Slashdot Mirror
LSU Law School Sues Student Over Website
hij writes: "The NY Times has an article that gives details about how the LSU Law School is suing one of its own students for a web site he maintains. The web site contains information about the Law School and also includes articles that are critical of the Law School."
Now maybe we can do what the school wants to do and take down the site with a good slashdotting.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
The Simpsons will be the only legal method of criticizing anything.
your = it belongs to you. you're = a contraction of you and are. Got it now?
From the article
The site's home page bears a disclaimer saying it is not affiliated with the law school.
Mr. Dorhauer has studied the law of domain names and said he was confident he would prevail. Legal experts who have inspected his Web site said he had a good case.
Ms. Esman said the school had made a mistake in asserting that Mr. Dorhauer aims to make money from the site. "They do seem to be focusing their complaint incorrectly on commercial uses," she said. "He's not offering any services whatsoever
Well it looks like the school should have talked more to the young man before suing him outright - after all he wasn't making pennies and he did have a disclaimer that his site has nothing to do with the law school
The site doesn't pop right out as a criticism site. If he named the site lsulawsucks.com and put his criticisms on the front page, I'd say that LSU was being a bully. But, the front page of his site has all sorts of helpful links to admissions, grading scale conversions, etc. that one would EXPECT to find on an official university page. He doesn't even have a disclaimer on the front page. Based on that, I'd say that his site could definitely be confused with an official LSU site.
He should change his site to make it completely obvious that it's not an LSU site. If it's a criticism site, then he should drop the helpful links to various university departments.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
They value the first amendment so long as what you say does not confuse anybody. Lawyers and lawyers to be are easily confused.
"I don't think it's selfish, to eat defenseless shellfish." -NOFX
does to good people.
The school does not have a case using copyright infringement for commercial gain. As someone who has studied copyright law and the internet, I can say that they have no case. They are trying to contend that his site was confusing partially b/c it used school colors...ridiculous. Most judges would throw this out.
The professors at the school are taking themselves and their "academic reputation" way to seriously. The only thing this lawsuit will do is get alot of good press for the student.
Anyone (myself included) who has been blackballed by faculty in a University setting knows that some professors really do buy into the "Ivory Tower" idea. It's sad but true.
[off topic...the nytimes article mentions a suit against pensacolachristianschool.com. You should check it out if you want to know more about schools suing regarding web content.]
Thank you Dave Raggett
Claiming that they are not getting the same value for their tuition dollars.
This guy , due only to the fact that he has put up a website, is getting a free crash course in internet domain disputes and copywrite law. If the opinions in the article are correct, then he is also getting an easy one tossed across the plate so that he can win. The school is basically handing him free on hands training in how a real case works coupled with a high profile case he can win before he graduates. This means he is getting more value from his time at LSU. If I was a student at LSU I would be demanding that the school sue me also!
Papa Legba come and open the gate
I'm actually planning on going to law school next year, and this was one of the places that my radar picked up. I'm really glad they did this now, so I, and everyone else who ever thought of applying here, won't have to waste time, money, and energy figuring out that this is not the kind of legal education I want.
I wish more institutes of higher learning would identify themselves as being on the "never go here under any circumstances ever" list by attacking their own students like this.
Lawyers are the biggest abusers of the law, I've noticed.
They will probably offer him a position to teach constitutional law since its clear the current professors do not know it.
The NYT article is in error, I believe, when it quotes a lawyer as saying the use of the school's colors is relevant to the outcome of this case. It is not. What is relevant is whether the use is commercial or non-commercial. The test for "commercial" is perhaps more hair-trigger than it ought to be: some cases have found asking for donations, selling a t-shirt, or running banner ads to be 'commercial' although it's unlikely we'd treat at least the donations as 'commercial' activity in any other context.
I have a blog.
When lawyers sue lawyers, no one wins.
No, wait. That makes them too busy to sue any of us. So I guess all of us win!
------
Today's Top Deals
If he is hosting the site on the school's computer network, well he's probably breaking some of the rules the school puts down for using their computer systems. If he isn't then free speech. I mean it's a LAW school, they should know better than to file stupid lawsuits. I mean it's what they do for a living.
I mean we at RIT used to have ritsucks.com. RIT didn't try to sue the student running it, because he didn't host it on grace.rit.edu (digital unix cluster all students have access to and can host pages on). The only reason it's not there anymore is because he forgot to re-register the domain.
