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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 think Mike Rowe and Katie should get together.
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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?
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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.
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What exactly is a Cyberlawyer anyway?
Is that some kind of half-human, half-robot lawyer?
This Like That - fun with words!
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.
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.
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?
... 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?
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!
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 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.
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.
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.
"
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
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!
Plume Re-titles Book by Katie Tarbox A Girl's Life Online (PDF)
... In 2000, Dutton published a hardcover book
(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
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."