Don Henley is involved in a domain dispute with the owner of the don-henley.com domain, who also happens to be named Don Henley. This don-henley.com is not a commercial site but one run by an individual, a crippled man, out of his own pocket. What's a guy to do if some kid with your name grows up to be a musician, actor, author, or politician? Are you supposed to rush down to the courthouse to change your name? Does it seem fair for a millionaire musician to use his great wealth to make life more difficult for everybody who can't afford to hire a huge law firm? Will all of the famous art works with Madonna's name become her property? It's kind of silly, isn't it? You have to admire somebody like Elvis who owned that name so thoroughly in music that he was known by just that first name. Neither he nor his family raised any fuss when Elvis Costello entered the music world! You could learn a lot from a classy dead guy.
The lawyer's letter and email replies from one of the scores of people who may turn out to be unfortunate enough to have the same name as the rock legend, are posted at this location. It turns out that the domain donhenley.com is available for sale. It sure would be nice if Don bought that domain, opened a website for his fans and didn't claim that nobody else had a right to the name now that he's using it. Some day in the future, could this happen to you?
One interesting piece of information to come out of this is that we can reach Don Henley, through his lawyer, by email or snail mail. Check out the links above, then if you want to encourage Don to do what's right, come back here and click on the email link below to make your feelings known.
