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."

Comments

Katie Jones should get paid

[stecoop]

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.

Re:Katie Jones should get paid

[RazzleFrog]

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.

Re:Katie Jones should get paid

[RazzleFrog]

You can't copyright a domain name. I'm amazed that you bothered to read the part of the FAQ that said when you can copyright but not the part that says what can't be copyrighted:

Titles, names, short phrases, and slogans; familiar symbols or designs; mere variations of typographic ornamentation, lettering, or coloring; mere listings of ingredients or contents

Re:Katie Jones should get paid

[shokk]

As Ray Bradbury (author of Fahrenheit 451) recently found out, he could not prevent "Fahrenheit 9-11" from being titled as such because one cannot copyright a title.

Re:Katie Jones should get paid

[Gumshoe]

Apart from the stunningly obvious fact that the titles "Fahrenheit 451" and "Fahrenheit 911" are not the same and a copyright on the former would be of absolutely no use to Bradbury, I find it humorous that Bradbury himself has a history of, shall we say, borrowing titles. For example, the title of the book "Something Wicked This Way Comes" comes from Act 4, Scene 1 of Shakespeare's MacBeth and "I Sing The Body Electric" was the title of a chapter in Walt Whitman's book, Leaves of Grass.

I'm reminded of Disney at this point. Here we have someone who plunders the public domain, adapts and creates something new from what they found there and then complains when others do the same to their own creations.

Re:Katie Jones should get paid

[Anonymous Coward]

While criminal law might not get you far, I'm fairly certain a civil suit has some legs to stand on.

#1. Increase in traffic = monetary damages. It's not free advertising, it's misleading people into believing katie.com is something it isn't.

#2. Type of traffic = damage to character. Katie.com is now associated with child abuse, which means that the owner of katie.com has that burden to bear.

#3. Emotional damages, due to the above traffic and the sicko tendencies of the visitors. These people wouldn't have ever visited katie.com without Penguin publishing the book.

Penguin can be blamed for all of these things by publishing the book under the title Katie.com. Prove damages and a civil suit just might go through, and damages seem fairly provable here.

Re:Katie Jones should get paid

[TomSawyer]

Bradbury, like most writers, has often titled his stories with quotes from poems or other literary works. Basically, I think he just hates Moore.

Yes, since Bradbury didn't want any confusion to lead to him being associated with an extreme political view, he must therefore hold personal hate in his heart for Michael Moore.

Mike Rowe

[ParticleMan911]

I think Mike Rowe and Katie should get together.

Amazon is censoring its reviews?

[Greg Larkin]

What is Amazon doing now - monitoring the traffic it gets to certain books and then removing reviews that contribute to a less than average rating? How do we explain the reduction in reviews from 300+ to 81 and the boost in the rating?

Re:Amazon is censoring its reviews?

[dave420]

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?

Re:Amazon is censoring its reviews?

[Chasuk]

The review was up for a while, and then they dropped it!

As they should have. The mistakes that an author makes in his or her personal life have ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with the content of the book. Even if the book had been about raising kids, the advice in the book still might have been valid. Judge a book by its content, and nothing more.

I am saddened and shocked that a point this obvious should even have to be discussed.

Re:Amazon is censoring its reviews?

[stwrtpj]

They removed a review that I wrote about a book on Java because I pointed out (in the context of a factual review) that the author had been arrested (and plead guilty on related charges) for crossing state lines to have sex with a 13 year old girl he met on the Internet!

Had I worked for Amazon and was in charge of filtering reviews, I would have removed your review as well. Your statement in the review had nothing to do with the merits of the book as pertaining to Java programming, and is thus tantamount to using a smear campaign against the author instead of debating the merits of the work itself.

I suggest you all go to Amazon and rate all the "one star" reviews helpful, and all the others "not helpful" for Katie.com

Vindictiveness generally does not get you very far.

Ex Amazon Employee

[Foofoobar]

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.

Re:Ex Amazon Employee

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Crapflood reviewers...

[heyitsme]

A couple months ago some journalist made some disparaging remarks about Phish and Phish fans (phans). Those "phans" with internet connections found the journalist's book on Amazon (a cookbook I believe) and did the same thing they are doing to Katie T.'s book.

It's a shame people do this... becuase actions like these don't gain any ground, and just end up leaving a bad taste in everyone's mouth.

Re:Crapflood reviewers...

[kooshvt]

... found the journalist's book on Amazon (a cookbook I believe) ... just end up leaving a bad taste in everyone's mouth

Was the cookbook that bad?

