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Court Orders Owner Of Peta.org To Give Up Domain
Kancer writes: "According to Boston.com a federal judge ordered PETA.org parody site to relinquish their Web address over to PETA.com. People just can't take a joke, People Eating Tasty Animals, now that is funny." It's actually a really crappy legal precedent. Using other people's trade names for parodies is not an illegitimate use of the name, and their site was not confusingly similar to PETA - there's no way you could mistake one for the other. The judge was ruling based on the name alone, with no consideration of the content.
It is interesting that a groups can claim they have won a "landmark case" against a site that parodies them and then on the same page go and parody another company (McDonalds) to further their political views.
PS: Being originally from a third world country, it is very distressing to see organizations like PETA squander time, energy and money to save rats, cats and monkeys when hundreds of millions of people on this planet are being ravaged by war, hunger, famine, drought, poverty and repressive government.
Even my vegitarian friends (if I have any left after this comment) would agree with you there.
The simple truth is that the notion that being wantonly cruel to animals is wrong, which most of us can agree with, has been perverted into the absurd notion that the life of a chicken holds the same value as the life of a human being. PETA propoganda literature goes so far as to equate the consumption of poultry in this country with the Nazi holocaus ("six million Jews were killed in Germany but a hundred million chickens will parish in the US this year!" or some such) I won't get started on the quality of people I have seen speeking out on behalf of PETA, except to say my opinion of them, and their movement, has gone from an initially high level to very, very low indeed. As you correctly point out, if people are so desperate for a cause to give their empty lives meanings, there are far more urgent problems deserving of attention than the living conditions of pork prior to its harvest.
Hitler was a vegitarian and animal rights activist. Perhaps his ability to equate human life with animal life explains some of the atrocities his regime was responsible for.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
As an ethical vegetarian, how do you feel about PETA's attempt to steal ringlingbrothers.com and put up an anti circus site. Or their "unhappy meal" thing that looks just like a McDonalds meal including the Ronald mascot holding a bloddy knife?
PETA is a joke, they are a bunch of irresponsible, childish hate-mongers who tolerate no other view than their own. They deserve to be attacked and ridiculed at every opportunity by those who support free speach. Not due to their beliefs, but due to their actions.
Hey, I'm a strong support of the 2nd amendment and the right to bear arms, but I don't like the NRA. Just because you share their beliefs doesn't mean you have to like them. Look into some of the crazy things PETA has done, like initiating terror campaigns against their enemies. The recently cross-posted a message on newsgroups encouraging people to mail bomb and threaten this guy for his peta.org site.
Finkployd
That's nothing. PETA has also registered:
EatDifferent.com (Apple-like look)
MeatStinks.com (only if you leave it out too long)
cowsarecool.com
helppuppies.com
milksucks.com
dolphinfreedom.com
furisdead.com
circuses.com
collegeactivist.com (if they start demonstrating on MY campus, I can't be held responsible for my actions)
nofishing.net
furshame.com (fur shame, get it?)
jesusveg.com (Jesus was a vegetarian, and we're just like Jesus apparently)
helpinganimals.com
menopauseonline.com (I'm surprised they haven't been sued to give up this one yet)
lettuceladies.com
islamveg.com (Wow, Jesus _and_ Islam vegetarians?)
taxmeat.com
pginfo.net (anti-Procter-and-Gamble)
voguesucks.com
If you go to their "Other PETA sites" link way in the bottom-right corner of their home page, you'll be treated to a grand total of 17 animated buttons, suitable for use on YOUR activism home page! Visit today!
For more information, click here.
A simple search for "People Eating Tasty Animals" turns up several useful and still functional sites, including petasucks.cc. There's even a rather old version of the here-disputed site, with various updates on the status of them geting peta.org in the first place.
For more information, click here.
To the first point: it's called parody. A protected activity. People Eating Tasty Animals was clearly the name of the site. No attempt was made to convince others that the site was Peope for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sponsored.
