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."
Shouldn't Katie Jones get royalties from Penguin for using her domain name? After all, in the interview, she stated that Katie.com can't be used as Katie Jones bought it for. She had her resume and pictures of her family and now it might draw pedophiles; therefore, she had to remove the pictures and contact information. A lawsuit should be drawn against Penguin for damages against her domain name and royalties should be paid for that domain; after all Katie Jones freely and fairly bought the domain.
I was with Amazon from 95-97 and helped build there buying dept and one of the things we fought against was marketing have direct control over reviews and stuff.
After I left, they started removing bad reviews of books all the time... especially when they were overstocked and wanted to sell more. Amazon is not the friendly business it used to be and I try to purchase everything I can through alternate sources.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
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."
Wait, it has FEWER reviews today than yesterday? What's the story there?
Moo.
I find it amusing that there's a post in Parry Aftab's blog about Identity Theft Insurance, yet she's helping with the theft of somebody's online identity.
this has been going on for a long time at Amazon.
Who actually trusts thos reviews?
I don't read or respond to AC posts
Your wrong in the fact that Katie DOES have a right to tell them they cant use Katie.com... putting a .com site on anything (even as a title) is like advertising for that site..... its the EXACT same reason why people are not allowed to use phone numbers other than 555. What has to happen is the law has to be changed to giving you exclusive rights to a domain name, therfore problems like this (of which Katie isnt the only person who has been bossed around by big companies) wont happen. This isnt like squatting... they are blaintent trying to steal her domain by making her life as misserable as possible.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Although to the credit of slashdotters, the overwhelming majority of the one-star reviews given to katie.com were intelligent explanations of why, given the hypocritical conduct of the publisher, readers should steer clear of the title, not brainless flaming. Some even suggested other books for young adults which address internet safety instead.
Not that that stopped amazon from pulling them all anyway...
Both Penguin and Katie Ts lawyer are being weasels. Penguin knew it had a problem with the original title "girl.com" a porn site at the time, and switched it to katie.com to pick on someone they could take on. girl.com is just a place-holder, so they should buy it, switch titles and apologize.
Oh yeah, thanks to yesterdays post, the Katie T lawyer's email is parry@aftab.com and her cell phone 201-463-8663.
Copyright Katie Jones (the real Katie.com owner) shares with GrepLaw some of the details of the dispute with Penguin's "branding" of its book, Katie.com.
Katie talks about her conversation with cyberlawyer Parry Aftab, how she believes Penguin's title change (from girl.com [then a porn site] to Katie.com) suggests that Penguin thought it could steamroll her without recourse, and the tremendous amount of support the geek community has shown her.
Katie, you're involved in an interesting dispute over your domain, Katie.com. Tell us more.
In a nutshell, in 2000 a book was published by the name of 'katie.com' - a story by a girl who was molested by a guy she met on the Internet. Katie.com the domain name belongs to me and the first I heard of the book was when I started to receive email from people thinking I was the author.
And when did you first register your domain?
My husband bought the domain for me as a gift in 1996. He registered one each for us (his is gareth.com) and we both felt we were extremely lucky to get our own names with a dot com extension at a time when they were being snapped up very quickly.
So they could have known that Katie.com was registered to you?
They must've known. Early publicity for the book stated that it was going to be called girl.com and at that time girl.com was a porn site. Suddenly it was changed. This is a clear indication that they knew the title of the book would be significant. I imagine that they thought I was a 'nobody' that they could steamroller me without recourse.
How has the Penguin's "branding" of Katie.com restricted the use of your domain?
I originally had links to my business, my resume, and also personal items such as photo's of my son and other family members. Seeing as my business is online chat / community development it was obviously not in my best interests to be linked to the subject matter of this book so I removed that. And of course, I didn't want people who were interested in the subject of pedophilia or molestation viewing pictures of my baby boy.
The Register covered your dispute a few years ago. Anything in particular that made the issue resurface?
I posted an update to my website http://www.katie.com after I had a phone call from Parry Aftab, a lawyer working with Katie Tarbox on a new project. The lawyer asked me to 'donate' my domain name to them, attempted to emotionally blackmail me into doing so, and when I refused then got quite nasty about it and told me things would 'only get worse' if I didn't. The update was picked up by the blog community and then the press.
Have you ever talked to Katie Tarbox? Might she be able to do something about it, if she so wanted?
Never. She's never approached me. I've read responses she's written to other people denying all responsibility and blaming Penguin. But she's continuing to work using the term 'katie.com' for publicity, and apparently about to launch materials for schools using the title too, so regardless of whether she had control over the title of the book (and I'm sure she must have to some extent) she could choose to put an end to this invasion of my privacy and use another marketing tactic, but she doesn't.
