Slashdot Mirror
Online Journal Publisher Raided by Police
mwalker writes "Transasia Corporation is claiming over a million dollars in damages based on their claim that a search engine request using the word 'Leonardo' brings up not only their web sites but also those of the MIT-published Leonardo arts organization. What's worse is that the police have now raided the publication for incriminating papers (papers containing the word 'Leonardo')." Okay. This is over the edge. Way worse than the Etoys/etoy stupidity. I'm making a personal donation to the Leonardo Defense Fund, 425 Market Street, 2nd Floor, San Francisco, California, 94105, U.S.A. I strongly urge other Slashdot readers to take their own appropriate actions - short of lawbreaking or violence, of course. Here's the Leonardo Finance site so you can see the enemy's face first-hand. Unbelievable!
URL? ;)
Since then I have been happy to believe that everyone but I was stupid. To do otherwise would be a violation of a fundamental law of the universe.
Information is not Knowledge
Add in french fries which I think the credit really goes to the Japanese, french bread--probably came from Australia, dressing was most likely really a product of Britain and oh, french kissing which we'll find out one day was stolen from the Eskimos. When I think of innovation, that certainly isn't the country I think of. That Leo company is some no nothing just trying to reap free publicity. Their next lawsuit will be suing the Year 2000.
It gets tiring hearing all those ungreatful foreigners putting down the U.S.A. Fine! Don't accept our dollars and stay out of here. Hopefully these whiney people will fall into the crack in the earth that opens on 1/1/00.
The ambitions are: wake up, breathe, keep breathing.
- Robin
Yes, this has happened to all of us. However, if I really wanted the item, I would go back for it later.
:)
Ahh, but this is exactly the thing! What about the purchases that you don't really want, but would have made anyway if you hadn't been sidetracked? This is actually a fascinating thing to research. Many corporations base their very existence off of impulse buying. When you walk down the street and look at store displays that have been set up in the windows, few people take the time to realize that most of those displays have been deliberately engineered to lure customers in to purchase items on impulse. There is almost a completely new branch of social science when it comes to customer mentality and how to latch onto it to make a profit. Sidetracking on the Web undermines that.
To be honest, I was hoping you would bring this up.
Are you going to sue the MacDonalds down the road because when Bob was going to buy a new widget at your store, he dropped in for a burger, got sidetracked, and didn't buy the widget after all?
Interesting question, but it's not the same thing. Bob can still see my widget store when he pulls out of the McDonald's parking lot. The Web is completely different. Once you click your way into a new set of circumstances, your previous environment completely vanishes, and aside from an URL history or something of that nature, you can't visually "see" where you were at before you decided to check out "Amazon Women On The Moon" instead of amazon.com.
Footing the bill for what? The lawsuit? They brought it themselves. Footing the bill to keep the 'modern internet' running?
Corporations pay a lot of money for broadband Internet access. Obviously, they pay much more than you or I do for dialup or cable modem access. I think you are underestimating the amount of subsidizing that corporations provide to network infrastructure. At the very least, they pay an extremely disproportionate amount of they money that keeps WANs up and running. I'm not making this stuff up, you know.
Again, why should the rights of business come before the rights of common users?
As I've said, this should only happen when it is fair to do so, and I think I've provided an example of this fairness above. You're correct when you say that the Internet was not invented for businesses, but times have changed. If we have to shift the paradigm of Internet priorities to make it more friendly to business, then I don't have any problem with that.
C'est tout fini, mes amis. Je pense que je vais bouger au la Antartique, ou Montana, parce que la monde avait tourne fou. Au revoir.
spoo
I should assume that "Ganymede's Gambit" must refer to some gamble to play the catamite for a time in pursuit of some other goal.
A prank of this nature is wholly inappropriate, and certainly would reflect poorly on MIT as a whole -- guilt by association, as it were.
Which ones have Leo pr0n? :-)
We use a Mac-To-PC Netowrking Software package called DAVE. On in clear print, it says DAVE (tm). A trademarked first name. Now I'm definitely not an advocate for LF, it's just the opposite, but I don't want to see them use this in their case.
Th
Transasia Corporation have obviously used police as their tools in taking this action. What criminal allegations could they raise? And what did they tell the police to make them believe a raid was justified? Even more worrying is that a raid (at least under most laws) needs a search warrant. That they got this past a judge higlights the worrying problems that occur when law enforcement acts without sufficient knowledge of web based technologies. Next Google will be sued by Microsoft because "evil monopolistic empire" brings up their homepage.
We're talking about a trademark.
Not a patent, or copyright.
A trademark.
Spoken like a true like a true Frenchman...ie, 20th century surrender monkey.
Just needed to bring your attention to this.
----
"War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left"
"War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left"
Steven Wright
The Frogs could fuck up a wet dream.
Geez.
The Spanish "invented" (ported) French Fries. Remember who brought them back from the New World, eh? But in Spain, they're patatas fritas. Pas de français, là.
MIT has a tradition of elaborate hoaxes.
Either some officer was seriously bribed, or else this is a hoax.
Cheers,
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
First off, it's illegal to have tobacco advertisements in sporting events in France.
So a few years ago, the French government tried to sue the Williams Formula 1 team (who were sponsored by Rothman's cigarettes) for having tobacco logos on their car when they raced in the Australian GP. Williams is BRITISH (their engines were Renaults) and the race was in AUSTRALIA, yet the French government decided to sue Williams GPE because the race was televised in France...
In the mean time, the Ligier F1 team, which had received some helpful financing from the French government, was sponsored by Gitanes (or Gaulouises?)...which was a tobacco company owned by the French government.
I'm telling ya', the French are nuts! Completely nuts!
That's not quite what I meant
I meant, could MIT's page have been cracked by a disgruntled (ex)-student-kiddie?
Um, thanks I guess. Why do people have to post such icky things in the first place? :-(
> If we have to shift the paradigm of Internet
priorities to make it more friendly to business, then I don't have any problem with that.
This about sums it up - why don't the businesses shift -their- paradigm? Why should I change to suit them? If they cannot figure out a way to 'engineer' me to their site, they don't deserve my business. If a business tries to survive on the net with 'impulse buys', they are in for a nasty surprise. This is not television, and they cannot barge into my room with ads blaring for their product. I have to *choose* to go to their site, and if I get sidetracked along the way, they have no one to blame. Not the search engine, not their marketing execs, nobody. Because it was my choice, and I made it (either consciously or not).
> Corporations pay a lot of money for broadband Internet access.
Yes, I'm sure they do. However, they are buying this broadband access for *themselves*. They are not subsidizing the network structure unless they are allowing others to pull data down through their pipes. Some packets may be routed through their routers, but only a small percent, and this could easily be routed by other servers (such as the aforementioned MIT). I do not believe that a medium sized company is going to set up a root server with multiple T3's to add to the net's infrastructure just to be altruistic. Which means, it isn't going to happen.
If a business is to survive on the net, they have to learn that the net is not a captive audience. Only I choose whether to go to their site or not. This is not the same as going to a hardware store in my hometown, as there may be only one store in existence. On the net, there may be many places selling the same product, and only I decide where to buy it. And you can rest assured that when a company pulls a stunt such as this lawsuit, I have already made up my mind not to give them my business.
Cheers,
GC
Agree entirely...
What really cheeses me off is the intrusion of politics and governments and the whole legal system into affairs of the 'Net - it should be plain and simple, "this is your top-level domain, this is where you belong. If a search engine doesn't pick you up in the top dozen, your site is crap", end of argument.
~Tim
--
Rushing on down to the circle of the turn
Maybe someone has said this already but trademarks are based on your trade.
For example Apple computers can't sue Apple sweet shop as they are in two different trades.
Are the two groups in the same business?
And if they think this is correct were will the maddness end?
It appears that a warrant was executed by police in FRANCE, against a chapter of the Leonardo Arts association in FRANCE, *NOT* in the use, and NOT at MIT, simply affiliated with them.
And above all else sue that little schmuck Leonardo diCaprio (sp?) He *DEFINITELY* has the money to fight of the foo foo frenchies...
hey it's a free country... pfft, who the hell am I kidding. It's a fucked up, opressive, country that isn't worth a damn. Fuck the government and fuck these aggressive corporations.
And how much money did Leonardo Finance pay you to post this to Slashdot? What? Oh, you're on their payroll... I guess that explains everything.
In case anyone does feel hopeful, here's my list of things that need to happen (in order):
I am very hopeful, but some points on your solutions:
Take away corporation's ability to interfere in elections. There's a bad Supreme Court decision that allows corporations to essentially buy candidates with "soft money" and the like.
Soft money isn't what you're describing. For one thing, it is spent by parties and activist groups for voter education (including issue ads) and recruitment. That's as true for the EFF as MS's PAC. For another, you can't buy candidates or elections-- both depend on votes. Finally, this is all free speech-- saying a guy can't talk about an issue because the government department of lunch thinks your thoughts are too popular or are reaching too many people is silly.
Major tort reform: With punitive damages at the judge's discression. See above.
The goal of tort reform is fewer lawsuits, not more. That's where this stupid Leonardo lawsuit comes in-- this should never have reached court (though admittedly I don't know how the legal system works in france). Punitive damages are the worst-- they are totally arbitrary, lining a lawyer's pockets.
Pump money into the public schools: The smarter the populace, the more people who can think for themselves, the better. Better teachers, smaller school systems, smaller class sizes, more community involvement. This includes requiring decent alternative education choices for people who don't learn in the "conventional" way. While we're at it, get the fsck'ing corporations *out* of the school.
