Constantine Roussos (also known as Constantinos Roussos) was born in Limassol, Cyprus. Roussos is an entrepreneur,

domainer Domain name speculation, popular as domaining in professional jargon, is the practice of identifying and registering or acquiring generic Internet domain names as an investment with the intent of selling them later for a profit. The main targets ...

and musician.

Early years

As part of his mandatory military service, Roussos enrolled to the Cypriot National Guard and joined the Special Forces as a Green Beret officer also known as LOK (Greek: ''ΛΟΚ – Λόχοι Ορεινών Καταδρομών, Lochoi Oreinōn Katadromōn''). All LOK Groups are part of the Army Special Forces Command DKD (Greek: ''ΔΚΔ – Διοίκησης Καταδρομών – Diikisis Katadromon''). Later he joined the Military Music Department of the Cypriot National Guard (SMEF). After his mandatory military service, Roussos left Cyprus for the United States to pursue his education.

Education

Roussos graduated

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA p ...

, the University of Southern California, Musicians Institute and Pepperdine University.

Career

After 2003, Roussos became an investor in new domain names, which he described as virtual real estate. In 2005 he started a global outreach initiative to launch a new

top-level domain A top-level domain (TLD) is one of the domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet after the root domain. The top-level domain names are installed in the root zone of the name space. For all domains in ...

for the

music industry The music industry consists of the individuals and organizations that earn money by writing songs and musical compositions, creating and selling recorded music and sheet music, presenting concerts, as well as the organizations that aid, train, ...

under the brand .MUSIC. On 15 February 2011, Roussos authored an article for the music trade magazine ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

'' called "How .music Will Save the Industry." In 2012, the

ICANN The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN ) is an American multistakeholder group and nonprofit organization responsible for coordinating the maintenance and procedures of several databases related to the namespaces ...

new generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) Program launched and .MUSIC applied for the

.music .music is a community-based top-level domain name (TLD) operated for the benefit of the global music community. It was one of the most highly contested new gTLDs, with eight applicants in contention. On April 17, 2019, the .MUSIC registry, the ...

gTLD under the company name DotMusic Limited as a community-based Applicant with support from established institutions associated with the music industry. Roussos also partnered with Tina Dam to form another TLD-related business with clients such as William Morris Endeavor and

News Corp News Corporation, stylized as News Corp, is an American mass media and publishing company headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The second incarnation of the News Corporation (1980–2013), original News Corporation, it was formed ...

. Roussos also represented the independent music sector and other associated clearly delineated communities in Community Objections filed with the International Chamber of Commerce against new gTLD applicants (including Google and Amazon) to increase competition, prevent anti-competitive behaviour and ensure appropriate enhanced safeguards are implemented to protect intellectual property owners from cybersquatting, malicious abuse, copyright infringement and piracy. Roussos also represented .MUSIC in Legal Rights Objections filed with the World Intellectual Property Organization against music-themed gTLD Applicants. .MUSIC held registered trademarks in nearly 30 countries for the ".music" and "dotmusic marks" under classification for domain registration and domain name registry services, and management of databases for domain names.

Panels and awards

Roussos has participated in panels at

public meetings,

, the University of Southern California, the University of California Los Angeles, New York University, Georgetown University, Pepperdine University, CMJ, the

Future of Music Coalition Future of Music Coalition (FMC) is a U.S. 501(c)(3) national non-profit organization specializing in education, research and advocacy for musicians with a focus on issues at the intersection of music technology, policy and law. Background Fu ...

, Popkomm,

SoundCTRL SoundCtrl is a blog based in New York City aimed at covering developments in music and technology. The site features reviews of mobile music apps, interviews with industry professionals, and provides coverage of music tech events. SoundCtrl was fo ...

and San Francisco Music Tech. Roussos has received numerous awards, including "Top Business Plan" at the Center of Entrepreneurial Studies at the USC Marshall School of Business.

References

External links

Constantine Roussos' official music site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Roussos, Constantine Cypriot businesspeople Cypriot musicians Harvard Business School alumni Musicians Institute alumni University of Southern California alumni Pepperdine University alumni Living people Year of birth missing (living people)