Fifteen years ago, in July of 2007, I read an article on MTV.com about Korn, their upcoming tour, and their project to use biodiesel for the tour vehicles. The article listed a website that would provide the details about this project, so as a fan of the band, I went to korntastic.com.
I found that the site was not there and that the domain was not registered. I checked around a little more to make sure what I was seeing was correct, and it was. No one owned the domain.
So I bought it.
It was the first domain I had ever purchased and I made several missteps in setting it up. I didn’t use any of the privacy options that were available, so my personal data was listed for anyone that cared to look. That freaked me out a little, so I needed to get this fixed.
My original idea was to actually turn it over to whoever was going to run it for Korn or their organization. I didn’t have any grand plans of holding it for ransom or even trying to get my few dollars in domain registration fees back.
I needed to talk to someone in Korn’s management organization or website team.
I grabbed one of the CDs I owned to look for any management information that might be in the liner notes. I found some contact information for the record label and I searched online for the phone number and called them.
I reached an assistant in the management team for Korn and started to explain the situation. I told him that I bought the site but wanted to transfer it to the band. I’m not sure how I came across on the phone, but his tone was less than accepting. I think he believed I was trying to make some money from this and didn’t really offer any help. The call ended and I was still the owner of the site.
My second call was to MTV to the reporter that was listed on the article, Chris Harris. I called, got his extension, and he answered. I explained that I ended up buying the domain listed in the article and wanted to somehow transfer it to the band or their team. He laughed at the situation I described. I asked if he had any contact information for someone in the band’s management team or the team that would be running the site. Unfortunately, he didn’t have anything for me.
It was really starting to bother me that my personal information was out there for anyone to see, so I called the record label back. I ended up speaking to the same guy as before and the tone was completely different. He was excited/relieved that I had called back. I’m not sure what happened between the two calls, but things were very different. We reviewed what I had done and that I wanted to turn the domain over to Korn, the webmaster, or whoever was in charge of that project.
He took my contact information to pass along so we could transfer ownership. He asked if I wanted anything in return, like concert tickets or anything. Unfortunately, Korn had already come through town and there wasn’t an upcoming show I could get to. He offered an autograph from the band which I gladly accepted.
I then got a call from a member of the team working on the biodiesel project. He told me he had just started on the project and he was calling me from the middle of Iowa. He said he had some of the information already about me owning the domain and was able to take my credentials for that site and take it over. Good guy to talk to and very appreciative of me turning it over. It took him a day or two, but he was able to get things updated and removed me from the registration information.
I was glad things were out of my hands and in the right ones. I continued to watch the site over time, but nothing more than a “Coming Soon” page ever materialized. About a year or so later, it ended up as a medical blog and maybe something else after that. I don’t think the domain ever had anything related to Korn or the biodiesel project.
Not long ago, just out of curiosity, I checked the site again. Lo and behold, it’s available again. I decided to buy it, again. I really have no intention in doing much with the site other than posting this amusing little story of mine and my tangential relationship to one of my favorite bands.
Here is the link for the MTV.com story from their archives - korn-go-green-band-concocts-own-biofuel-korntastic-converts-to-biodiesel-for-tour