I generally tend to believe that if you attack your critics with lawsuits or threats of some sort then 1 of two things is most definitely true.
1) All the bad things the critics are saying are very true and you don't have confidence that your organization will continue to profit if people find out.
2) All the bad things th critics are saying are horrible horrible lies, but not beyond belief to the point of parody. And you think that people are going to believe them and ruin your organization.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
He hurt our feelings! Hit a little too close to the truth these days and people get all bent out of shape. Apparently these folks have yet to realize that the negative publicity generated by taking action against their guy gives them 10 times more of a black eye than if they'd just ignored him. Most of the people considering the school would never have heard of this guy's site, but now the whole thing's been plastered all over the New York Times. And who wouldn't look at that and think twice, really?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
he'll probably get some extra credits for defending himself.
I wonder why LSU did not use a dispute resolution provider instead of a district court. Would have been the right thing to do in the academic world.
Anyway, I wish Mr. Dorhauer the best for his exam.
Line 9: Argument of type SIGNATURE expected.
I'd say this site didn't make itself obviously clear that it was a student site, and not the official site. There is the link at the bottom, however it could be more obvious.
It isn't a commerical site, so he's probably safe from the claims depending on that, however if the school invokes the DMCA, then he's dead in the water I suppose?
Kill that stupid law!
Hacking the Network
It's part of their educational programs
This is an outrage!
You have posted a link to a NYT article without saying (free registration blah, blah, blah). This is near criminal negligence. How many will suffer this morning, hungering for their daily dose of corporate/institutional war on our rights, when they click on the link innocently, thinking they will soon be in righteous indignation heaven, only to be confronted by, by, by...... a LOGIN?
Oh the humanity! For shame.
You know, deflecting frivilous lawsuits 302.
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
Copy and Pasted from the "Their Sueing Me" Page:
----------
They Did It.
The Law School filed its lawsuit against me, their student, conveniently making sure I received notice thereof less than 48 hours before exams started. I barely had time to scan in the lawsuit and post it, but I did, and you can find a link to it below.
Many thanks to my wife, Jennifer, for putting up with me. Also, thanks to all my friends and acquaintances at the Law Center who have offered their support to me in this battle. Thanks also to all hundreds of visitors to this site who have written me in the last few weeks. It's great to have so many people--including many former LSU Law School grads--offer their assistance to me in this battle.
Now it's official: Louisiana State University HAS sued me....
My name is Douglas Dorhauer, and I am a student at the LSU Law Center. This site is my personal creation, built by me for my own use. In the event you find its contents of use, then consider it my gift to you.
Because of the similarity between this site's name and that of a local law school (of which I am a student), this site has recently been under attack. Specifically, in a letter dated November 30, 2001, Marc S. Whitfield of Taylor, Porter, Brooks & Phillips, L.L.P., legal counsel to Louisiana State University asked me to give up the domain name "lsulaw.com."
After researching the points in Mr. Whitfield's letter, I responded with a point-by-point rebuttal of each issue he raised. That response went unacknowledged for nearly two months before I requested Mr. Whitfield update me on his client's position concerning this matter.
Immediately, Mr. Whitfield responded with a threat of a lawsuit. I replied with a request to attempt an amicable resolution.
Mr. Whitfield's response to my request to amicably resolve the matter came in the form of a lawsuit naming me as defendant. Currently, I have just finished final exams. After regaining consciousness early next week, I will respond to the lawsuit, file cross-claims, etc. As always, I will post all correspondence here.
The premise of my argument is simple: all the laws Mr. Whitfield cites in his initial letter require a showing of "commerciality." I earnestly contend that this site is emphatically noncommercial, and, therefore, not susceptible of the trademark violations alleged by Mr. Whitfield.
www.slightlycrewed.com - Because aren't we all?
Nope, a grammer is a machine for weighing accurate and repeatable amounts of something. The trolls use these to produce gram-accurate doses of crack to smoke. Hence the name "grammer".
... where the students already know more than the faculty? I mean, really, if the school loses this suit, what does it really say about the quality of the instructors at the school? Time to shop elsewhere, I guess.
"You're never ready, just less unprepared."
Had they talked to him before filing suit, they wouldn't have been setting an appropriate example for all of their students. Sue first. Ask questions later.
