Jerry Falwell Wins Dispute Over Fallwell.com

setzman writes "According to this article from CNN, conservative minister Jerry Falwell has succeeded in shutting down a web site run by a gay activist on the domain fallwell.com. The judge said it was 'nearly identical' to the registered trademark 'Jerry Falwell' name and was likely to be confusing to Web surfers." (This was a Federal case, held in the 4th Circuit Court.)

Comments

Google cache of home page

[artemis67]

www.fallwell.com

The site was even "related"

[xiando]

Sometimes it is quite unlear if the domain name is the same because of conisidence, but in this case, Lamparello's site criticizes Falwell's stance against homosexuality and includes a disclaimer that reads, "This Web site is not affiliated with Jerry Falwell Ministries.", the site using the "same name" even admits they did choose the name because of the resembelence. This is something very different from the kathy.com story where Pengiun is trying to steal another persons domain for no reason.

Earlier Falwell lawsuit

[wayward]

Here's an image that triggered an earlier Falwell lawsuit against Larry Flynt and Hustler magazine:

http://www.hfac.uh.edu/comm/media_libel/cases-conf licts/print/falwell.html

Ironically enough, Falwell lost that one.

Re:A good ruling

[Anonymous Coward]

Care to point to where in the bible America is mentioned at all?

I had a student ask me, "Could the savior you believe in save Osama bin Laden?" Of course, we know the blood of Jesus Christ can save him, and then he must be executed. (this one I like)

God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve.-- Rev. Jerry Falwell, blaming civil libertarians, feminists, homosexuals, and abortion rights supporters for the terrorist attacks of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, to which Rev. Pat Robertson agreed, quoted from John F. Harris, "God Gave U.S. 'What We Deserve,' Falwell Says," The Washington Post (September 14, 2001)

The ACLU's got to take a lot of blame for this.
-- Rev. Jerry Falwell, blaming civil libertarians for the terrorist attacks of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, to which Rev. Pat Robertson again agreed, quoted from AANEWS #958 by American Atheists (September 14, 2001)

And, I know that I'll hear from them for this. But, throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say, "You helped this happen."
-- Rev. Jerry Falwell, blaming civil libertarians, feminists, homosexuals, and abortion rights supporters for the terrorist attacks of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, quoted from John F. Harris, "God Gave U.S. 'What We Deserve,' Falwell Says," The Washington Post (September 14, 2001)

I sincerely believe that the collective efforts of many secularists during the past generation, resulting in the expulsion from our schools and from the public square, has left us vulnerable.
-- Rev. Jerry Falwell, after the 700 Club broadcast wherein he had blamed civil libertarians, feminists, homosexuals, and abortion rights supporters for the terrorist attacks of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, speaking to The New York Times, quoted from Dick Meyer, "Holy Smoke," CBS News (September 15, 2001)

I put all the blame legally and morally on the actions of the terrorist, [but America's] secular and anti-Christian environment left us open to our Lord's [decision] not to protect. When a nation deserts God and expels God from the culture ... the result is not good.
-- Rev. Jerry Falwell, backpedaling amidst criticism of his statement blaming civil libertarians, feminists, homosexuals, and abortion rights supporters for the terrorist attacks of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, quoted from John F. Harris, "God Gave U.S. 'What We Deserve,' Falwell Says," The Washington Post (September 14, 2001)

Pat, did you notice yesterday the ACLU, and all the Christ-haters, People For the American Way, NOW, etc. were totally disregarded by the Democrats and the Republicans in both houses of Congress as they went out on the steps and called out on to God in prayer and sang "God Bless America" and said "let the ACLU be hanged"? In other words, when the nation is on its knees, the only normal and natural and spiritual thing to do is what we ought to be doing all the time -- calling upon God.
-- Rev. Jerry Falwell, justifying the breech of Constitutional Separation of Religion from Government while blaming civil libertarians for the terrorist attacks of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, to which Rev. Pat Robertson again agreed, quoted from AANEWS #958 by American Atheists (September 14, 2001)

I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!

Re:A good ruling

[the chao goes mu]

I have to agree. And in other contexts, slashdotters would probably be agreeing as well (if it weren't Jerry Falwell). Slashdot seems rabidly opposed to businesses registering gogle.com and yaho.com and so on, but this man was doing something quite similar (and a bit more blatant) in registering falwell.com to promote his own anti-Falwell work. How does that differ from grabbing gooogle.com to derrive traffic from internet typos?

Re:A good ruling

[einhverfr]

So it's protected free speech if you publish it out of pocket but loses its protection if you find a way to finance it? That upholds the notion that freedom of the press is only for those who own one. In a society so dominated by capital, if you are unable to raise money for your opinion then you're effectively censured.

Commercial speech is less protected (as it should be) than non-commercial speech. If Fallwell.com was merely an attempt to capitalize on spelling errors, then this is not different than for me to register Mircosoft as a platform for me to promote non-Microsoft software.

Now, if I put Mircosoft.com as a place for a parody like mslinux.org, that would probably be protected. Fallwell.com could have been a mere parody and that would have been acceptable, but it wasn't.

Nothing in the ruling effectively silences the guy. They just prevent him from profiting by diverting traffic in a deliberate attempt to divert value from a registered trademark. This is probably fair.