I can't see what your problem with corporations are-- it doesn't make sense to blame them for everything that happens that you don't like. I pretty much agree with your solutions on education, though. I'd add that we ought to give alternatives to kids whose schools are failing (e.g. inner city schools).
Start sending execs who break the law to prison: No fine will deter a major corporation from breaking the law. Sending the execs who cause said corporation to break the law will.
This is silly. You can't solve frivolous judicial action with more frivolous judicial action. I don't think (knock on wood) that this would have happened in the US, but we can't let anger at corporations (remember, this was the French gummint which ordered and executed this friggin' stupid raid) become the universal source of the world's problems, and the knee-jerk target for blame.
Hah hah. Very funny. Just one question: why is this "Ganymede's Gambit"? Isn't Ganymede one of the Jovian satellites, and, in fact, one of the Gallileans? I just don't get it.
Come on. It's not the french, or the british, or the germans, or the americans in particular. It's stupid people blindly pursuing their interests in every country in the world. One day, France, another, Canada, but that doesn't mean you dismiss and insult the whole fucking country. that's such obvious reflexive bigotry...next week, it'll be an american; the US has it's fair share.
Are you absolutely mad? The MIT group should be penalized for some absent-minded client surfing around and forgetting his original purpose? So, according to you, the only use for the 'modern internet' is to allow corporations to make as much money as they can and trample the rights of others (who are not even in the same business)? The internet was originally designed for *information sharing* (first by the DoD, then it was by scientists/universities), not corporate greed, and personally, I think it may be better off without corporate lawyers getting into the fray and suing everyone within arms length (and on the net, that can be a damn long arm).
I cannot see this being legitimized by any amount of reasoning. If you believe that the company has the right to summarily and arbitrarily shut down the MIT site for potential loss of earnings, then you might as well go back to believing in the divine right of kings over common folk and live like a serf. Either way, you are forfeiting any rights you have to be treated fairly and equitably.
Cheers,
GC
Add the word Leonardo to you web pages and submit them all to every search engine you can find. Then we will see how they like it. If you can trust them, screw them.
down the crapper? It seems like every day things get worse. There used to be some pretty darn cool stories posted here, but in the last several months things seem to be getting pretty bad. What happened? (No flames please!) I'd love to see the old /. come back. Heck I'd even pay, like a subscription, if the old /. would come back!
Lets think about this. Dumb corporation tries to sue students who use everyday language on their website, and yells 'Trademark Infringement'. Judge laughs. Jury laughs. Dumb corporation gets publicly sat down in court. HARD. Boom! Now a precendent as been set. Future targets of idiotic lawsuits can now point to this legal decision as a previous related ruling.
Hmmm... Actually, that's not a bad idea. Perhaps we could persuade some large, high-visibility company to bring an idiotic lawsuit to bear, knowing ahead of time that they'll lose.
You cannot own the word Leonardo... it's a name. Leo DiCaprio could be attacked too, I guess. Hey why don't you dig up Leonardo DaVinci and beat him up, he's infringing too!
If this madness doesn't stop, I'm founding my own planet, one with no patents or such. (Or a BETTER patent system... one that exists to protect IP and to do nothing else... no "giving huge corporations the edge" or that crap... maybe they'll have to start protecting their ideas with good, old fashioned security.)
But let's think about this for one more moment... they're claiming to own the word Leonardo... !!!... Utter stupidity.
Restating the obvious since nineteen aught five.
Voice your complaints in their Investor/Entrepreneur forms! They've provided this handy html form just for you! Tell them how upset you are!
On another note, I would like to announce that I have trademarked and patented the use of every word in this comment. Anyone using the words "If," "this," "kind," etc. will be immediately sued for... one MILLION dollars!
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
From the patent:
If it's "invisible light", how can the cat see it? If the cat doesn't see it, how does it induce any behavior at all?
This is a joke, right?. Please tell me this is some kind of joke. The Game Review Index: http://rothrock.intercoastal.com/gri
Cowabunga dudes!
If a search on the name Leonardo has started all this, why not just strike back with more of the same?
If you just add "Leonardo da Vinci" or "Leonardo di Caprio" to your your HTML pages MetaTags, and then submit them to all kinds of search engines, it would be interesting to see just how many sites will pop up the NEXT time they do a search on Leonardo.
Will they sue the owners of all these websites too then?
Reminds me of the possibly apochyphal story that after William Gibson wrote NEUROMANCER -- in which he coined the term *cyberspace* -- a person named Eric Gullicson [sp] at Autodesk had "cyberspace" trademarked for Autodesk. Whereupon Gibson trademarked "Eric Gullicson", the idea being that the guy couldn't use his own name in public without Gibson's written permission ...
So in that sprit, someone should trademark the names of key folk at LF. Why not start with these?
Yves Delacour(TM)
Franck Monnot(TM)
Valerie Virlouvet(TM)
And what the hell, register the domains too while you're at it.
Yes! Really good idea! Then they get to place 78967894678 or something on any search engine. You can even add multiple forms of the the word Leonardo in the same colour as the background of your page. Make shure to add the name Leonardo in your tags too You may also put the word "finance" on your page too, to make it practically impossible to search for +Leonardo +Finance
Thats the frogs for ya...
I'm going to kick every french bastard i see today in the back of the head.
We have a sister organization in France, the
Association Leonardo, which publishes the Observatoire Leonardo Web Site
Didnt find anything about the raid there. Looks
IMHO pretty sketchy.
They are suing them in a French court - not a US one. French law is much less fucked up as the US one when it comes to patents and trademarks (though sometimes an ignorant judge can make some really stupid rulling)
But as someone else noted, it's much easier to get a positive reaction if you at least try speaking Frecnh... Another thing that works well is to make sure they hear you speaking some other language (except English) first, and then speak to them in English.... Many French people are much more friendly when they are sure that you aren't from the US or UK - I guess they don't like all your French jokes ;)
This is a hack meant to make the open source community look like idiots and to get back at them for attacks against MIT for their own patent suit. They are seeking funds though, and this may constitute mail fraud.
You have to remember this is the country where the duck hunters go on strike, and the prime meridian runs through Paris, and Napoleon was victorious at Waterloo.
Don't worry too much about it.
I'd rather send the English version than a bad French translation...
If they're into the world of money management, they speak english. And probably german as well. They may be snobs, but money speaks volumes.
;-)
And they're not from Quebec, after all
--
--
There is no premature anti-fascism. -Ernest Hemingway
They should definitely sue Leonaro DiCaprio. He's got nerves, using THEIR trademarked name as his first name! Also, he's got a helluva lot of money and should be worth suing.
:)
I guess a crazy world has lots of suing potential
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
Now THERE's something to patent. Me first!
yeah, i just posted that to get my karma up from -8. hehe, worked too. now i'm at -5
We had kinda the same prob in Sweden as a musician tried to have the name "Absolut" on his latest cd.. And some company claimed to own the name Absolut and i dunno what happend later on but that s not the point.. The point is that this is getting WAY out of hand. Someone should try and rethink the patent system. It doesnt work as it should.
- "May the force be with you..."
Well, there is a link on the MIT page. If it is a hoax then it's in incredibly bad taste: if you go to the Leonardo Finance page you'll see that these are very nice people. I quote: Thirty of them are graduates of the Stanford Business School in California. and furthermore they have high aims: The "shareholder-experts" are free and independent, but they all share the same values : market economy, belief in the individual, creativity and innovation. Leonardo Finance consequently constitutes a formidable source of ideas, capital, competence and contacts, and thus represents one of the principal European centers of expertise dedicated to the creation of wealth. Compare that to the organization at MIT which: serves the international art community by providing a channel of communication for artists and others interested in the arts, with an emphasis on artists who use science and developing technologies in their work. Where do they think the money comes from?
Let's keep to the topic and avoid racist comments from the relative comfort of cowardly anonymity. They're not doing this because they're French, they're doing it because they're idiots, and if they are allowed to get away with it, so will everyone else, which means every company, no matter what language they speak, will be filing lawsuits based on the results of search engines.
PS. Don't use BabelFish to translate stuff into French unless you know enough French to check the output, it makes lots of silly mistakes.
PPS. I can't believe someone moderated the previous post up as being funny.
Salocin.com
I don't know where wired got it from, but this article on Etoys references the Leonardo problem http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,33189,00 .html The article is about a rally to protest against Etoys. A quote from the article: "Also appearing at the event was Jack Ox, a New York-based editorial advisor for Leonardo, a scholarly review published by MIT Press now facing a similar suit to the one challenging etoy. Transasia Corporation has filed suit in Nanterre, France, against Association Leonardo, the non-profit arts organization that produces the journal, for trademark infringement. The company is claiming more than US$1 million in damages in lost revenue." ulf
Read the article - they are suing someone that they *found* through a search engine. In fact, I have no idea why the article author felt the need to even mention how they found out about it. The fact that it was found via a search engine is fairly irrelevant to the story.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
This about sums it up - why don't the businesses shift -their- paradigm?
:) You don't think that doing business online represents a major paradigm shift for businesses that have been traditionally strictly brick-and-mortar? Businesses have done enough to change their basic practices. It's time for the rest of us to accomodate their needs.
:)
You're joking, right?
However, they are buying this broadband access for *themselves*.