Yes, I'm being facetious (mostly) but kneejerk internet domain lawsuits seem to be the rule, not the exception. Why talk about it when you can probably bully the domain owner into a settlement?
That seems to be the rule for most corporate lawsuits anyway.
Slashdot comments... splitting hairs since 1997.
According to the cease and desist letter--yes--one was actually sent, the actual LSU law school "has already reported certain instances of confusion caused to students who did not realise that [the] LSULAW.com site was not an official or affiliated website of the LSU Law Center." A two-point disclaimer at the bottom is obviously not pointing out to some students that the site is unofficial.
... if his site is truly non-commercial, he should use .org anyway.
Moreover, the CAD letter indicates he has recently identified his website as "the official site of LSULAW.com." An "official" designation of his site seems to further misrepresent his site.
Maybe if he changed his domain to lsulaw.org (which would still not satisfy LSU according to the CAD letter)
If you disagree, reply.
"[T]he single essential element on which all discoveries will be dependent is human freedom." -- Barry Goldwater
He's a law student, in the middle of exams-- surely LSU have just set him a practical? :-)
Matthew @ Bytemark Hosting
This Cease and Desist Letter was sent to him 30 November 2001. He responded within a few days, and seven weeks later he was threatened with a lawsuit on 11 February 2002. He responded to that on 04 March 2002, and they finally served him on 20 April 2002.
The new york times article indicates he recieved the cease and desist letter and the trademark infringement suit "last month, two days before his second-year final exams." Poppycock. He's had six months to work this out.
"[T]he single essential element on which all discoveries will be dependent is human freedom." -- Barry Goldwater
While you might have inferred that the LSU lawsuit is aimed at quieting Mr. Dorhauer, you would not necessarily be correct. The lawsuit merely claims that by using a domain name that is "misleadingly" similar to the law school's, Mr. Dorhauer's site is diluting/tarnishing their trademarks. I agree that the law school is at least trying to lower Mr. Dorhauer's profile (and yet, as usual, their efforts only serve to raise his profile), but nothing in this lawsuit suggests that they are going to stop him from publishing his views in another forum that is less "confusingly similar" to the LSU marks.
OK, let's do a quick comparison.
lsulaw.com- Clear layout, loads fast
- Consistent navigation
- Clearly labelled links to all major departments of the School
- Clearly labelled links to information about the school
- Clear links to other Web resources of use to law students
- Works well in all browsers including text browsers
law.lsu.comIn other words, his is a reasonably competent, reasonably professional Web site, accurately describing the school, and theirs is an incompetent, unusable pile of dross.
I think that's what the quarrel is about, actually.
It's worth pointing out that because of the poor provision for disabled access, http://www.law.lsu.edu/ would be illegal in most of Europe.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
When I went to it, it took me to some generator page for about 2 seconds and then im at the nytimes artcle, worked great!
They are suing over the use of TradeMark. In the lawsuit it references 'LSU' as the trademark. I find this interesting because using 'lsu' in a url could stand for anything. The combination of LSU and Law ('LSU Law') in and of itself does not appear to be a trademarked name.
"I don't think it's selfish, to eat defenseless shellfish." -NOFX
His assertion that his site is "emphatically noncommercial" would resonate better with me if he used an address that didn't end in .com... a .org or .info address would better express the site's nature.
--Dan
Web Tips
I'm sorry, but given the size, location, and use of blank space to make that text the ONLY thing that wasn't on my screen (running in 1280x1024), I can't call the notice obvious by any means.
Hmmm... It looks like he's using the same text size, location, and color for the legal notice as law.lsu.edu is. Which is not to say he's copying their "look & feel" - let's be honest, none of this is innovative web design - but rather, to point out that he's meeting their standard of notice.
I mean, is this a double standard? Corporations, banks, and car salesman get by with the smallest of small print, orthewordsruntogethersonoonecanhearthem, but the poor law student is suddenly being "deceptive" for doing the same thing?
And as for the page size, look at it - it's designed for 800x600 pages, which is why its so tall and narrow. If we weren't all slashdot geeks, we might be in the normal world where 1280x1024 is not all that common. I don't find the length of the page deceptive, I find the page engineered for a more common and backwards-compatible display resolution.
clickety-clickety-click
Oh, wait. The page, however, does dynamically resize itself to always keep the notice just over the edge of the bottom. That is a little deceptive, and probably unfortunate for the student if it comes up in court.