Re:Crapflood reviewers...

[LeninZhiv]

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...

Cyberlawyer?

[frostman]

What exactly is a Cyberlawyer anyway?

Is that some kind of half-human, half-robot lawyer?

Re:Cyberlawyer?

[philbowman]

Wow! They've made one that's actually half human?

Re:Cyberlawyer?

[NanoGator]

CYBER LAWYER PRIME DIRECTIVES:

1.) Swerve the public trust

2.) Neglect the innocent

3.) Uproot the law

Re:Voting her book down is the wrong tactic

[pyrrhonist]

The author did not perpetrate this crime, Penguin did.

Then why is the author's lawyer harassing the owner of the domain?

Identity Theft

[Pirow]

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.

Re:Identity Theft

[JamesKPolk]

Her theft insurance must work like Mafia fire insurance: You pay us and nothing will happen to identity. Don't pay us and "things will get worse than they are now."

Not that surprising

[American AC in Paris]

"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."

So what? Most of those negative reviews were posted because of the brouhaha with Penguin and the Katie.com domain; they didn't weigh in on the quality of the book itself. Hell, most of the reviews were from people who had never read the book. If Amazon didn't police their reviews for this kind of abuse, any two-bit asshat with a bone to pick could tank a perfectly good book's reputation with a few hours' work.

what a nitpick

[LeninZhiv]

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.

Re:Nothing for us to see here, move along.

[ubertemp]

Say I register Bill.com and someone writes a book about Bill Gates' secret life as a modern day Robin Hood, stealing from everyone and giving a portion back to the poor. Would I be allowed to tell them that they couldn't call it Bill.com? Fuck no I couldn't. Just because I own a domain name doesn't give me exclusive rights to tell other people what to do with the name.

At first she didn't tell them what to do with the name. Penguin had demanded she give up the address and all she wanted was to keep her existing domain. So to use your example: you register bill.com, Gate's book comes out, the publisher demands you give them bill.com

Still think this is fair?

Site getting slow

[Anonymous Coward]

Interview with Katie Jones of (the Real) Katie.com posted by scubacuda on Friday August 06, @01:13AM from the racketeering.com? dept.

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

Re:Site getting slow

[chimpo13]

I like that Katie J says, "I have not accepted money" that was offered to her by fellow geeks. Just wait until she receives a bill for the slashdotting.

Katie.com as a porn site

[doublem]

Hey, it's her damn domain. She can do what she wants with it.

Something tells me if the site suddenly wen to a hard core "Barely Legal Teens" site, Penguin's interest would perk up REAL soon.

Any self respecting porn web master should be chomping at the bit for all the guaranteed traffic that such a domain would ensure.

And the owner's argument when Penguin sues her? "I could not longer use the domain and had to finance the process of moving all of my personal and business activity to another domain."

Penguin would either have to spend a lot of cash on a lawsuit or changing the name of the book.

Penguin really is being arrogant and irresponsible.

2 issues here...

[abkaiser]

1) I emailed and received a response from Katie Tarbox yesterday:

"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!

Re:Nothing for us to see here, move along.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

if her katie.com website is no longer usable

[WormholeFiend]

for her intended purposes, then by all means she should do as one slashdotter suggested in the previous thread about this, that is, post shock photos of goatse for example, although tubgirl might be more appropriate in this instance, should the book's success really take off.

Re:if her katie.com website is no longer usable

[aslate]

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.

someone who should be slashdotted

[falcon5768]

http://www.aftab.com/..... I mean come on, a lawyer is bad enough... there are too many of those. But a lawyer who apparently has no clue that its not squatting when the person owned the domain YEARS before the book was even made and whos sole buisness is to screw people on the web because there ARE so many loopholes in Internet Law..... that just deserves a slashdotting in my book.

Write the Penguin Publishing execs.

[nortcele]

Here's what I sent.

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

You need a link for a /.ing

[doublem]

Making the URL a link makes it much easier to /. a site.

Thus:

http://www.aftab.com/

I will now proceed to fire up Opera and set it to reload the page every 30 seconds.

so basically...

[SQLz]

If Penguin was to sue the real katie, and win, then it would set a precedent that all you need to take over a domain name is write a book entitled with the particular domain name.

Shit, I hope it happens because I already started work on my new novel, slashdot.org. Its novel filled with greed, power, lust, set in the computer hacker underground.

Another idea

[StuckInSyrup]

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.

Donate to katie

[adamgeek]

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.

