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The Saga of Katie.com
digitalcaffeine writes "The gist of the story is that Katie Tarbox became a victim of an online sexual predator when she was 13. She wrote a book about it in 2000 and Penguin Putnam made the title of the book 'Katie.Com', which unfortunately was a domain name owned by Katie Jones since 1996. Now Tarbox's lawyer is demanding that Jones turn over the domain name.
Penguin refuses to apologize, saying that it would be a violation of their free speech to re-title the book and that Jones never trademarked katie.com, so they can do what they want with the words."
YANCBG!
(You are _not_ Comic Book Guy!)
Now go stand in the cliche corner!
Shouldn't that be GNU/Penguin?
American thinking spreads to other countries. Film at 11. :)
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
More than likely there is something missing from the story that we're not hearing. The Register is the National Enquirer of the IT world. I wouldn't turn to them for quality journalism.
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
Now, THAT is one penguin I wouldn't mind seeing steamrolled.
First: Katie Jones, you REALLY ought to take revenge, not for revenge's sake, but to show corporate america that running rampant or roughshod over the world is NOT going to be tolerated. Here's what to do: Sell/license Katie.com to a porn company, such as Hustler. That would be approro, since the shyster lawyer and Penging are trying to hustle/horn you into "donating the name". To hell with them, just for that. Now... Don't forget to register you problem with the UN/WIPO, as well as ICANN, and the EFFF, as well as the ACLU. Try to contact Groklaw, and see if they'll help you out. It would be interesting to see if they'll accord ALL citizens of the WORLD the same basic protections we in the US are supposedly/purportedly granted by law or nature or divination.
Katie Tarbox, being of reasonable intelligence, could have named her book "Katie T.com: Portrait of an On-line Victim", or something to that effect. It is very likely the thought crossed her mind that there HAS to be a real katie.com out there. Couldn't she have checked?
He scheister/shyster lawyer IS of ABOVE REASONABLE intelligence (anyone taking a line of work that generates umpteen numbers of dollars really is not dumb by a longshot), yet like (whether or not the lawyer is or is not is up to the audience to determine) a DIPSH*T refuses to defuse the situation, namely by at least republishing future copies of the material with new covers, renaming the touring events, and the related publications as "Katie T.com". The book need not have followed the URL convention/naming format, but since katiet.com is Tarbox's site, WHY, WHY, the hell was the book not correspondingly named? "Katiet.com: Portrait of an Internet Victim" is not hard to deal with.
I'll TELL you why: Greed. Unadulterated, insatiable corporate GREED. Of course, Tarbox stands to silently acquire immense wealth if she remains silent and lets her shyster lawyer roll all over Jones. This is BS. This is an example of what the current cadge/cabal administration would allow to happen to ordinary citizens (especially of of non-US residency) when corporate america wants to save a buck, take a buck, or co-opt the lawfully-acquired properties of others.
Now, as for Penguin: I'LL NEVER AGAIN buy another penguin-published or advertised title or imprint EVER, EVER, again. Not, at least, until you HONORABLY, ethically, morally, and convincingly resolve this issue: RETITLE THE BOOK, and pull ALL store shelf copies (and re-cover the books), REGARDLESS OF YOUR COST! You incurred it, you FIX it.
I will also as widely as possible disseminate the word as widely as possible.
David Syes
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"