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Domain-Name Protest Is Protected Speech

Posted by timothy on from the damn-straight dept.

Lunartik links to this Detroit Free Press report, writing "The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati ruled Friday that Michelle Grosse did not violate the law when she used the name of Lucas Nursery and Landscaping Inc. for a Web site she created to complain about the Canton, MI nursery. 'This is a very important case,' said Paul Levy, staff attorney with the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen. 'This is a mainstream circuit court that said using the Internet and the name of the company to criticize a company is perfectly legitimate.'"

10 of 177 comments (clear)

  1. I'm confused... by TR0GD0RtheBURNiNAT0R · · Score: 5, Insightful
    "This is a mainstream circuit court that said using the Internet and the name of the company to criticize a company is perfectly legitimate."

    How is this not legitimate???

    I thought usuing the name of a company to criticize said company was perfectly legal

    ...or am I supposed to refer to Micro$oft as something else?

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    1. Re:I'm confused... by JayBlalock · · Score: 5, Insightful
      EXACTLY.

      Certain powers were attempting to twist trademark law into, essentially, outlawing negative speech about their products. They were just fighting it in the realm of the Internet, a place regarding which the courts can make very silly decisions, due to their misunderstanding of it.

      Now we just need a judgement striking down "Thou shalt not speak badly of us," terms in EULAs, which have been used to intimidate publications into not running negative reviews.

      --
      Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
    2. Re:I'm confused... by ackthpt · · Score: 3, Insightful
      How is this not legitimate???

      Expect an appeal.

      Those PetsWarehouse suits a few years back were a mess, and undoubtably an abuse of the courts.

      Suppose someone registered a domain name www.robertnovakisaweasel.com, you could pretty much expect he would have filed similar suits to those he did.

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    3. Re:I'm confused... by JayBlalock · · Score: 4, Insightful
      How did that become legal in the first place?

      It's not entirely legal, per se, as it's never really been tested. (AFAIK & IANAL) Many publications will back down rather than face a court battle from a major power, since even if they won, it would be a phyrric victory.

      And that, in turn, leads us right back to the current problem with our legal system, which is that, "He who has the money, wins."

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    4. Re:I'm confused... by JayBlalock · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Wow, someone likes my .sig. Mainly I get flamed for it. :-)

      You point out the major argument that the Trademarked Powers were making. They were saying that the proliferation of (Company)Sucks.com sites was cutting into their market share by keeping people from seeing their official sites. This decision basically says, "Tough. Free Speech means you too can get shouted down."

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    5. Re:I'm confused... by timeOday · · Score: 4, Insightful
      I think the issue is that she didn't just say "the company sucks," she registered "thecompany.com" for herself and put up her web page there. So if PETA had beaten mcdonalds.com in registering that domain name, it would still take you to a protest site today.

      Anyways just wanted to clarify, this was about domain names rather than any old use of the company name in protests.

  2. Sadly... by robochan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Although she owns the site name until 2005, Grosse said she is done. "I am so broke right now defending myself. . . . I defended freedom of speech but I don't want to open that can of worms again."
    Sadly, it costs a lot of money to exercise free speech in America

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  3. I disagree by mcx101 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think it would have been acceptable if she had something like http://www.lucasnurserysucks.com but she didn't have the right to take the domain name that was the name of the company. Where are they supposed to have their website then? Not everyone necessarily agrees that Lucas Nursery and Landscaping Inc. sucks.

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    1. Re:I disagree by Ironica · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think it would have been acceptable if she had something like http://www.lucasnurserysucks.com but she didn't have the right to take the domain name that was the name of the company.

      Interesting. How many "Lucas Nursery" businesses do you suppose there are out there? Besides landscaping and plants, there might be nursery schools under that name as well. How do you decide who has the "right" to take the domain name?

      Domain names are generally first-come, first-serve for exactly that reason. It's pointless to say whether she had the "right" to the domain name; they weren't trying to do business online and they didn't have a website, so she beat them to the punch.

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  4. Re:Oh, Good by orthogonal · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Ah. So if I claim I got bad service from someone, and then produce some form of evidence to back it up (hello, Photoshop? Pictures of XY's company rep doing something awful, please), then I can set up a domain name and squat legally.

    Well, if your claim is false, you can be easily sued for libel.

    You see, there are existing remedies to protect against what you propose without resort to the "novel" -- read unprecedented and dangerous -- limitations on free speech that the plaintiff in this case, and too many corporations in general, advocate.

    But like most attempted usurpers of freedom, they spread FUD first, claiming that unless freedom is throttled, all sorts of bad things will happen -- and so Draconian new laws and new legal interpretations are needed.

    Much like what you're doing in your post -- or, may I be so bold, like the RIAA and its call for judge-less subpoenas, or advocates of the "War on Drugs" and the resulting erosion of 4th amendment rights, or the fear-mongering that brought about the so-called "Patriot Act".

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