True, but they are paying a premium price for it, and they are paying (for the most part) companies that also provide individual users with individual access. There is no way that you and I could enjoy the network infrastructure that allows us to download Quake 3 if it were not for the businesses that Internet service providers make the bulk of their income from.
And you can rest assured that when a company pulls a stunt such as this lawsuit, I have already made up my mind not to give them my business.
At this point I feel that it is my obligation to point out that I am indeed trolling, and that I think this lawsuit is one of the stupidest things that I have ever heard (if the story is accurate.) The Gestapo tactics of the police are particularly disturbing. I agree with you; Leonardo Finance will be getting none of my business for the forseeable future.
Please don't be too mad at me.
Well, I'm adding a META tag with leonardo about a hundred times in it to all of my pages now... and submitting them to be catlogged by all of the search engines I can find.
im starting to wonder if alot of the larger corperations had a hand in the patent laws. alot of these claims are just stabs at the little guy to take out any potential competition. hey what better way to take out your competition then to throw a patent suit for X million dollars? if you ask me, patents never were meant to be applied over the internet, and should be overhauled by internet experts, not corperate powermongers.
A better french translation could be:
-----
Subject: Vous êtes des personnes horribles!
Je suis consterné de voir la réclamation en dommages que votre compagnie a fait à l'association Leonardo.
Votre compagnie ne peut posséder le nom Leonardo pas plus que pape Jean-Paul II ne peut posséder le nom Jean-Paul! Ce que vous avez fait est une très mauvaise pratique et doit être puni. Votre compagnie mérite d'être mise en banqueroute pour avoir commis un acte si mauvais!
Je m'assurerai que tous ceux que je connais évitent de faire affaire avec votre compagnie.
----
A Canadian frog pissed off by French frogs... 8)
GFK's
You may have been trolling, but it was a half decent debate. A few good points were made, on both sides, and a good debate before bedtime clears the evil spirits out :)
Cheers,
GC
If anyone sees a link to a news story, acknowlegement by Leonardo Finance, etc, PLEASE put up a link to it.
"Reality is less than television."-Brian Oblivion
(Paris, 1999/12/23)
After its successful lawsuit against ``Association Leonardo'' for illegal use of the trademark ``Leonardo'', and somehow managing to be placed higher than them in web search results, Leonardo® Finance filed a suit against the famous on-line discussion forum ``slashdot'' this morning for commenting on the matter without acknowledging the fact that the term ``Leonardo'' was a registered trademark of Leonardo® Finance. They claim $42 billion damages due to the massive slashdot readership, and legal experts all agree that slashdot is sure to be found guilty as charged.
``This is terrible,'' is reported to have said slashdot creator CmdrTaco, ``I have no choice but to close the site. This means I'll never be able to pay the damage.''
After this, Leonardo Finance is expected to sue the gli Uffizi museum in Florence for showing paintings of the Renaissance painter Leonardo® da Vinci without duly acknowledging Leonardo® Finance's ownership of the trademark. ``We will probably settle for the paintings themselves;'' said a representative of the finance firm; ``by rights they should be ours, anyway.''
Leonardo® da Vinci was unreachable for comments.
This whole thing is outrageous enough that I really doubt it's veracity. I did a search of the leonardo site, and came up with a couple of interesting things. If you do a search based on the word lawsuit, you get three hits, one of them being this page:s t/spec.projects/karnow.html
http://mitpress.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/isa
check it out.
it has some really good thoughts on exactly the issues we are all discussing.
I wonder what their response is going to be when doing a web-search for "Leonardo" comes up with a bunch of "Leonardo Finance is a bunch of fascist bastards" websites.
What about something like these:
"Dear Leonardo Finance Management,
I happily inform you that you were just chosen from millions and already got into the famous IQ40 Club! Let us congratulate you on this occasion and assure you that if you will be persistent in the legal battle against Leonardo/ISAST, then you have pretty good chances to get into the IQ20 Club as well!"
or:
"Dear Mgmt,
Thank you for your interest in our training courses. Unfortunately we do not offer these "Ethical and Intelligent Business Practices" for those who are presently place themselves in the bottom 1% on our "ethical values/intelligence" scale. We forwarded your application to our medical sister organization. If your treatment is successful we hope we can serve you in the future, so please reapply in 2010."
I do not advocate parental abuse of children but if the fathers of these humans were beaten up their kids when they had spit on the Mona Lisa poster in the local art museum, then it would have been a great service to us all.
Matyas
Read their pages. The police didn't take their stuff... They "only" took copies of all documents with the word "Leonardo" in.
If this story can be independently substantiated, then I will go a long way to believe this company is foolish and/ or setting a dangerous precedent. But I am sure this doesn't represent the views of everybody in France so I don't think the above Anonymous Coward's opinion is that useful. Hey Slashdot, moderate the racism, please.
I hope it's not like the old "Computer Associates Systems Helpline" scam where you end up making the check out to "CASH".
According to altavista, slashdot *does* come up first... second.. third and so on. Not until the 10th item shows up does it not directly reference the infamous .org. So what would happen if all of a sudden people started naming their kids slashdot who grow up to start their own web sites called slashdot. Heck, why not slashdot inc? Would lawyers come a callin' and shut our beloved flame war(s)? Even if this is a hoax/publicity stunt/joke/real thing, givining more attention that it deserves will probably encourage others to follow the lead and start sueing people with the letter 'M' in their name (Looks the Muhammeds (sp?) of the world would get triple strikes! [not to mention being the most common name in the world...] ouch!) How long will it be before we're all called by our designations, such as CRM114, THX1138, LUH3417 and others? (Oh damn, now *I'm* gonna get sued!)
It would be nice if you could post that letter somewhere that others can review it and if agree then their name, email address etc. could be added at the bottom.
I think it would be more shocking then a few hundred seperate e-mail.
By the way if someone wishes to write about
- the one-1-click patent
- etoy lawsuit
then I am interested to join in those too.
What about setting up a web page where I can click on "support this action" and then it automatically sends an e-mail every day (or every time hundred new supporter signs up) to the appropriate address with the names?
I should patent this idea!! (Before some bozo does it...)
Matyas
Idiot. The french are silly now, but they were a primary reason we whomped the brits. They helped us get a country in the first place. After the 1800s, they sort of fell apart... but so did the rest of europe.
Hey, you're the assistant madman.
The MIT group should be penalized for some absent-minded client surfing around and forgetting his original purpose?
Partially, yes, but that's not exactly the point. As I said, the unspecified search engine should also be held liable to some degree. This isn't all that far-fetched, if you think about it. How many times have you gotten side-tracked on the Web and forgotten what you were originally looking for? How often is what you were originally looking for a commercial site? How much revenue do you suppose that adds up to, if you figure it up for all forgetful Web surfers? We're talking major money here, folks.
So, according to you, the only use for the 'modern internet' is to allow corporations to make as much money as they can and trample the rights of others (who are not even in the same business)?
Corporations have rights too, you know. And I don't think it's particularly outlandish to suggest that these rights be given to these corporations who are, after all, footing the bill. Nobody is saying that non-corporate Web sites should suffer or have their rights trampled, but it might be best to take steps to limit their visibility, particularly when people are explicitly looking to do business online.
The internet was originally designed for *information sharing* (first by the DoD, then it was by scientists/universities), not corporate greed, and personally, I think it may be better off without corporate lawyers getting into the fray and suing everyone within arms length (and on the net, that can be a damn long arm).
Okay, fair enough. Truth be told, I'm not a real big fan of lawsuits anyway. How about this: if we could get all major search engines to sign agreements to return corporate Web matches first, before non-corporate matches, wouldn't that solve a lot of these major problems? After all, a user is more likely to click on the links that show up at the top of the list. Therefore, if search engines would agree to return
We could order them this way:
- .com
- .net
- .org
- .edu
- .gov
- .mil
- others in arbitrary order
Commercial sites hosted in other nations with their own nation domain (i.e., ".uk") would have to be factored in as well. I think this is a pretty fair-minded solution to this dilemma, and would make life easier for everybody on the net.Trademarks are specific to particular types of trade, e.g. if you have a trademark for Leonardo scissors it does not conflict with a trademark for Leonardo journals.
That's the reason why this lawsuit is completely baseless - there is no possibility of confusion in the mind of a consumer between Leonardo journals and Leonardo Finance.
It seems to me that under the circumstances, the major search engines might be amenable to requests from Slashdot readers that perhaps Leonardo Finance be removed from their databases.
DAILY ROTATION
This claim is just BS. One cannot give reasonable doubt to whether the complainant really believed that this was anything but BS. If they called the police and accused someone of some crime, which the police investigated, they would be guilty of wasting police time, which is a crimal offence in the UK. If it is true that the US police took part in a raid on MIT or whatever, these people should be facing ten in the pen for making cops do this crap when they could have been doing something useful like catching someone guilty of a violent crime...
logan
And is it right about now?
/. itself.
Where are the alternate sources?
Where is the confirmation?
I wonder if this, despite Roblimo's protests, is really a 'social hack' of
Toss some scraps out, watch the feeding frenzy. Sit back and laugh at the stimulus-response behavior.
... has been all use of helicopters, submarines and viewing of the Mona Lisa. LF has also made a claim on these stating that the inventor/artist Leonardo Davinci was infringing upon their namesake :) ...
...
/.
... indeed, all helicopter flights are grounded until this has been resolved
this *HAS* to be fake, wake up
I don't even see these guys in the first 5 or 6 pages of results (I quit counting...)
