which asserted claims for copyright and trademark infringement, as well as for unfair
competition based on various common law and state law theories.
Ticketmaster maintained a website (www.ticketmaster.com) through which it sold and
marketed tickets to various entertainment events. The “Seattle Sidewalk” site, one of a number
of city guides maintained by Microsoft on The Microsoft Network, offered a guide to
entertainment and restaurants available in the Seattle area. Microsoft placed links on the Seattle
Sidewalk to the Ticketmaster site so that users of the Seattle Sidewalk could purchase tickets to
events of interest online through Ticketmaster. Negotiations between Microsoft and
Ticketmaster for an agreement allowing Microsoft to profit from linkage to and association with
Ticketmaster’s website failed, and Microsoft established the links – which in several instances
bypassed the home page of the Ticketmaster site – without permission from Ticketmaster.
Ticketmaster sued Microsoft in federal court. With respect to its trademark claims,
Ticketmaster asserted that the unauthorized links wrongfully appropriated, misused, and diluted
Ticketmaster’s name and trademarks. In particular, Ticketmaster noted in its complaint that it
had a business relationship with MasterCard by which Ticketmaster had agreed to give
MasterCard prominence over any other credit cards in any advertising. Ticketmaster objected to
Microsoft’s use of Ticketmaster’s name in connection with MasterCard without giving
MasterCard prominence. Ticketmaster also asserted that its name and trademark had been buried
by Microsoft in metatag code at Microsoft’s site in order to attract to Microsoft’s Sidewalk
websites Internet search engines and Internet users who were seeking information about tickets
sold by and available through Ticketmaster. Ticketmaster alleged that this use of its name and
trademark in metatags improperly feathered Microsoft’s own nest at Ticketmaster’s expense.
Ticketmaster also asserted claims of copyright infringement, based on the allegations that
(i) in creating links to the Ticketmaster site, Microsoft repeatedly viewed and thus copied onto its
own computers the copyrighted contents of Ticketmaster’s website, and (ii) in the operation of
the links, Microsoft was reproducing, publicly distributing and displaying without permission
Ticketmaster’s copyrighted website material.
In Microsoft’s answer to Ticketmaster’s complaint, Microsoft alleged that Ticketmaster
could not complain about Microsoft’s link to Ticketmaster’s home page because Ticketmaster
knew when it set up its website that owners of other Web pages would create such links.
Microsoft noted that when an event required tickets, Microsoft routinely provided information
about how to obtain them, including prices, telephone numbers and, where appropriate, hypertext
links to relevant Web pages. Microsoft alleged that such information was freely available to the
public and was not proprietary to Ticketmaster. Microsoft asserted numerous defenses,
including (i) that Ticketmaster, when it chose to set up Web pages, assumed the risk that others
would use its name and URLs; (ii) that Ticketmaster was estopped from complaining about
Microsoft’s link because Ticketmaster encouraged users to seek out its website and refer others