I still think that we accept a much sneakier level of notice from corporations on a daily basis than this, though. Cough, couch, EULA.
Dilbert: Why does your simulation only count law students as half a person?
Dogbert: They don't drop to zero until they pass the bar.
Sorry, couldn't pass this one up.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
He's got at least two disclaimers now (since he was sued, the "news" page has basically become a disclaimer too.) What more do you need? A big, 800x600 GIF splash page that says "HEY, LOOK, DUMBASS, WE HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH LSU!"? It's fairly easy for even a poorly-trained monkey to figure out it's not an affiliated site, so it shouldn't be much harder for the faculty.
I still have to wonder, however, about that one dumb girl who, according to the NYT article, thought it was a school site. She fancies herself a lawyer? Good God.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
"...a law school is not an island unto itself but the hub of a network of relationships with an array of audiences beyond its walls."
Just don't deep link deep link to their hub of a network.
"I don't think it's selfish, to eat defenseless shellfish." -NOFX
It's what the domain implies. Slashdot started off as a .org, as it didn't fit any of the other available TLD's. Granted, it grew out of its humble beginnings, but I digress.
Which brings up a point: He never states his intent. He says what he's doing with it now is non-commercial, but he certainly has the correct domain if lsulaw.com ever grew into something he feels he would want to make a profit off of. Just something to think about.
Look at it this way: If you saw just the domain lsulaw.com, what would you think the site was about? If you saw the domain lsulaw.org, would you think it was the same?
I'd think lsulaw.com was a site that had something to do with LSU's law school, which it is, and I'd presume it was ran by the school itself, not a student. I'd think lsulaw.org would be an organisation associated with, but not ran by LSU. Maybe an organisation of law students and alumni. I don't know. I can't be certain having seen the site.
LSU's asking him to surrender the domain name, as I understand it by reading request #1 of the cease and desist letter. I think they just want the domain for themselves.
If you disagree, reply.
"[T]he single essential element on which all discoveries will be dependent is human freedom." -- Barry Goldwater
...but it doesn't mean it's not obnoxious. If you have something to say about someone else, you have every right to do so, I feel, as long as what you say isn't stated as fact, but merely opinion.
But he took the school colors, made a site with a name that could be confused with the school's main site, and even put links to the main site for further confusion (deliberate or not).
People forget that, while you might have something to say, whether you think it's "helpful" to get the word out about this terrible school (which is utter B.S. - but that's my opinion), it doesn't mean you can be an ass about it...that doesn't help anyone. Look beyond the first amendment to something more basic - like fairness, honesty, compassion. If you've got something to say, say it, don't confuse people. Of course, he IS a law student...
When he wins this case, especially with the publicity, its gonna do a hell of a lot more for his career than his degree will.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
Here's an interesting link that shows what the origin of the BAR really is.
t m
http://www.theawaregroup.com/hidingbehindthebar.h
A primary example is evident on daytime television commercials where Dewey, Cheetham, & Howe, ambulance-chasers-at-law, tell how they can "Fight for Justice" by having people sue their insurance companies for larger claim settlements.
I think I would have looked for another example if I were you. Insurance companies are not known for their honesty and forthrightness with clients. If an insurance company can get away with paying you less, they will do so. Of course they can often get away with this because they employ lots of lawyers... hmm.. I'm seeing a pattern here...
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Look, I'm as much for free speech and stuff as the next guy, but this is a pretty clear case of trademark infringement, and the disclaimer at the top is tiny.
Simply calling people who actually get confused 'stupid' is not a very good reason for keeping the domain.
Getting a site like "aboutlsulaw.com" or something, with a bigger disclaimer would be better.
Hopping on this dude's side just because his site more compatible (but less attractive IMO) is not really that legitimate.
I realize that copyright, patent, and trademark law are taken to far a lot, but this is a perfectly legitimate use, IMO.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I think anyone who forgets to set the body background color and just 'assumes' that it'll be white should be shot.
The offical LSU page dosn't have that problem, and looks and works fine for me.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Maybe it's because I'm using Netscape, but the NYT random login generator doesn't work for me. Takes me to a blank NYT registration page, with none of the fields filled in.
Or is it because I've disabled cookies?
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.