This is unbelievably ludicrous. Is this a hoax?
And the earth is flat.
Ok, so I am cynical but what the fuck?
This is almost too absurd to be true.
Someone should confirm this. If it is true, then give them bloodly hell!
If it's not, this will be seen as an overreaction, and Slashdot readers will lose crediblity.
Can anyone back this up?
Right now there seems to be only one source.
History will be very kind indeed to the United States... because we'll be the ones writing the history. We will conquer your peoples and scatter you to the winds, and leave not one stone atop another. Your children, who already beg to wear our clothes and sing our songs and worship our corporate icons, will be filled with joy to become our helots.
Your culture will whither and be forgotten, and none will be left to mourn your passing.
Have a nice day.
This is almost funny to the point of seeming completely fake, but after reading about the police raid it literally makes me want to vomit. This has got to be the stupidest lawsuit I've ever heard of.
;)
Why doesn't this corporation sue Leonardo DiCaprio for millions because he's using their trademark as his first name?
Why don't they demand every original work of Leonardo Davinci's, since he's done the same, and compounded interest based on the years the works haven't been in their possession compared to the appreciation the works have gained over such time?
If I go out and trademark the word "the" or "and", does that mean I can sue every publishing house and website in existence for all the money in the world, and especially the search engines since they don't even use my trademarked word(s) in their search routines?
Should we sue all those sites that put false META tags in their pages so that they can get the top hits from a search engine? (actually, this would be useful
What disgusts me most is that the police actually carried out the raid. THIS IS INSANE! If I were an officer and someone handed me an order to take a bunch of my colleagues and break into an 80 year-old woman's house to confiscate pieces of paper with the word "Leonardo" printed on them, I'd laugh at the joke - but not much, because it'd seem TOO STUPID. Upon finding its reality I'd simply turn in my badge and give looks of pity at the utter stupidity of those who actually carried out the order.
That's about all I care to say... After all, I don't want some corporation suing me for billions of dollars based on "slander" that was posted on a website (heaven forbid, the Internet has such possibilities?!). Then again, I did use that trademarked word a couple times in my post, so I can probably already be fined a few million dollars and look forward to a SWAT team crashing through my front door to show me the world wide web on my own home PC! WOOHOO!
"Try that in Windows!"
You know Meow Pawjects dosn't show up on search engens.. [It's a work in progress I'm amazzed Google mirrors an early early test page]
Maybe I should sue all those lovly cat websites that come up when you search the word "Meow"...
I seem to rember IBM sending a polite legal letter to everyone with the letters IBM in there domain name asking them to stop...
so ishbaIBMna.com would get a letter but sIjBkMf.com wouldn't
Oh well... the legal system is still a tad clueless where computers are conserned.
What really urks me is right now the Patent office isn't verifying patents they are just issuing them and letting lawsutes sort them out.. Gee fragging thanks... it's to deal with the flood of pattent applications they have been getting lately...
All thies anal applications of IP law have to stop.. Someone want to run for office or something?
I don't actually exist.
of course you are all right. I should have put in a disclaimer, like:
(!is_hoax()) ? "spam, META, etc" : "Send kudos to MIT";
Can your IM do this?
The lawsuit is not against the journal based at MIT. It is against the French non-for-profit organization ``Association Leonardo'', the French chapter of the Leonardo Network.
See this page for more details. As it is hosted by MIT Press, I don't think the whole affair is BS.
Do we actually need laws to stop these people from bringing stupid lawsuits up? I hate to say it, but at the rate things are going, we might need a little government control to smack these companies around. Someone needs to propose some kind of bill to stop this BS. As much as I hate government control, this seems like the only way to stop this type of action, which is most certainly against the spirit of the net, is through the government or the legal system.
:).
What we need in this country is a "loser pays" civil litigation system. That way innocent defendats don't waste money on legal fees, and trigger happy prosecutors have more to think about before filing cases. Trial lawyers sure don't like this, which means we HAVE to do it
Alexander Beyn
Let's say that this is not a fraud. This is going to be the easiest protest ever on the net.
You don't have to worry about flooding an ip - just stick the word Leonardo in the keywords on all your pages!
After all, what would they do? Sue all of us?
This as an idea?
If everybody here sent one registration any (and every) search engine registering something with Leonardo in the name (surely there are enough Leonardo websites out there!!) then that would rather spoil Transasia Corporation's attempt to be at the top, which would rather invalidate their claim.
They can't sue everybody!
----
Overdue payments on your student loan. We've come to repossess your education.
The Chairman of the board of directors email address is the first email address listed in their contact page. Interesting posibilities...
The reaction your friend got could be because they simply couldn't understand her dialect. In some places in Wales and Scotland, the English they speak is completely incomprehensible to my American ears (French is easier to understand). Perhaps this is similar.
Or it could be that your friend just had the misfortune of running into a bunch of really obnoxious French people (like the people that run Leonardo Finance apparently are).
"Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it."
--Henry David Thoreau
Now, if you look in the middle sort of three-quarters of the way up you'll find another funny shaped bit that's called 'Europe'. In Europe there's a country called 'France'. Now the bit that you may not have noticed is this: it isn't part of the United States of America. Furthermore, the people there fart in the general direction of your Supreme Court. They think that your president is a hamster and that your senate smells of elderberies. In short, they're FRENCH .
Now the point about this story is it happens in France. The people there are French. The goodies in this story are French. The baddies are French. Even the bold Gendarmes are French.
Messing about with American tort law, or sending American execs who break American laws to American prisons, is going to worry them not one little bit.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
The language spoken here in Quebec is not more "pure" than the one spoken in France. It just has not changed in the same way it did in France. We use some English words when speaking technical. For example, i would never said an "octet" for a byte or an UCT (Unite centrale de traitement) for a CPU when French would use them. The same way the French use "week-end" and we use "fin de semaine".
There is still lots of regionalism here, especially in rural area. In my experience, the difference in "sonority" betwen region in Quebec is less than in France but YMMV.
1. This event supposedly occured Novemeber 18th
2. Leonardo Online has a press release dated December 20th
3. Leonardo Online is the only site to mention this
4. The sister site that exists in France has no mention of it.
5. Theres nothing on any news engines. WHich means either they aer slow (which is actually rare), or dismissed this story for some reason.
6. Trying to do a search for 'Leonardo' barely ever shows *EITHER* of these companies.
7. Leonardo Finance is a VC company for hightech biz in France. Last I knew, companies looking for VC usually have much better routes than search engines.
8. It probably would be cheaper than the cost of the lawyers/court appearances to simply 'buy' the namespace in the search engine and show full blown ads.
Are they going to bring a suit naming all the museums in Italy as defendants? How about the Louvre? And what about the Ninja Turtles?
What is the precedent here? I'm afraid there probably is none. This is the absolutely scary part of stories of this nature. Legal sytems in our western Lockeian traditon all work on precedent. Once a case has been decided in a specifice way, it guides the decisions of Jurists in future cases. It is difficult for an attorney to get a judge to break precedent.
./ et al have in disseminating bunk/pulling pranks? I know the answer to the latter but not the former.
We live in precedent making times. This sort of case is wide open. What can we do to see that our precious internet (anyone remember the glorious BBS days and mom and dad yelling about the call to Germany?) is not forever ruined by archaic ideas of property rights? Whether this proves true, it scares me. Many of us, many intelligent people are at least scared it's true. That is enough to prove that we at least live in times where it could be true. And that is enough to make me lose sleep.
We should, I think explore the bounds of civil disobedience and protest on the electronic frontier. Rights are every day taken away. The internet will be turned into a strip mall and a conduit for anonymous investigation of the public if we simply stand by. I am appalled, and simply stunned at things like the etoy/etoys debacle and this, if it should prove true.
On the even keeled side however, I'd like to know:
a) what sort of laws are in place to allow this sort of action?
b) what sort of judge would issue a search warrant in a civil case, especially one brought by a foreing entity?
c) what record does this journal and
d) who else noted this site is running NT? Hope they have all of their patches up to date.
Gerard Prenant
Leonardo Finance
12 av Georges V
75008 Paris
phone: +33 47 20 24 88
fax-no: +33 49 52 01 0
HAHAHAHAHA and are you going to hold your breath until it happens.... :)
Assuming this not to be a hoax.
Outline of plan to get Leonardo Finance lost in search engine clutter:
1) Set up a web page with lots of references to Leonardo and his influence on finance, don't forget to add Leonardo and Finance into the meta tags/ descriptions, then submit the web page to every search engine you know about!
2) Sit back and enjoy the fun!
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
There's probably some Trojan horse or virus out there that will check html docs for the word "Leonardo", then trash everything... Part of some elaborate plot to rule the world or something.
Well, it seems just as likely as the main story eh?
I'm with you. It's pretty clear that, whatever you think of trademarking the name 'Leonardo', the arts foundation got there first. While I was at University in Lancaster, the International Committee of the Red Cross was having a campaign to stop other organisations using the name 'red cross' and served a 'cease and desist' notice on the Red Cross Inn in Lancaster. The inkeeper turned round and pointed out that the Red Cross Inn (founded, like most other pubs of the same name, by a returning crusader) had been trading under that name for more than seven hundred and fifty years, and politely asked how long they'd been using it. The ICRC retired hurt.
