Tug-of-war over domain name of MacArthur Airport

The operator of an unofficial Long Island MacArthur Airport website is in a legal tug-of-war with Islip Town over the domain name macarthurairport.com.

Last month, an arbitrator ruled that Islip, which manages the airport, has common-law rights to the domain name. Now, the website's operator, Black Sheep Television Ltd., is suing in federal court to reverse the decision.

Black Sheep Television is also seeking $1 million in damages, charging in the complaint filed Oct. 26 in U.S. District Court that town officials reneged on a promise to jointly operate the website.

Airport spokeswoman Catherine Green said in a statement Friday the company's allegations are "without merit." She added that the town intends to "vigorously defend" itself, and pursue its claim to the domain name and eight similar ones the company has registered.

Black Sheep Television, a Hampton Bays marketing and production firm, has managed an unofficial MacArthur airport site for 10 years. The website offers flight tracking information, airport directions and parking information, and hosts ads for car rentals, hotels and the travel booking website, Priceline.com.

Though the airport has operated since the 1940s and now serves nearly 2 million passengers a year, it had no website of its own until July 2009, when it launched flylima.com.

Three months ago, the town began arbitration proceedings under guidelines for resolving domain name disputes to obtain the macarthurairport.com domain and other similar domains Black Sheep had registered, such as islipairport.com and macarthurairportonline.com.

Noting that the unofficial site used the airport's official name and logo, the arbitrator ruled on Oct. 11 that Black Sheep was using "the disputed domain names in an attempt to pass itself off as [the airport] for profit."

Smithtown attorney Howard Greenberg, who is representing Black Sheep Television, said his clients, a husband-and-wife team, launched the website because they "saw a need for it back in 2000."

The lawsuit alleges town officials in 2007 met with Black Sheep Television and expressed interest in jointly operating macarthurairport.com. As a result, the company shared "confidential business information" with the town, Greenberg said. He said Islip used that information, such as website coding, to create its own site.

Islip developed its official airport website in-house, and town staff perform most of its maintenance, Green said. The town board last month approved a six-month, $12,900 contract with Eriq Barone to maintain it, town records show.