Second, profit is good, OK (said in a South Park guidance counselor voice). Profitting from someone else's work is perfectly legal, in conjunction with works of parody. Take for example Weird Al, Political Satirists, Segfault.org, etc, etc, etc.
This precident will haunt the Internet for years, and quite honestly I've begun to question the wisdom of continuing to support the Net in it's current form. There has to be a better way that doesn't create evil empires like AOL/Time/Warner and Network Solutions/Verisign. There must be a way to give total control to those who make up the Net. When I figure it out, I will work toward it because the current situation is insane.
To whom it may concern,
I am a vegetarian, and I am disturbed and offended by your organization's legal activities concerning PETA.ORG.
When your protest activities go awry, you quickly shield yourself with the First Amendment. Your organization produces parody sites using trademarked properties, but when you yourself are the target, you hide behind claims of fraudulent representation, trademark dilution and commerical exploitation.
Even though I share some of your beliefs, I am sickened by your hypocritical behavior and will neither donate to your organization nor will I encourage others to do, ever. There are far more reasonable and honorable vegetarian/animal rights organizations with whom I would rather be associated.
Sincerely,
Tim Elkins
--
Zero tolerance equals zero intelligence
Who says that web addresses are a protected form of speech? Is the address of your house a protected form of speech? If you make a parody using the exact same name as an organization, that breeds incredible confusion because people will just go there thinking it is the organization's site. Of course, when they get there, they will know that they've been misdirected, but the point is that there's no way of telling from just the url that it will not be the organization you are looking for.
There is no real clear definition of what is and what isn't a form of expression in this country. I would argue that almost everything we do is basically some form of communicating, and thus even the places we choose to live in should be protected. Some people would argue that protecting all speech would be complete anarchy, but I think it would force us to develop more sophistaicated (and necessary) methods of filtering information.
<rant/>
lf.o
Dougheny's statements imply no intention to sell or profit from the site.
What's wrong with parodies? If they're bad, then why does PETA have this link on their homepage?
See: http://www.animalrights.net/16 In 1998, while it was whining about how wrong it was for someone else to register peta.org, PETA went out and registered ringlingbrothers.com and put up a site ripping on the circus. Ringling Brothers filed suit against PETA and PETA reached an agreement to give back the domain name. Complete hypocrisy on PETA's part.
just for that i'm going to eat twice as many Perfectly Edible Tasty Animals in the following year. I hope you PETA people are happy, their blood is on your hands!
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
http://www.petaonline.org/news/60 0/600dotorg.html
Therapy is expensive. Bubble wrap is cheap. You choose.
Hypocritical...
Deriding the parody
When they do the same
A novice told the master: "I have great news! Today we have obtained an injunction against a parody website. Now they can no longer mock us."
The master replied: "You do not understand Tao. Free speech is for all or for none."
The novice went away to contemplate the words of the master.
The next day, the novice came to the master in great distress and said: "I have terrible news! The fashion show organizers have obtained an injunction against our demonstration next week. Now we cannot shame them with fake blood and pictures of dead animals."
Upon hearing this, the master fell silent.
------
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You are in a twisty little maze of open source licenses, all different.