I don't think Leonardo Finance are in a good legal position here, under any country's laws (although I confess I'm no expert on France). What's more interesting is what the Gendarmerie were up to. If you tried that sort of thing on a Scottish policeman he'd say 'civil matter, none of my business' and send you on your way.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
They have infringed your wife's corporate sovereignty. Therefore, she is justified under all the Laws of God and Nature in using lethal force to correct the imbalance.
This is merely simple common sense. If the French company chooses to bomb Kendall Square back into the Stone Age, they will be perfectly within their rights in doing so. If, however, they also bomb Central Square, or Cambridgeport, or the Smoot Bridge, they will clearly have crossed that thin and diffuse boundary which separates honest businessmen from war criminals. Should the blast radius extend as far as the Plough and Stars, their names will live in infamy for a thousand thousand years, and their vile souls will rot in hell for a great deal longer. However, it should be a trivial matter just to take out MIT and leave the rest of Cambridge intact. I am not concerned. MIT is a swamp of mercantilist socialism and government handouts, not to mention the cryptic and aromatic villain Richard Stallman. They hardly deserve to live.
If they first thought of trademarking the name "Leonardo", then it is theirs, just as the American continent belongs wholly and in perpetuity to the first human beings ever to set foot there, namely English-speaking Anglo-Saxon Protestants (the so-called "Indians" never existed). The name "Leonardo" existed for centuries, but not as a trademark. Therefore, it must be considered to have been "unknown" in law, and therefore nonexistent or at best meaningless.
Please think of all the ramifications of these things before you spout off. It seems to me that this French company would have an absolutely unimpugnable moral justification if they cared to assassinate a certain well-known young actor. Would that really be such a terribly bad thing?
May God Bless Our Cause
History is filled with small minded individuals who decide that everyone but themselves is stupid. A bunch of Americans, or Frenchman, or Russians, or whoever won't be remember for that trait alone. It's too common. Acting whiny and beligerent won't do it either; you have to kill a lot of people while doing it.
This is yet another striking example of French juris prudence. Its easy to see why the Philadelphia district attorney is so upset with the French courts, for not returning a convicted murderer who fled the US over 20 years ago. http://www.newsweek.com/nw-srv/issue/09_99a/printe d/us/na/na0809_1.htm "And I want the letter 'M' striken from the English alphabet." - Steve Martin
I seem to remember McDonalds successfully suing McSleep (a motel) and McTeeth (a dentist) at the end of the 80's. It's not like America is actually known for its sane court cases.
But this is really over the top.
*borkborkbork*
...is it even possible to trademark a person's name?
Well, David Bowie had an IPO, so why not?
"Look, I own three shares of David Bowie's left nostril!"
I did a web search for "Leonardo" on Lycos and Yahoo....all I got were a bunch of Leonardo Di Caprio websites. Why don't they just go and sue that little fairy?
This reminds me of the series of Microsoft Bob jokes about lawsuits against guys named Bob.
Anyone heard the latest on LEONARDO DiCaprio? Word on the street is he's making a new movie that chicks are sure to dig. Unfortuately, girls, there's bad news too: rumors are flying about a hookup between LEONARDO and Britney Spears. What a hot couple. I bet they'll be together forever!
My, it's been a while since the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were popular. In my opinion, Splinter was the coolest character, but he was surely closely followed by LEONARDO!
Here's a little fun little-known fact for you readers out there: LEONARDO the turtle's name was inspired by an artist/scientist from waaaaaaay back in the rennaisance named LEONARDO DaVinci! You might have heard of him.
My, there's been a lot of talk about people named LEONARDO in today's column hasn't there. Well, here's another fun fact about the name LEONARDO: The name LEONARDO, a close relative of Leo, Leonard, and Leon, means "Like a Lion".
Let's hope the lions, er, lawyers, aren't sent after me because of this column. Time will tell, dear readers. Time will tell.
--
grappler
Vidi, Vici, Veni
This is not an MIT prank. I blew up when I saw the submission because I have always *liked* Leonardo and ISAST - and because the idea of suing over search engine placement is a new low.
I'm sorry that so many Slashdot readers took this as an opportunity to knock the French. Leonardo was founded in France, and ISAST is as international as, well, Linux. One dumb company and a few over-reaching French cops don't reflect on the whole country any more than some of the obnoxious moves made by U.S. Government agencies and U.S. companies reflect on all U.S. citizens.
I'm going to spend the rest of the night shaking my head and asking myself, "What is this world coming to?"
Note "the world." All of it, not any particular country. ;-)
- Robin
Actually, this applies more to the French spoken in Quebec than to the french spoken in say the praries of Canada. Most of my french teachers in high school were from Belgium and France, thus my french was more "pure" than french in quebec. It also makes it very hard for me to speak with people from Quebec.
Fun fact: St. Boniface, a part of Winnipeg, is the largest French community in Canada outside of Quebec.
...He'd die of lead poisoning.
For Europeans who want to donate to the legal fund: according to Roger Malina of the Leonardo Association, you can send a Eurocheque in French Francs to
Association Leonardo,
8 Rue emile Dunois,
92100 Boulogne sur Seine,
France
This will avoid money being wasted in exchanging money into US dollars then into francs.
Yes, this particular action happened in France, but equivalent stupidities happen here, there, and everywhere.
The major problem has to do with changes in the ways the folk (or a least men) think happen when they start to feel powerful (i.e., able to bully). I have observed this both in others and in myself. It's a built-in part of human nature. I believe that it also occurs in groups of other apes, but have no direct evidence.
So: The need is to redesign the system so that there are no large centralizations of authority, but without loosing efficiency. Coming up with a good design sounds like a doctoral work for a large team of system engineers. Implementation...
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Would it be possible to attach a print button to various letters, so that one could at least display them in printer-friendly format?
The way this web-page is formatted (perl I quess) I can't even save it-edit it-print the results.
This (above) is one I would have liked to show to my wife.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
The reality of this whole issue is that its a french lawsuit, in france. Its a search of a french business location by french police. It really only has to do with france! Even if this rediculous case goes through its still only really important in france.
Thoguh it does set an ugly tone to an already ugly world.
It was to avoid prosecutions, but it was the stockholders that were being shielded. I think the idea was that since they had no direct connection to what the corp. was doing that they shouldn't be held responsible.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Wired Which someone mentioned. I did a search on altavista, google, hotbot, ask, webcrawler, excite and newsreal. Not one other mention of this story. I can't believe that only wired picked this up.
I also won't believe the web site for it's word.
"Loser pays" has problems of its own. Let's say Amalgamated Megacorp is screwing you over by dumping toxic waste in your swimming pool. You take them to court, but because they have millions to spend on O.J.'s legal team and the Chewbacca defense, you lose. You now have to pay their legal costs. You end up bankrupt, ruined, living on the street in a cardboard box.
Ah, but in cases like this, one can use the court of public opinion - with videos of the dumping - which doesn't have as much potential for backfire. (As for any potential lawsuits from AM about "slander" from these tactics: the law is the law. If you're just posting the facts that you have witnessed, it doesn't matter *how* much they pay, they have a much lesser chance of getting a judgement against you, especially if you demand a jury trial.)
Once the CoPO has run its way, then file a lawsuit, and you'll probably be able to attract enough donations to counter AM's monetary advantage.
If there ruling on this goes the wrong way, I think I may just go live in a cabin in Montana for the rest of my life. The stupidity of the human race is just _way_ too much to handle sometimes.
This seems to be a bad idea. The essence of the case is that Transasia's trademark is devalued by the existence of another organization using the word "Leonardo" on their website; thereby causing hits on a website not pointing to their corporate site.
By creating a case like this, they have given cause for their trademark to appear on numerous news, commentary, personal and support sites. Thereby further devaluing the patent.
It could just be me, but this seems to worsen their case.
DONT PANIC!!!
Seriously, what kind of damages could the journal expect to get for this harrassment if this goes to court and the judge rules that the complaint had no basis? Is there any way to stop the corporate lawyers from kiting these sorts of fringe (or downright wacky) IP claims?
When defending one's rights in court requires access to the mass media, surely we're in deep trouble. Legal proceedings, civil and criminal, are supposed to be about facts and law, not about who looks better or camera, or who can get the most airtime.
It's bad enough that you would have to hire high-priced lawyers, but under your scheme you'd have to hire video producers and publicists.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Suing over results in a search engine? Either someone at LF has been seriously misinformed or they need a serious talking to.
If this was an actual problem, wouldn't everyone have sued every other search engine over this by now? Eesh.
I'm quite fluent in French, and I think my IS deparment is going to have a word with their IS department. Want to get in touch with LF? Here you go for those who don't mind making international calls/faxes:
Tel: +33(1) 47 20 24 88
Fax: +33(1) 49 52 01 01
--
It's not an independant source, but the link to Leonardo Online tells their side of the story... nothing about the police raid except in the headline.
----
Has no-one noticed that Didier Benchimol, one of Leonardo Finance's Directors, is an ex-Netscape guy? I used to deal with him for press enquiries on an occaisional basis. Surely someone who used to work for Netscape should know better!
-- /. ID is lower than Bruce Perens'!
Barry de la Rosa,
public[at]bpdlr.org
My
.de == Germany
As if anyone, would take anything hubby wrote with a grain of salt......
When I search for 'Leonardo' on any given search engine, I pull up 50 million pages for Leonardo DiCaprio, 3 for Leonardo/ISAST, and 2 for Leonardo Finance. My question is, doesn't Leonardo DiCaprio have more money? They must not be a very smart finance firm...