I'm personally willing to donate money to help her (this kind of crap angers me soooo much) and I would encourage other /.'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 ;)

Re:Donate to katie

[Bish.dk]

Be careful with the donations. It's possible that the alleged friend is just someone trying to make some quick money on the case. Hold back the donations until you see an official link from Katie's homepage.
She already mentioned in the interview that she hasn't accepted any donations yet, but has been offered plenty.

reviews

[minus_273]

I dont know, I know it is a tenn book, but some of the reviews on that site, they were pretty bizzare. My personal favorite:

"Thanks, September 18, 2002
Reviewer: "karen588" (Grand Rapids, michgian) - See all my reviews
Hi my name is karen and I am forteen years old, i like this book very very muchl, my freinds at school told me abowt this book and it taugt me how to rite into a chatroom on the interent and how to meet older man cuz all the boys in my school are boring and thye dont know how to treet a girl good. now I rite on a chatroom every day and i have meet many intresting and good looking men. and all because this book showed me how. I will be more careful then the riter of this book thogh when I meet this men in person, I will not make the same misstakes. I would like to meet an older man cuz then all the girls in my school will be jelous of me.
"

From Parry Aftab's web site

[markov_chain]

The following are a couple of paragraphs from her bio. I'm already dizzy.

Since 1994, Parry has been leading online communities and creating places and opportunities for people to help each other online. Her first foray into providing online help, using unpaid expert volunteers, was when she created AOL's Legal Information Network's Legal Discussions. Hundreds of lawyers joined her to provide legal information, without charge, to people who visited their discussion boards. AOL's Legal Help model was soon replicated by Parry and her volunteers for Court TV's Legal Helpline, where the same volunteers would answer questions on the Web. You can read more about that from her intro to her first book.

One thing led to another, and Parry became one of the first cyberlawyers in the world. She was also was hooked on the Internet and all its promise. But to deliver upon that promise, the Internet needed to be safe, private and secure, and Internet users needed a place and people they could turn to when they needed help online, or they found themselves being victimized.

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.

Re:Is Parry Aftab Katie Tarbox's lawyer?

[be951]

Parry Aftab's website claims that she will be on "O'Reilly Factor" this month (although she misspelled O'Reilly on her site). Perhaps Bill will hit her with some tough questions about being an internet abuser? Bill's fan email is oreilly@foxnews.com

Some questions I'd like to see him ask are along the lines of :
Katie Tarbox claims you do not represent her, but Katie Jones feels that you did claim to represent K.T. Who do you really represent in the matter of the katie.com book title/domain name issue?

Isn't it hypocritical to present yourself as a defender of rights online while trying to get a valuable domain name for free through threats and intimidation?

I'm sure others of you will have insightful questions as well. And at least making O'Reilly aware of this conflict could also make the show more interesting.

UPDATE: It's all over - Penguin changes book title

[yoz]

Plume Re-titles Book by Katie Tarbox A Girl's Life Online (PDF)

(text reproduced below)

In an effort to avoid an association between the book originally titled Katie.com and
the website Katie.com, Plume and the author decide to make this title change.

New York, New York, August 6, 2004 ... In 2000, Dutton published a hardcover book
called Katie.com by Katie Tarbox, an eye-opening account of one teenager's descent into
the seductive world of the Internet. After the book was released into the market, it was
brought to Dutton's attention that a website of the same name existed on the Internet.
The fact that the book, Katie.com, and the website shared the same name was purely
coincidental. In an effort to avoid any association between the book and the site, when
Plume issued the book in trade paperback in 2001, it printed on the copyright page that
the author of Katie.com and events described in the book have no connection whatsoever
with the website domain owner Katie Jones or her e-mail address.

Trena Keating, Editor-in-chief of Plume, said, "We have made every effort to clarify the
fact that Plume's book, Katie.com, and the website, Katie.com, are not in any way
associated with one another. In addition, it was erroneously reported recently that Plume
had asked its attorney to attempt to buy the web site Katie.com from domain owner Katie
Jones. This is absolutely not true. Ms. Jones confirms this point in a message currently
posted on her web site.

"We are not working in association with author Katie Tarbox or any other individual in
an attempt to assume ownership of the domain name address www.katie.com. Of course,
the personal views of the author are hers and do not represent Plume in any way.
"Going forward, Plume and the author have decided to re-title this book A Girl's Life
Online. This is an important book about predatory pedophiles on the Internet and how
we can protect our children. We changed the title to keep focus on this issue. The newly
titled book will be released next month. We have always taken this situation very
seriously. And we hope that by making this title change, it will demonstrate just how
dedicated Plume is to clarifying this matter."