After doing a lot of research (just for curiosity) on Lexis-Nexis and so forth, I've come to the conclusion that any parody-related court decisions, are, in effect, arbitrary. It comes down to the mood of the judge and how they appreciate the humor involved. There are standards, but they're not clear-cut. I think there is a lot of room for comparison to the following court case synopsis I came across. It's also funny (although it helps if you can read Legalese). Affirming a judgment in favor of a small company that manufactured blue jeans especially designed for large women, and against a corporation that alleged infringement of its "Jordache" trademark, the court, in Jordache Enterprises, Inc. v Hogg Wyld, Ltd. (1987, CA10 NM) 828 F2d 1482, 4 USPQ2d 1216, 92 ALR Fed 1, held that there was no likelihood of confusion of the trademark with the small company's "Lardashe" jeans, where that company intended only to parody the corporation's mark. The corporation, the fourth largest blue jeans manufacturer in the United States, had as its principal product designer blue jeans bearing the trademark "Jordache" superimposed over a drawing of a horse's head. It licensed another company to manufacture and market "Jordache" jeans for larger women. The defendant, a small company formed for the purpose of marketing designer blue jeans for larger women, limited its sales to specialty shops in several southwestern states and to acquaintances of the owners or others who had heard of its product. The two women who had formed the company conducted the business out of their homes in New Mexico. The "Lardashe" trademark on their jeans was accompanied by a drawing of a pig's head. Finding that the two women did not intend to "palm off" their jeans as "Jordache" jeans or confuse members of the public to believe that they were buying "Jordache" products, the court observed that where a party chooses a mark as a parody of an existing mark, the intent is not necessarily to confuse the public, but rather to amuse. The purpose of a parody, noted the court, is to create a comic or satiric contrast to a serious work. While observing that, in one sense, a parody is an attempt to derive benefit from the reputation of the owner of a trademark (if only because no parody could be made without the initial mark), the court pointed out that the benefit to one making the parody, however, arises from the humorous association, not from public confusion as to the source of the marks. A parody, said the court, relies on the difference from the original mark, presumably a humorous difference, in order to produce the desired effect. The court remarked that the requirement of trademark law is that a likelihood of source, sponsorship, or affiliation must be proved and that this did not involve any "right" not to be made fun of. While it observed that a parody of an existing trademark can cause a likelihood of confusion under certain circumstances, the court stated that an intent to parody is not an intent to confuse the public. The court also held that because of the parody aspect of "Lardashe," it was not likely that public identification of the "Jordache" trademark with the corporation would be eroded. Parody, noted the court, tends to increase public identification of a plaintiff's mark with the plaintiff. While recognizing that "Lardashe" might be considered by some consumers to be in poor taste, the court reasoned that the mark was not likely to create in the minds of consumers a particularly unwholesome, unsavory, or degrading association with the corporation's name and trademark. The court found it unlikely that the public would assume that the same manufacturer would use quite different marks on substantially the same product.
I find it funny that PETA can shut down a parody site at the same tim ethat is is running it's own parody of another well known company. Peta is launching an "Unhappy Meal" campaign... hmm, and the mascot sure looks a lot like Ole' Ronny.
But in this case, the owner of peta.org was doing two things wrong:
- Using a trademark in a derrogatory manner
- Profiting on that.
Combined, these both give the impression that peta.org was being used maliciously againsts the lawful trademark owners, PETA, and PETA had every right to sue and reclaim their name.If instead they had used petasucks.org, I doubt that the case would have turned out the same way. Parody would be protected, and it's hard to claim trademark disputes since the whole domain name is not trademarked. However, the fact that peta.org is probably the first place that people will look when finding info on PETA, and such parody would hurt PETA's image.
Trademark disputes are not all cut and dried. Etoys vs Etoy, Mattle's and Archie Comic's attempts to swap trademarks have failed or are still in the works, but in those cases, the conflicting site is legit and does not dilute or harm the image of the company that questions the trademark. But here is a different case, and I believe I agree with the decision.
I do want to see this appealed however, up to the Supreme Court, such that some national precident is set; hopefully not in the judges words, but to the point that the cybersquatting/trademark laws are more strongly set. Why this case? Neither side is a large company with lots of money to blow, so this won't be a battle of resources, but of true intent.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
I submitted this story yesterday, but with an added bit.
I read about the court decision in yesterday's USA Today. There was another story about PETA in the paper. It seems they introduced their "UnHappy Meals" McDonalds parody, complete with a stuffed Ronald McDonald doll holding a bloody butcher knife.
The UnHappy Meal comes in the same kind of box as a Happy Meal and is aimed at children. Intentionally trying to confuse and frighten children using McDonalds trade dress.
Why is it that 'real world' parody is ok but web parody is not? Why does PETA think that they have the right to use anothers name and look and feel but is exempt from the same treatment?
And more importantly, how do we get the judicial system to have a clue?
