepreneur Constantine Roussos that won out over heavy hitters such as Google and Amazon.
“If someone told me back then that it would’ve taken 11 years… I would’ve said to myself, ‘Do what you’re doing, dude,'” Roussos tells Billboard. “It will take you 11 years, but keep doing what you are doing.'”
Unlike .com, .net, .org and other TLDs that currently dominate the web, Roussos is billing .music as a safe online space for artists, record labels and other music-industry brands who in the current ecosystem are often plagued by “cybersquatters” and others who buy up high-profile domain names in bad faith. Either that, or the name is simply so commonplace that the artist or brand in question simply has no shot of getting to it first.
CentralNic Group Plc (LON: CNIC) is a London-based AIM-listed company which develops and manages software platforms allowing businesses globally to use the internet for their own websites and email, as well as protecting their brands online.