Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
Why don't we (by which I mean /.ers and other concerned citizens) get together once a year for a "First Amendment Defense Barbeque"?
Kansas City seems like the ideal spot, since it is pretty much half-way between the coasts and known for its BBQ. We could make it a huge event, let the caterers pocket half the profits and donate the rest to the EFF. We could put out a press statement, mentioning that it was PETA's crushing blow against Free Speech that inspired us to gather annually, kill a lot of animals, and eat them.
That oughta raise a few eyebrows. :)
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
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.
Do something about world hunger. Click here