Steve M
The PETA parody is currently at http://mtd.com/tasty
--Remove SPAM from my address to mail me
NTAGARA
Of course it's always followed by the goose-stepping 'greenshirts' of the vegan-reich ....
"In a court ruling yesterday, Mr. Jones was ordered to give up control the domain mrjones.com to online strawberry-polisher, MRJ-ones. Though Mr. Jones has has operated this website since 1997, and despite the fact that name "Jones" has been in Mr. Jones' family for centuries, the court ruled that the domain name was a violation of the trademark held by MRJ-ones. When asked why the company did't simply register the domain "mrj-ones.com," the spokesman for MRJ-ones replied "We should not have to settle for a lesser domain simply because someone wanted to violate our trademark."
MRJ-Ones has held the trademark for 3 months as of next friday.
All operating systems suck. Some just suck less than others. (and some are virtual black holes)
At the very least, offer PETA's press release. They claim that Michael Doughney (peta.org) fraudulently claimed that People Eating Tasty Animals was a non-profit organization, was clearly diluting the PETA trademark and was gaining commercial benefit from such dilution. Not only that, but he also holds many other "parody" websites.
It's one thing to make light of these guys, but it's another thing to profit from their names - that is very clearly infringement.
--
Parody? Entertainment's Too Amusing
Prefer Elephants To Anarchists
Please Establish Trademark, Assholes
Perhaps Everyone's Too Anal
PETA Excised Their Assailant
"Skill shows through where genius wears thin." -Wittgenstein || Religion: uniting aviation and architecture.
DNS needs an ".alt" top level domain.
When the Big 7 newsgroups were being drafted on USENET just prior to the great flag day, this simple need was recognized practically from day one and .alt was born (and is today bigger than all the Big 7 groups combined).
Flame all you want, but without a dumping ground where anything goes without restrictions, the trash will not go away. It will seep into all areas of the "approved TLDs".
If an .alt TLD is set up, it will make rule violations in the remaining TLDs much easier to enforce because there will always be an alternative. "You didn't have to create [domain] here".
Trap the rats with no way to register their profane, controversial, questionable, or whatever-offends-whoever domains and they'll start clawing at the walls of whatever other heirarchy they can get at.
Remember, in the Big 7 newsgroups, there was no room for sex or drugs, so these because the very first two alt groups.
Even the cleanest, most orderly city still has a garbage dump.
And how will the "lawsuits prohibited against anyone in the .alt TLD" be agreed to and given teeth? Simple. Make that an agreed to condition for everyone registering OR RENEWING a domain AND for registrars renewing their registrar status, just like ICANN did with its current domain name dispute policy. After 2 years or so, the policy will trickle down to all registrants and be in full force. Anyone who disagreed will be gone from DNS. Then open up .alt to accept anything-goes registrations.
.
The real issue at stake here is whether you can use (as a domain name, primarily, but who knows how this will translate-- perhaps as the title of a site, or just ON your site) a trademark that doesn't belong to you. So many common names and acronyms and phrases are trademarked that this could have tremendous implications.
I don't know why they were accused of cybersquatting, unless someone doesn't understand what cybersquatting is. "It's not a cybersquatting case at all," Davis said. "It simply presents a question: Can you use a trademark as a domain name for the purpose of creating a parody?" The "for the purpose of creating a parody" part is kind of irrelevant, unless we're talking slander-- and that's an entirely separate issue, especially since parody is a fair use exemption to copyright law, as has been pointed out here already.
And another issue-- what happens when more than one organization has a similar or identical name (NASA and NASA, or the space people and the Native American Student Association, for instance) and one wants a domain that the other has (the space people now decide that they want all domains incorporating NASA into them, but find that the students already use one or two of them, for instance). They're equally entitled, despite the fact that one owns the trademark and the other doesn't. Does that mean that the students aren't entitled to a domain with their name in it? That they should change the name of their organization? I know that there was a case recently where a kid nicknamed Pokey was being sued for his domain by the Gumby people... this is the same bad idea.
This trademark/domain name stuff was discussed in part earlier in an article on Slashdot.
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