Have any lawyers tried to steamroll you? (On your website, you mention an "aggressive lawyer" [and then link to Parry Aftab, the executive director of KatiesPlace.org who is working with Katie Tarbox])
Yes, Parry Aftab called me ostensibly to write an article for 'Information Week'. It transpired during the conversation that she was working with Katie Tarbox on a new project, at which point I began to feel misled about the purpose of the call. She told me that I should donate the domain name to them, or redirect it to their new project/site. I politely refused and she continued to attempt to pe
"I appreciate your thoughts and understand them completley. It is not posted on my web site, but this issue is between Katie Jones and Penguin Putnam. They own the name Katie.com as a published book and decided to call it that. I can do nothing in my power to change it. I would suggest if you would like your voice to be heard and a chance that something is done about it, direct your sympathy to Penguin Putnam."
According to her, it's the publishers at fault here. Can anyone verify this?
2) I like the reference to the "hacker movement" supporting Katie Jones. Perhaps we should start spreading the news a-la Kevin Mitnick? Start plastering "FREE KATIE.COM" stickers everywhere!
Subject: katie.com book and domain issue
Date: Thu, 05 Aug 2004 12:30:14 -0600
To: david.shanks@us.penguingroup.com, john.makinson@us.penguingroup.com,
doug.whiteman@us.penguingroup.com, nigel.portwood@us.penguingroup.com,
anthony.laurino@us.penguingroup.com,
Gentlemen of the Penguin Group,
After reading today about the katie.com disparity between the book
and the internet domain, it appears that Penguin needs to admit an error
and correct course. As an individual involved in the internet with my
own "untrademarked" domains, I would be highly offended if the same
were to happen to me.
I expect that the internet community will rise to assist Katie Jones
with financial obligations encountered in dealing with this situation.
I for one would also help her if the opportunity arises. Losing
goodwill with the internet community isn't something Penquin
should desire. Please re-evaluate this.
Thank you
There are two ways this can end, Firstly Penguin give in and drop the whole shebang, they lost nothing and gain a whole heap of free publicity. This story is circulating the Internet as we speak and It's going to make people remember this book title, and I gurantee a good number of people will go out and buy this book now.
The other ending is that Penguin get the Domain, either legally which is highly doughtful or by buying it from the rightful owner. This means they still get all that juicy publicity and the domain name.
As my old media teacher always said, there's no such thing as bad publicity.
Isee Stars Astro Image Hosting.
Katie Jones should set up a Paypal account linked from her website, where people could donate money to help offset her bandwidth and legal fees. If she donates the excess money to a charity, it'd still be clear she's not using the website for profit. If she donated to a victim's charity of some type, it would be a good gesture to show she supports the point of the book, just not the tactics involved. I'd definitely be willing to donate a few bucks to help Katie Jones out.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
I exchanged a couple e-mails with Katie Tarbox yesterday, and she insists that Parry is not her lawyer. If that's the case, who is Parry working for?
Dinivin
Maybe Katie.com should become a page, where domain hijacking victims can find help. I know that Katie is really pissed off by now, but on the other side, now she has some experience with this kind of stuff.
Ni.
from what i found at the USPTO search.. there is no trademark on katie.com. Katie needs to TM her domain (prior art back to 1996, remember), and then she will be the one with all the power. Of course, IANAL so what she really needs to do is consult a lawyer who knows about trademark law and this kind of stuff.
/.'ers to reply saying they will as well. Yesterday her friend replied here saying he would post a paypal "donate to" link on her site if there was enough interest.. even $2 or $5 from a small percentage of the /.'ers who seem to care about this issue would be enough to turn the tide for her, i'd imagine. A lawyer is a wonderful thing (you should see all the traffic citations that don't appear on my record ;)
I'm personally willing to donate money to help her (this kind of crap angers me soooo much) and I would encourage other
Imagine that. She uses AOL for a while in 94, and all of a sudden she is a "cyber expert" competent enough to decide for all of us that "the Internet" needs to be safe and private and whatever. It is enough to make an engineer's stomach turn inside out. What a repulsive, arrogant, slimy person. The way things are going, I wouldn't be surprised if she were involved in creating "cyberlegislation." Ugh.
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
I will now proceed to fire up Opera and set it to reload the page every 30 seconds.
/dev/null; done
Why not
$ while true; do curl http://www.aftab.com >
It would seem more efficient.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
You are correct, there is no law. In fact, a year or so ago, a movie (Bruce Almighty) used a real phone number. Comedy insued for the owner of the phone number.
Linky here
Although it pains me to defend the bitch, her use of esquire is appropriate. See here.
Interesting reading, thanks. I guess I just fell victim to another division by a common language. Being Irish--and therefore a speaker of British English--I have always known "Esquire" to be a slightly pretentious variation of "Mister". Anyone entitled to call themselves "Mister" (ie. any adult male) can instead use "Esquire", though never both. After some more reading it seems that this is a very recent use of the word, with no claim to being more correct than your (American) version.
Why is anything anything?