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

'Nearly identical'

[GillBates0]

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; the judge held that the disputed fallwell.com was "'nearly identical' to the registered trademark 'Jerry Falwell.'" )

and the 'helpful' 'little' snippet by the editor was 'nearly identical' to what the submitter already said in the original writeup.

It's reasonable...

[mratitude]

However folks fall in the religion fueled debate on homosexuality issues (gay marriage, gay "normalcy", etc) this was a middle-of-the-road ruling from a court that appears that didn't side with either of the agendas being pushed.

Like cyber-squat efforts (registering domains like "pepsi.com" when you're not affiliated with Pepsi at all) overall, this was a targeted effort by someone with an agenda. The intent was to squat their agenda on any internet traffic by "hugging" search criteria and even simple mispellings in a url. Their agenda to do this was clearly spelled out.

I expect the people running Drudge Retort to be nervous over a ruling like this.

Re:A good ruling

[sploo22]

Given that we're told our rights to speech CANNOT be infringed...

May I quote the First Amendment?

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

This decision was made by a federal court, not through legislation. The court has the right to, and indeed often does, abridge freedom of speech; this allows for things like gag orders.

Re:A good ruling

[Tassach]

Are you saying that people who belive there are absolutes and that there is a differnce between right and wrong, lack critical thinking skills?

No, I'm saying that anyone who accepts the crap that Falwell spews lacks critical thinking skills.

Anyone who can't recognize that the Christian Bible has numerous internal contridictions, even on basic theological issues, lacks critical thinking skills.