Slashdot Mirror
Katie Jones Interviewed
scubacuda writes "Greplaw has interviewed Katie Jones (of the real Katie.com). In addition to the details of the dispute regarding Penguin's 'branding' of the book Katie.com (which many /.ers 'reviewed'), she shares the details of her conversation with cyberlawyer Parry Aftab, how she believes Penguin's title change suggests that it thought it could steamroll her without recourse, and the tremendous amount of support the geek community has shown her." Ms. Aftab has several blogs. Ms. Aftab, if you contact us with a response to these allegations, Slashdot will publish your response (we've also written to your email address). Another reader notes: "Yesterday /. ran an article about the book Katie.com. Out of curiosity I just visited the Amazon.com website to see how many more reviews were on the website. Yesterday when I first checked there were over 300 reviews, most of them negative and the book scored only 2 stars total. Today, the book has 81 reviews with an average rating of 3 1/2 stars."
actually, I wouldnt be surprised if amazon simply purged all 'reviews' entered yesterday during the several hours after slashdot posted the story. clearly, there's large probability the 'reviewers' didnt read the book beyond it's title, like most of the negative reviews to books by Al Franken or Anne Coulter.
You may find fault with what words Katie J. is able to find to state her case, but don't try to turn the whole issue around completely: she's not the one who's doing anything here, it's Katie T.+lawyer+Penguin who are attacking her continued use of her own website. How you can get from that to Katie J. being an attention hog is beyond me; no one would be interviewing her in the first place if this hadn't happened.
Just because she doesn't defend herself flawlessly doesn't make her wrong all of a sudden.
First of all it isn't penguin suing - it is Katie Tarbox's lawyer. Second you do not need to have a trademark to protect your domain name. Since katie.com the website existed long before katie.com the book there is no case here. No cybersquatting, no trademark violation, no copyright infringement, nothing.
If anything - the real katie can trademark the name now if she was doing some sort of business and then just say she first used the name in business in 1996. There is no case here. It is 100% bullying.
You know the funny thing is is that penguin's, the fat cow of an attorney parry aftab's, and katie tarbox's behavior is classic squatting. Traditionally a squatter is someone who moves into a preexisting property and co-opts it for their own use. This is exactly what has happened to the domain name katie.com. The fuckhole's actions basically have been that they think the domain katie.com should be coerced into fitting their agenda of therapy, advocacy, self promotion and profiteering, rather than Mrs. Jone's, the rightful domain holder, choices of usage of that domain.
Because those reviews are obviously from people who haven't read the book. I mean, the reviews are supposed to be feedback about the book, not about something else. They're also bound to be blatantly unobjective and biassed, which skews the rating of the book. /. fucked with amazon's data, and they unfucked it. What's wrong with that?
An amusing idea, but i wouldn't do it unless she isn't going to try and sue/take some form of legal action or has already failed her case. Otherwise it may harm her defence if she fought-back like that. I mean, if she forwards to goatse or something and then claims that she had to remove pictures of her baby (like she says she had to) she's kinda ruining her defence.