I have a friend (let's say his name is Fred) who traded some services in exchange for someone (let's say his name is Sam) to build him a website for his business. Rather than registering the domain name himself, Fred let Sam register the domain name and hosting space through SquareSpace. Now Sam is coming back to Fred saying the trade wasn't a fair one and is holding the domain name ransom.I'm assuming in this case Sam is the owner of the domain name, and not Fred. Is this a correct assumption? If so, is there any way Fred can get the domain name from Sam, short of waiting until it expires (Sam only registered it for a year) and hoping Sam doesn't register it again?
Who Owns a Domain Name?
domains;ownership
The Registrant of the domain name, that is the party and contact information that the domain registration record corresponds to, is the controlling party. If Sam used his own personal or business name along with his corresponding contact information during the domain registration, it's under his control. If Sam used Fred's name and contact information, then Fred would be the Registrant and controlling party.To verify who the domain registration information corresponds to, do a WHOIS lookup on the domain name.The only recourse for obtaining a domain name registered to another party is filing a  Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP) based on an existing trademark and other criteria, such as registering the domain name in bad faith. This is not a an easy or inexpensiveness process however, so Fred might want to consider registering another domain name, which given the plethora of new gTLD's, should not be so constraining to do. 