Regardless of philosophies, Hubbard was an entertaining and thoughtful writer. Most people think Hubbard==scient*l**y and nothing more. Too bad for them. Granted, many people think he's a crackpot, but how many of them have read "Dianetics"? I haven't, so I don't claim to know. I wish others would be so honest.
I stand corrected.
Chris
San Francisco values: compassion, tolerance, respect, intelligence
here is more information on the raid, and a snippet:
----
Commercial sites hosted in other nations with their own nation domain (i.e., ".uk") would have to be factored in as well.
On the whole, I approve of your plan, but it lacks the decisive spark of genuinely original thought. Here are two minor provisos:
May God Bless Our Cause
Thats it, Im patenting the letter E. You all owe me millions, millions I tell you! Bwahahaha!
-=Bob
Gentlemen, this is Scorpio. I have the doomsday device!
IIRC, Ray Kroc created the franchise; the original store (which became popular due to its proliferation of shake machines) was founded by a couple of brothers called Mac and Dick McDonald. Which, incidentally, explains the name "Big Mac", even though Dick invented it.
I cant Beleive that this is happening, what is going to happen next, maybe we wont even be able to use any english words on our web pages.
What can we do, say if I a member of Joe Public, was threatened by some one like this, I would have no idea what to do.
"sometimes I wish I was blind I thought I saw a whole lot more than this"
I do a search for transasia on most major search engines and what they mostly come up with is an indian telecom or a shipping or cruise company based in europe (.de = denmark right?).
At anyrate, NO french companies, and NO finance companies anywhere.
How about some hard evidence to back this story up?
No unauthorized use. Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.
These guys don't have a clue. They went to business school - courses on common sense are optional and so un-cool...
They don't understand the internet.
They don't understand art.
For a while I had the trade use of the word "Infographic" so yes, here you can trademark generic words.
realkiwi
I'd just like to point out that the Leonardo art/science network is an offshoot of the Leonardo Journal. Which is the most interesting magazine I know of regarding the intersection of art & technology/science. This is a scholarly journal that's been around since 1968.
e .html
r ?open=The%20Arts
0 24094X
I urge you, if you see it at your local Barnes & Nobel, to pick it up if you're interested in the arts at all.
Here are the relevant URLs:
http://mitpress.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/hom
http://mitpress.mit.edu/journals.tcl#ARTS_ancho
http://mitpress.mit.edu/journal-home.tcl?issn=0
The subject basically says it. The company is suing, it feels rightfully, over trademark infringement, and as evidence of this it is using the search engine results to say, basically, "Look, this company is diluting our trademark!" It's an interesting excuse, that a search engine result could be used as evidence.
With that in mind, the search warrant seems odd, and what seems even odder is that it could be served. Does anyone know of any previous case history where the police needed to search a premises for trademark infringement? The only thing I could think of looking for is some sort of knowledge of the infringement which might incriminate. Normally, this information can be requested through a subpoena.
In any case, I thoroughly hope this actually goes to court. Slashdot is quick to jump on the case of anyone even bringing up a case like this, but I think the actual problem is that none of this has gone through the legal system yet. Once a few precedents get established (based on already established precedents, I might add, which will probably make it very easy for the Journal to win), less and less of these cases will come to trial, I bet.
Tell the coalition of plaintiffs to go through with the case. Then end the message with, "Ha ha. We need the precedent and you can look funny when you set it."
Could thier web server have just been cracked by some kiddie with an admirably twisted sense of humour?
I pulled these off of the contact page of the Leonardo Finance page:
Yves Delacour : yves.delacour@leonarofinance.fr
Franck Monnot : fmonnot@leonardofinance.fr
Valérie Virlouvet : valerie.virlouvet@leonardofinance.fr
slander = spoken word, which is offensive.. libel = written word, which is offensive... please correct me if i'm wrong...
When I translated my message back into English look what came out!
:-) )
:-)
I do not know what is erroneous with you!(Good) Just because somebody page of other reveals in an Internet search you must continue them. (was: just because someone else's page shows up in an internet search you sue them)
It is just badly ordinary.(I had "just plain wrong") My name is " Tim " so much now that I then to continue no matter whom whose Web site has "Tim on top " if I wanted to be like you for a certain strange stupid reason. (My name is Tim so now i can sue anyone who has a web site with "Tim" on it if i wanted to be like you for some weird, stupid reason.
I really hope that you obtain thrown out of the court and then continued to well behind be stupid delays with their heads pushed far to the top of the asses.(I hope that you are thrown out of court and then sued right back for being stupid retards with their heads shoved up their asses. - It got the shoved up the ass part
Also this letter would have many words of curse in it, but I do not know the French and me let us not think that the translator would obtain it through the line. (I wrote: This letter would have a lot of curse words in it but I do not think the translator would get it)
I was laughing my ass off when I saw what I had sent them. It only got the first sentence and the part about their heads shoved up their asses right... LOL. I retyped it and sent it in English with all the curse words in it
Infinity
oo = symbol for infinity
oo = oo + 1 (if u have infinity of something and get some more u still have infinity)
oo - oo = oo - oo + 1 (6th grade math - subtraction postulate)
0 = 1 (Hmm...)
It should be a good idea too confirm this before donating any money.
"Bernoulli was wrong. X proves that you can fill a vacuum, yet still it sucks." - Dennis Ritchie
>>...but McDonalds is a famous name, and it was >>created (I assume) by a guy named McDonald.
>Nope, Ray Kroc (sp?)
Actually, Ray Kroc bought the McDonald's restuarant from the McDonalds brothers way back when.
Alexander Beyn
Is there any sanity at all in the French goons attempting to get on-line from the widow's house? It seems an incredibly weird thing to do - what did they think it would prove? However, at a more general level I am interested to know what all those /. readers who defend the "defensive patenting" and the "it'll all fall out OK due to the 'invisible hand'" schools of thought have to say about it. Surely from those perspectives this is just a company (which is the driving force behind technology) securing a valued-property so that the original Leonardo(non-TM) users cannot exploit it?
From roblimo's post:
. I'm making a personal donation to the Leonardo Defense Fund, 425 Market Street, 2nd Floor, San Francisco, California, 94105, U.S.A. I strongly urge other Slashdot readers to take their own appropriate actions - short of lawbreaking or violence, of course.
From the post I am replying:
You aren't doing so hot where it counts. Stories about robots and the like are massively cool, but "strongly encouraging" me to send my money somewhere to defend against something I think is inane?
Now with both relevant sentences side to side i would like to ask bugzilla and all the moderators who believe this is worthy of a 5, where does roblimo strongly encourage anyone to send money...? he said he has sent money and strongly encourages every one to take appropriate action. Now since I am assuming that that slashdotters are generally of above average intelligence I feel stupid pointing out that all roblimo said is "I have sent money, do what you feel is right". Now unless everyone else on slashdot has been implanted with obedience chips or has had their logic circuits fried, how is this even mildly coercing people to send money? I would assume that the average slashdotter (i.e. geek, scientist, intelligent human being) is more individual than bugzilla and all the moderators who agreed with him think...and thus does not rush of to listen to the Who, or buy AIBOs or download Quake 1 source code simply because Roblimo or CmdrTaco suggests it. So why should they send money to some fund based on Rob's opinions only?
It seems that you are making the Slashdot a role model and are now complaining because you don't approve of this role model's behavior. Please stop this kind of thinking....I am already pissed at all the parents that have forced warning labels on everything I watch, listen to and read. We don't need that crap ( disclaimers and pseudo-censorship) on slashdot too. After all I had assumed that the slashdot readership was at least mature if not adult enough to take responsibility for their own actions.
I can't wait to stop seeing posts bitching about slashdot and its owners on this site. If you don't like it, leave, don't start fscking it up for us that are don't sweat the small stuff by posting you're view of how slashdot should be. If you feel that strongly about it...grab the source, create your own site, and stop bitching here.
Bad Command Or File Name
1) Odd little men in berets.
2) Women who can drink large men under the table.
3) Undercooked French Fries.
4) Disease ridden kisses.
5) Women who don't shave. Ever. Anywhere.
Come on folks, the truth is plain to see. The world would be a better place if France was a sea, not a nation.:-).
"God made rivers,
God made lakes,
God made France,
Well, we all make mistakes!"
Argghh!
We could order them this way:
1..com
2..net
3..org
4..edu
5..gov
6..mil
7.others in arbitrary order
And why the hell should we do that? Is there something that inherently superior in ".com" addresses? Or ".net" above ".org"?
That is completely absurd.
Stop this man, please.
You should drop a hint that you're being sarcastic... You are right ?
My wife has a hot sauce store "Sam McGees" So, by your line of reasoning, if her store does not popup number 1 on all the Search Engines for the key phase "Sam McGees" then by golly I get sue not only those lame Robert Service sites but each search engine also.
The next thing we know, we'll see them go after some nobody that runs's a website, who's first name just happens to be Leonardo.
This is got to be the most frivolous trademark lawsuit I have ever seen.
I'm not entirely sure, but is it even possible to trademark a person's name?
