Slashdot Mirror
Web Ad Trademark Law To Be Retested
scubacuda writes "News.com et al report that The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Wednesday found Playboy Enterprises can pursue charges that Excite and Netscape Communications violated its trademark by selling banner advertisements triggered by the terms 'playboy' and 'playmate.' The decision reverses a district court ruling that dismissed the suit without a trial in 2000. Playboy 'clearly holds the marks in question, and defendants used the marks in commerce without (its) permission,' a split three-judge panel wrote in its majority decision." This is a shame, because the first judge to look at this case seems to have pretty much gotten it right: "Although the trademark terms and the English language words are undisputedly identical, which, presumably, leads plaintiff to believe that the use of the English words is akin to use of the trademarks, the holder of a trademark may not remove a word from the English language merely by acquiring trademark rights in it."
Yes that's right, THINK ABOUT YOUR BREATHING. Why you might ask? Well it's simple!
Your brain usually takes care of breathing FOR you, but whenever you remember this, YOU MUST MANUALLY BREATH! If you don't you will DIE.
There are also MANY variations of this. For example, think about:
In conclusion, the THINK ABOUT YOUR BREATHING troll is simply unbeatable. These 4 words can be thrown randomly into article text trolls, into sigs, into anything, and once seen, WILL FORCE THE VICTIM TO TAKE CARE OF HIS BREATHING MANUALLY! This goes far beyond the simple annoying or insulting trolls of yesteryear.
In fact, by EVEN RESPONDING to this troll, you are proving that IT HAS CLAIMED ANOTHER VICTIM -- YOU!
mike dances with men
he screams, oh do it again
knees always bent
frist psto(tm)
fp
I hope I get it.
yahoo used to do something similar, and probably still does..
...laws test YOU!!!
How dare people complain about goatse and go and get it revoked. Just for that, you are going to get a steady does of even more repulsive images. Fucking asshats. Goatse better come back in the name of free speech!
On January 14, the Christmas Island Internet Administration abruptly disabled everyone's favorite domain, goatse.cx. All joking aside, this action brings up serious questions regarding registrars exercising control over the content of websites they don't host. Goatse's geek appeal as a cult phenomenon is arguably stronger than AYBABTU, and has been an omnipresent icon here at Slashdot for years. There's a petition, as well as a thread at the .cx registrar's forum, supporting the reinstatement of the domain.
Regardless of peoples' feelings about what was hosted at goatse.cx, arbitrary domain suspension due to content has potentially chilling effects. CIIA used a vaguely-worded clause in their registration agreement which allows them to disable any domain for any (or no) reason, even if the domain's operators aren't doing anything wrong and aren't otherwise in violation of the agreement. The suspension was apparently done with neither warning nor notice to the domain's owner.
Nearly all registrars maintain the right to take such action. However, to my knowledge this has never been done before, except in cases where the domain's owner was seriously violating the registration agreement in other ways - spamming, illegal activities, etc. - and even then only on rare occasions. The goatse situation essentially amounts to a web-based joe job, wherein the site's owner had no control over links to the domain or how they were used.
Until this week, I'd always been under the impression that it's a hosting provider's job to stop service to a domain. If a website contained content so controversial as to generate complaints, the hosting provider would make the decision as to whether or not to continue serving the domain. If the host declined, the domain's owner could simply move the site to a more tolerant host. And that's the way it should be.
With CIIA's action, the tables have turned, and a registrar - even if only a small player - has set a precedent for registrars playing the role of content moderator. While this could come in handy (imagine dotster.com, who are running Apache on some sort of Unix, suspending sco.com's registration just for the heck of it), it also makes the process of shutting down potentially controversial sites far too easy. What if the Public Internet Registry decides on a whim to disable landoverbaptist.org because "Landover takes parody too far for our liking," or freenetproject.org because "Freenet can be used for bad purposes," or slashdot.org because "there are too many radical thinkers on that site?"
Domain names are finite resources. If it's widely known that you can be found at example.com, and your webhost shuts you down because they don't approve of the content of your website, you can find another webhost and be back online within a day or so. But if your registrar suspends your domain because they don't approve of your site's content, you can't just go somewhere else and "buy a new copy" of your prime internet real estate. (Oddly enough, it appears that Google has decided to ignore links to goatse.cx; I'd been hoping to use the search results to demonstrate the domain's popularity, but no go.)
The finite nature of domains becomes even more of a problem with many ccTLD operators, who are frequently the sole registrars of their root domain. I should emphasize that goatse.cx was suspended, not deleted; the Christmas Island Internet Administration didn't remove goatse.cx and make it available for someone else to re-register. It's still there, and even paid up through 2005. It's just useless now, and its o
Bonus points for whoever knows the first trademark in the UK. Here's a hint - I could go for one right now.
I prefer American beer myself.
How the fuck is the parent a TROLL?