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The etoy Strikes Back
Is there confusion between the two names? eToys seems to think so, since it got etoy's website taken down in December 1999 for exactly that reason. The site was put back up later, and eToys' legal action halted, mostly because etoy was using its name, and had its website, long before eToys even existed.
And I can especially see why etoy is worried, since eToys has also filed a trademark application on "ETOYS" in the context of providing "interactive and arcade games via a global computer network." Which is, well, pretty darn close to what the artistic group has been doing for the last five years.
So if there's confusion, it really seems like eToys brought this on itself. When it set up in the first place, simply checking for the singular version of its corporate name would seem to me like a gimme. Failure to do so would seem like a clear-cut case of infringement.
Things are a little more confusing than that, though. The trademark that eToys bought was actually registered by an unrelated company in 1990 ("Etna Toys") -- the law starts to give me a headache at this point. Only a lawyer could love the difference between a trademark application and an Intent To Use declaration, I think. The resolution of this one may come down to whether it's appropriate to purchase a trademark of another company without actually purchasing the company itself, or any of its equipment, inventory, etc. In other words, are words themselves, words given legal protection by our government, subject to being bought and sold on the open market?
An interesting question. Not the same question as whether etoy.com and etoys.com should be able to coexist on the same internet despite unreconciliable philosophical differences, but ... an interesting question.
We'll keep you posted on how this one turns out. It's essentially the inverse of the fiasco in late 1999, with the lawsuit (apparently) pointed in the correct chronological order this time. Whether eToys will even exist as a company by the time this suit is resolved is, unfortunately, an open question.
You'd be right if this case was merely two morally equal entities squabbling over IP rights. But it's not. Etoy is old Internet. Etoy was just minding their own, doing the Internet-is-all-commercialized-but-we're-still-a-b unch-of-weird-tech-art-people thing, and then Etoys went "Money+Internet=good" and decided to walk over the good guys. It's so clear cut, it's symbolic. Which is why this lawsuit is important.
Those of us who remember the Internet of olde and still hold some hope for the future that medium promised need to send a clear message to those who seek to profit through its exploitation:
WE WERE HERE FIRST, SO FUCK OFF!
What can you say? They're artists. Apparently the medium of choice for the art of the times is the lawsuit.
Study carefully the authoritative stride of the lawyer as he approaches the edifice of Justice. Note with admiration the loving attention lavished upon each brief. Imagine the chagrin of the assembled when the plaintiff reveals that under the robe, the judge is wearing no pants.
Sounds like a ridiculous lawsuit filed to get revenge over another ridiculous lawsuit. Revenge-based crap like this wastes the court's time, and one thing our court system doesn't have an excess of is free time. I hope the /. crew doesn't become a fan of these types of lawsuits just because now it's the underdog filing one. I don't see what the big deal is, anyway. Trademarks have domains, and I think it's pretty safe to say that these two entities are in fairly different domains.
What needs to be done, is to fight back and fight back hard. A couple of large judgments against these bullies discourage other potential bullies.
That is why I am fighting against Mattel -- to stop them from doing this to others!
Fight Spammers!
These folks at etoy need to relax... according to etoys , the website only has enough $ to opperate till March. Man, they LOST 84 million in the last quarter alone!
I say wait it out and pick up some Starwars toys at the closing sale.
I am become Troll, destroyer of threads
So to use the phrase "big bad corporation" is a sign that we have not identified the problem. The issue isn't the fact that there is a thing called a corporation, it's that there is an entire culture within and without the people of that corporation that compels them to behave a certain way. Success these days is getting harder to measure, if the dot-com stupidity is any kind of lesson. The mantra of "value for shareholders" belies a simplistic conception of the relationships that exist between the people in the company and the people outside of it.
As much as PR people would like you to believe there is such thing as The Authoritative Voice of The Company, there is only inhuman propaganda that seeks to distort facts to its advantage. Every one of them is just fulfilling a role that is expected of a "professional", and nobody cares about anything outside of that because it isn't their job to. Ethics, in the greater sense, is dead.
Frivilous lawsuits are a behaviour, and one that the system rewards on a daily basis. Law is the new battleground, where only ideas matter, and actual physical assets are secondary. To buy a word is insanity (I want "the"), but we are edging closer and closer to that insanity every day. I wouldn't fault etoy for attacking eToys, they are just following Sun Tzu's advice: "attack where you are strong and the enemy is weak".
The ability to abstract is important. The inability to see things for what they are is killing us. We believe anything that confirms our previous views. We disbelieve anything that requires introspection, dialogue, and genuine selflessness to explore.
Corporations are the new power in the world. Forget about what you've been told about democracy: the power to direct the energy of the human population lies in the hands of the elite. This has been true for thousands of years, and has never been otherwise (except for a brief time in Spain...). The fact that one class of elite has been usurped by another, over and over, century after century, is just detail. The new elite is establishing itself on the amoral ground of Law, and this is where the power will flow from.
From Antigua, from Singapore, from offshore. The fight is not with each other (ie: company A vs. company B), but for the dominance of the new paradigm: the corporate "We" over the democratic "We".
Play the game. Surrender to your greed, your hate. Join the Dark Side. You have no idea of its power...
We thieves, we liars, we vandals, and poets. Networked agents of Cthulhu Borealis.
Beware of who you kick when they're down, because they might decide kick you right back when you're down!
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
I'm getting sick of people going after eToys. They had a bad stay on the internet. It sickens me and just about anyone else on /. about people suing over names and such. Please just leave eToys alone. Their failure is enough punishment.
eToys showed their asses last year when they got some "judge" Kaplan to basically prevent Etoy from being able to have their website up during the Christmas sales season. eToys then dropped their suit (probably when they realized they'd ultimately lose).
Now that eToys is tottering on going titsup.com (as The Register puts it) I think it's only poetic justice that it will be Etoy driving a nail in the coffin. It makes sense on their part to try to help kill eToys, who could restart their suit at a future date.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
EToys have registered e-toy.com to point to their web site - that's cybersquatting, I believe, as well as trademark infringement.
EToys don't have a leg to stand on here, I think...