If so, we all had better run out and file those papers for our own first names, before some snot nosed bigass company beats us to it.
hi- this is roger malina- chairman of Leonardo/ ISAST in the USA. Transasia and Leonardo Finance have misinformed you a) just because an organisation includes people who got a degree from mit or standford doesnt mean that their company is associated with mit or standford b) Leonardo Journal is published by Leonardo/ISAST a US based non profit organisation - we have a contract with MIT Press (not MIT) and they print and distribute leonardo journal and host our web sites at mit press Association Leonardo in france which they have sued- is involved with the www.olats.org web site which is NOT hosted at mit press his claim that he wants to harm mit but not the artists is absurd our non profit organisations have nothing to do with mit- the university- their law suit will do irreparable harm to a non profit arts group maybe your email is a hoax ? It is so absurd on the cae of it roger
> Infinity
:-)
> oo = symbol for infinity
> oo = oo + 1
> oo - oo = oo - oo + 1 (6th grade math
> - subtraction postulate)
> 0 = 1 (Hmm...)
Uhhh, in my 6th grade math class, we would have gotten the following from your derivation.
oo = oo + 1
oo - oo = oo - (oo + 1)
0 = -1
Perhaps someone needs to retake 6th grade math?
If this is not flamebait: Please.... Entitled to damages, they are sueing an organization which has been around for 30 years when they have been around for a year. No the have no right to sue if they want to come up higher in a search engine than anyone else they can pay the search engines the premium fees that other corporations pay in order to come up on top of searches. The company has had the trademark for less than a couple of years which means that they did not do some great part of building the net as you say they and their lawyers are just plain net unsavy idiots period no question asked no questioning it is obvious. Normally I am not a big flamer but.... this is just dumb
Consider: the law is what some people have decided it should be. It is people that enforce and judge the law. Therefore, if you get enough of the right people on your side, the law will favor you.
Laws are supposed to substitute objective codes for individual preferences, and they do to some extent...but someone still has to decide what those codes are, and what they mean in your situation. To take just one example: Microsoft ticked off the judge in its antitrust case, so all of its arguments were ignored when it came time to decide the law.
Is this law, or is this marketing a point of view? The two do not appear to be as distinct as many would like.
Rather than DOS attacks, the best thing someone could do is get together and make pages that will score higher than the the plaintiffs pages with any search engine. Be sure you use any phrase you can think of with 'leonardo' in it in the title, body, and meta tags. And be sure to cross link them all so that it looks like there is a lot of interest in them. And be sure to change the date stamp daily so that it looks like a very active site. Just make sure that nothing from the plaintiff will show up in the first 100 entries of any result.
Woogie
This is silly ! These people deserved to be smacked in their faces with 50 lbs. unix manuals.
Question : why is the legal defense fund based in California, while the lawsuit is going to be in France ? If they'd set up a French address, I'd be happy to chip in.
superblog.org: all your favourite blogs on o
If a business is to survive on the net, they have to learn that the net is not a captive audience.
By creating and sustaining the Internet, businesses have more than earned the right to a captive audience. You benefit from their innovation. You have no right to spit in their eye. Do you really think the whole thing was created just to amuse you? If so, you are hopelessly narcissistic and sadly mistaken. If you act other than in the best interests of the economy, you are a destructive parasite and the sworn enemy of all good men. There is absolutely no reason and no precedent for the current state of affairs on the Internet. All summertime anarchies draw to a close. Reality sets in and we all have to grow up.
Welcome to the real world. This is the way of things in a free society: The people who own it will, quite rightly, do as they see fit, and you will best benefit by going along with the program. Your infantile so-called "individualism" is a passing phase. When you are older, you will understand your place in the world.
Only I choose whether to go to their site or not.
It is an unfortunate fact that present browsing software is not helpful to the consumer. These things can be improved, however, and inevitably will be improved. There is much innovation to be done. The crypto-Stalinist Klinton regime cannot put the breaks on forever.
May God Bless Our Cause
I have made a simple php/dns wildcard page that violates all this stuff at once (copyrights, metatags, libel, slander, and threats) all at once.
try
.really.fuckingsucks.net
where is say, Microsoft, or Bill.Gates, or Leonardo.Finance, etc.
The web host itself, of course, contains no copyright violations or any content at all, but clueless laywers probably can't tell the difference.
Sorry if i dont put an ACTUAL url here, but i might get sued.
This lawsuit madness has reached epic proportions recently. As a friend of mine puts it, whenever anybody get's mad, you get "sue-age of the legal variety". And it sure does stink.
A while ago we saw a petition against taxes and levies on blank CDs. I think now we need a petition for patent reform. This is just getting too low!
There's no reason for a sig here.
"Loser pays" has problems of its own. Let's say Amalgamated Megacorp is screwing you over by dumping toxic waste in your swimming pool. You take them to court, but because they have millions to spend on O.J.'s legal team and the Chewbacca defense, you lose. You now have to pay their legal costs. You end up bankrupt, ruined, living on the street in a cardboard box.
Given the possibility of having to pay millions for your opponent's legal fees, average citizens are unlikely to bring suits against the rich and powerful even if their case has merit.
What do prosecutors have to do with civil litigation? Although that's an interesting idea, making the state liable for defendant's legal fees if a prosecution fails.Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
That's what we should tell them.
oops. slashdot munged my post due to my use of gt and lt.
repost:
I have made a simple php/dns wildcard page that violates all this stuff at once (copyrights, metatags, libel, slander, and threats) all at once.
try
(something).really.fuckingsucks.net
where (something) is say, Microsoft, or Bill.Gates, or Leonardo.Finance, etc.
The web host itself, of course, contains no copyright violations or any content at all, but clueless laywers probably can't tell the difference.
Sorry if i dont put an ACTUAL url here, but i might get sued.
I have sent the following email to the contact addresses listed on the Leonardo Finance web site:
I urge you to abandon your shortsighted persecution of Association Leonardo. The kindest light in which your actions could be viewed would be to suppose that you undertook your lawsuit out of ignorance of the true nature of the organization you were attacking. Surely entrepreneurial energy is not incompatible with art and art scholarship? How on Earth can your reconcile the vicious legal attack you have launched on a prestigious academic arts organization with values you claim for yourself on your web site? To the above excerpt from your web site should be added the following qualifying statement:
Your attempts to stifle artistic freedom are bound to fail in any civilized court of law. In the meantime, you are doing irreparable harm to your reputation. Please reconsider your ill-advised actions in this matter.
Sincerely,
Howard Owen
hbo@egbok.com
Howard Owen hbo@egbok.com Everything's Gonna Be OK Consulting
"Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there" - Will Rogers
I guess this is the beginning of the end. It's a sad day when you can't even mention a word that a certain company may deem innapropriate. The following is taken from the article:
Transasia is claiming over a million dollars in damages based on their claim that a search engine request using the word "Leonardo" brings up not only their web sites but also those of the Leonardo arts organization.
The suit asks that the Association Leonardo be forbidden from using the word "Leonardo" in its web site projects or any other products or services.
Does anyone else feel threatened by this? If I should put slanderous remarks on my webpage about the shoddiness of M$ products should I expect the men in blue to knock on my door? I understand that there are certain things you can't say (such as yelling 'FIRE' in a crowded movie theatre), but isn't this going a little bit too far?!
I'm sitting at my desk at Microsoft right now and I just did a search on 'microsoft'. Lo and behold, I saw non-microsoft sites pop up. Now Microsoft definitely IS a valid trademark, and I think you lot are definitely infriging. This is your official cease and desist notice. NO PUTTING THE WORD MICROSOFT ON A PAGE THAT WILL BE INDEXED BY A SEARCH ENGINE. FAILURE TO COMPLY WILL RESULT IN DEATH BY ANAL ELECTROCUTION. You have been warned.
--Shoeboy
Actually, I think it'd have more to do with the fact that Good Leonardo(tm) has ties in France where Bad Leonardo(tm) is too.
And, I'm guessing, leonardo.com probably doesn't, thought I haven't double-checked this.
Good... bad... I'm the one with the gun.
ProofReading Markup Language - and yes, I find typos.
In some places in Wales and Scotland, the English they speak is completely incomprehensible to my American ears.
Don't worry.. it's often incomprehensible to most English ears too.
You need to have a lot of money to back up your obsurd claims.
Hit 'em hard and hit 'em NOW!
:)
-=chiphead
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
trademarked the words: sex, mp3, christmas, Michaelangelo, porn, xxx, and cabbage. Anyone who even breathes these words will come under the wrath of my legal department. Since these words have been used millions of times in the past month I'm going to have to insist on suing everyone who uses them for several million dollars. These expenses will cover the surgery I need to remove my head from within my asshole. Thank You, Graymalkincorporated.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Leonardo Finance does have a trademark on "Leonardo Finance". They have no rights to the word Leonardo alone. That is owned by a number of companies in different industries from graphic cards to motorcycle parts.
The fact that a police raid has allegedly been conducted is extremely troubling. IMHO this leaves Leonardo Finance open to a series of lawsuits from everyone including the widow, MIT, The State of Mass., etc... The allegation having no apparent merit, the warrant should never have been granted. In the US these search warrants can be rubberstamped by choosing the right judge. May want to sue him as well.
MIT does not have a good track record in these cases, but just maybe they'll stand up for this journal. I wouldn't count on it...MIT admin is the dying grounds for old technocratic cowards.
The stupidity of people never ceases to amaze me.. That claim is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard... I can kind of understand the domain name thing but owning a "trademark" (on a commonly used name at that!) and expecting it to uniquely appear in a public search engine is crazy.. I can't wait to see this one flop in court... -juice
http://perso.infonie.fr/art.leonardo/assos.htm My French is dismal, I haven't studied it in years, but I know that (so far anyway) there isn't anything on their webpage about what's going on, and there may never be, but there is the page. Perhaps a Canadian brother can translate the pages for us and give us more of a clue about what's going on on the web page. Also, a search of fr.yahoo.com/actualities brought up nothing on this. So perhaps this is a hoax, or everyone's keeping their yap shut. either way, interesting story. -M
This needs to be a wake up call to everyone that companies will do anything to put themselves into a position where they can sue someone else.
