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Since When Is It Illegal To Just Mention A Trademark Online?
from the getting-ridiculous dept
There are some strange things happening with trademark law, and it certainly seems to go beyond the scope of what it's intended to cover. The point of trademark law is to prevent someone from passing off their goods as someone else's. It's to avoid confusion. A trademark shouldn't be considered something that you have absolute control over -- but just in situations where confusion can occur. However, that's not at all how it's being used. Instead, it's being used to stifle any kind of comment that someone doesn't like. About a year ago, we wrote about the somewhat bizarre case where the Greater Toronto Airport Authority told a silly site that posts photos of urinals (pretty much just for the hell of it) that they couldn't mention the name of the airport for no clear reason other than that the GTAA didn't like it. The owners of that site, Urinal.net, have now been approached again by someone who is trying to stop them from posting perfectly legitimate information. In this case, complaint is coming from the Marco Beach Ocean Resort, who is claiming that it's somehow illegal to use their name on the website. Urinal.net has responded by (amusingly) distorting the name enough to try to get around the request of the lawyers who contacted them. Part of the complaint seems to concern the fact that the anonymous contributor mentioned that the urinal is viewable from the lobby. Of course, courts have ruled that simply passing on content sent to you via the web or by email does not make the person or company passing on the info liable for its content. So, if the resort believes that this information is false, then it's not the fault of Urinal.net, but the person who sent it in to them. I asked the maintainers of the site if I could see a copy of the cease & desist, but apparently the lawyers claim that the cease & desist is copyrighted to them and that the recipient is not allowed to forward it to anyone. I wonder if that means they can't even forward it to a lawyer? So, as far as I can tell, the Marco Beach Ocean Resort seems to think that (a) they absolutely own all rights to the name beyond what the law intends (b) they can blame the most easily accessible party, rather than those who are actually responsible and (c) any cease and desist is to be some sort of "secret" cease & desist that can never be shown to anyone, which seems to go a bit beyond what rights copyright gives them. How long is it going to take before lawyers realize that the simple act of trying to repress something they don't like online is likely to make it so that something that most people would never, ever see (like a photo of a urinal in some random beach resort) is now seen by many more people? Let's call it the Streisand Effect.
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No Subject Given
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legal documents
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No Subject Given
It's overly facile to blame lawyers for being litigious, when their clients are the ones driving the litigation. That copyrighted nastygram tactic is ridiculous, though.
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Oh please.
No lawyer writes anything from scratch. I doubt there was enough original content in the cease and desist apart from the factual information to even be copyightable (or at least to the law firm, who probably didn't write it in the forst place). If so, then the copyright would be so thin you couls see through it.
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Re: Oh please.
This wasn't just a standard disclaimer placed at the bottom of a message.
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Re: No Subject Given
So it is quite expected for lawyers to also become the targets of ridicule in situations like these.
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No Subject Given
As for the mentioning of a business name; it is similar to slander, you cannot publish that Coca-cola is made with harmful ingredient X when it is not. You will damage the brand name and you may be sued for damages. Oprah Winfrey was sued for defimation of the beef industry with her "reckless" and "untrue" comments but she won her case and paid nothing.
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Re: No Subject Given
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Irony: Google ad on Urinal.net gives away resort n
They should sue Google next?
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Publicity
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Re: Irony: Google ad on Urinal.net gives away reso
http://screencast.com/t/caPDR3C1qu
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If it were me...
If I were in the PR department, I would really advice against sending a C&D against something like urinals
You know what's gonna happen... you are going to get riduculed by a few, and they get angry or get smart, the Streisand effect will hit you.
I couldn't find the WC from Marco, but is it that bad? the resort seems nice. Was the urinals decent or was the urinals contrary to the resorts image?
If they were decent, this is PR-wise, similar to shoot your own foot.
...Troels
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Public Citizen Litigation Group challenges C&D; cop
http://www.citizen.org/documents/directbuyresponse.pdf
There's an interesting blog (and link to their doc) at
http://pubcit.typepad.com/clpblog/2007/10/dont-publish-th.html
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illegal trademarks
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hut light
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Re: No Subject Given
But that doesn't prohibit you from merely mentioning a name. If the urinal photos were taken at a particular airport, simply saying they were is merely truthful.
(BTW, your example would be libel, not slander. JTFR.)
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Still absurd
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Since When Is It Illegal To Just Mention A Trademark Online?
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