Does Leonardo Finance think that they have the right to sue someone because their page shows up in the same search query? This is beyond belief, and it will be even more rediculous if this goes ANYWHERE in court.
Do we actually need laws to stop these people from bringing stupid lawsuits up? I hate to say it, but at the rate things are going, we might need a little government control to smack these companies around. Someone needs to propose some kind of bill to stop this BS. As much as I hate government control, this seems like the only way to stop this type of action, which is most certainly against the spirit of the net, is through the government or the legal system.
I'm sure most Slashdotters are quite sick of this type of action, but it seems our protests aren't doing anything to help. We need to tell the legal system that we expect all behavior of this type to be thrown out immediately.
It seems we're already losing the patent battle, with Amazon's suit being held in court. This is the next step, with companies suing eachother of lame stuff like this. I'm wondering where it will stop, if it does.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
I am that consumer.
I went out to get an item, I have since forgotten what it was now though, alas.
See, I walked downtown and there were all these horribly distracting shops and I just couldn't help myself. I went into one. Then another. And then another. And browsed and browsed and occasionally even made purchases.
Then, horrors, I chanced to meet an old friend and we chatted.. and then we had lunch another place in the area and chatted more before we parted and went our ways.
Now that I've had a good night's sleep I recall that I went out to get something other than that with which I returned.
Maybe it's time to level all those distracting shops and leave only the one I wanted standing. That would keep this from happening again. Wouldn't it? Wouldn't it?
I am not a lawyer, but from what I remember, the origin of Limited Liability Corporations is not to prevent criminal prosecutions. As far as I know, it was to shield investors from the claims of creditors demanding payment. The debts are held by the corporation, not the individual investors. This is the main difference between partnerships and corporations. It serves a social purpose by allowing people to participate in financially risky endevours without risking everything they have. The creditors know this and are supposed to factor it into their original decision to give the loan.
It is totally reasonable to send an individual to prison if he/she uses a corporation to commit a criminal act (like intimidating someone else or causing injury). It is disturbing to think that someone could enjoy immunity from criminal prosecution just by saying "it wasn't me, it was the corporation." Whether the criminal act was in the corporate interest seems irrelevant.
Corporations did NOT create the Internet, nor do they sponsor independent sites in ANY way. We have absolutley NOTHING to thank them for.
Search engines are a public service, provided free of charge. To force them to display corporate information first would be just like forcing you to state on your homepage that you prefer MacDonalds over home made burgers.
It is possible that Leonardo finance looses money because people can't find their site, just like pioneer electronics loose money to pioneer farming equipment because they own http://www.pioneer.com but that is beside the point. The name Leonardo is a very common one. If they were concerned with people mistaking names, they should have chosen a differen one to begin with. Ever heard of prior arts?
Try out fish, the friendly interactive shell.
There's nothing like obvious stupidity to show the problems with a particular legal system. Hopefully, continuious ridiculous claims of intellectual property rights will help pave the way to a more sane system for all of us.
My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I likes it!
Confused over your use of "satyr"... Did you mean satire? Or was it a pun? (Satyr being some Greek god or devil or something, I don't really remember much except he has always portrayed in statues as being hung like a donkey, and was perpetually in a state of sexual arousal...
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
The United State is the Only super power left. We have the best standard of living in the world. We are on top of the heap right now and I say Fuck The French.
I'm going to go to the Univ. of S. Florida library and see if I can find any print books published by this so-called "Leonardo" society. There's just something fishy about "the Leonardo family of websites." Every bit of evidence you've got is on the web, which means a smart guy can create it all with a text editor and a graphics program. Besides it comes out of MIT and everybody knows that they are famous, notorious liars and pranksters.
Because it's just too much, I don't buy it, I can't believe anybody in the world can get away with making a trademark out of "Leonardo," it's a person's name. A pretty common one, actually. Will I have to trademark "William" pre-emptively to avoid being sued for carrying my driver's license?
Yours WDK(tm) - WKiernan(tm)@concentric.net
You sir, May have found a good use for spam.
I'm a bit curious about where the determination will be made about whether or not the publisher is infringing on Transasia's rights... here (the USA), France, Asia? What happens if a court in France decides that the publisher is infringing but one of our courts doesn't? What will happen to our search engines if Transasia can snow the right people?
Actually, I don't think anything that big will come of it. What bothers me about it is that it is another example of a large corporation screwing a much smaller entity. Transasia can easily afford whatever legal services are necessary for their action, and whether or not they succeed will hardly make a dent in their business. On the other hand, the publisher is non-profit and probably doesn't have the resources to deal with a nuisance lawsuit -- regardless of what happens with the case their publication will be strongly affected.
It's obvious that our laws need some revising.
Roblimo, please post a followup when they throw this out of court. Don't leave us thinking that the world never corrects it's errors .. as an ordinary newspaper would do to it's readers.
Is Leonardo a common name? He was a great artist if I remeber correctly. But think about this, how many "Benny"/"Antoneo"/"Leondardo" Pizza Places do you know of? I am going to start a company called "Benny's Pizza Place" and SUE every small mom&pop pizza place from here to NYC!
I will make millions, my plan for world domination is falling quickly into place. BAHAHHAHAHA. By this time next year I will be your world ruler.
Oh, and this, you know what. I have the copyright on the name "Rob", if anyone uses this name, in any way shape or form for commerical use, this include adverstiments, plugs, contract agrements and anything post to a commerical site, I will SUE for millions of dollars.
I also have the copyright on the word "DOT", if any company or person uses the word "DOT" when referering to their email or web site, I will SUE each one of you personally. You will have to use the GPL word "period". The next time you say the URL of a web site you have to say
www "PERIOD" yahoo "PERIOD" com
instead of the commonly used
www "DOT" yahoo "DOT" com
Claim to fame, ain't it a bitch. So you funny little insects, I will be ruler of the world within months of collect massive sums of money from you cowards abuse-ing my copyrights I have on seemily meaningless words!! HAHAHAHA worship me.
Just kinding. On a site note, there is a group of rebels that are working on a %100 GPL english launage rewrite. ALL words can be used, changed and sold in any way fit, as along as the source code to the word is included. Since this being a spoken launge, there is an extenstion to the GPL, in that you can not SUE for a GPL word, unless it voliates the GPL.
Some words that are currently being developed are
GLeonardo
GNULeonardo
GNUGNU
GNU
G
GNUword
GNUwords
Getoys
Getoy
GNUetoy
GNUetoys
GET
GGET
GNUGET
GPL
GGPL
GNUGPL
GROB
GNUROB
GNUCMDTACO
The problem this GPL project is having, is first money, please make donations if you use these words and these words are usefull to your spoken launage.
The second problem, is alot of converation gets "FLOODED" with alot of 'G' sounding words. Currently this GPL project is working towards including maybe more 'L' or 'B' into their words. If you have alot of experience speaking and writing words that include execsive use of the letter 'L' or 'B' please donate your time to this GPL project if possiable.
Also there seems to be a bug in the english launage, people like to use verbs. The GPL project knows of this bug, and we are working hard to come up with a logically sentance that does NOT use any verbs what so ever. If you have or heard someone say a sentance without the use of verbs please contact
GNUwebmaster@GNUgplproject.GNUcom
GNUyou GNUhave GNUa GNUnice GNUday!
GJack GBarnett
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
Its the only way you will be able to keep your homepage up in the future. The silly thing is, that this is not even a joke.
Though IANAL, there did exist at one time the concept in law of a `trivial lawsuit'. That is, anyone was allowed to file a lawsuit for any reason, no matter how silly or nefarious, but before going to trial, and before much money was spent, the suite would be reviewed by a judge. If the judge thought the case had no merit, it was simply thrown out. This mechanism largely prevented the use of meritless lawsuits as a weapon to browbeat opponents into submission.
The trivial lawsuit is a faint concept today. It has been crushed by a flood of contradictory and excessively vague laws that in effect, make nontrivial nearly every potential lawsuit that can be dreamed up. For that we can blame our legislatures.
*Cough*... Hmmmmm.
I'm considering whether or not an internet search on the word "Leonardo" that returned 5000 pages, none of them Leonardo Financial would have an affect on the prosecution's case.
//grendel
/grendel@divide.org
SHAME ON YOU. good lord. what is the world coming to?
~spot
"and no, im not the spot working for Transmeta, although i wish i was..." -- ~spot "i'm the epitome of public enemy..."
> Corporations and online commerce are one of the things
> that keeps the modern Internet up and running (and allows
> you to read services like Slashdot.) Entities like search
> engines have got to (italics mine, ed.) start giving preferential
> treatment to corporations if they expect to continue to be
> allowed to operate.
Say, you wouldn't happen to be Thomas Friedman of the New York Times, posting as an "anonymous coward," are you? "...have got to," ha ha, I loved it. This was a very good, very funny post. Thanks!
Yours WDK(tm) - WKiernan(tm)@concentric.net
...hey Bill Kent, you've got to change your initials or I'll sue you!
Are there any other sources other than the Leonardo Online site?
I'm not saying anyone is falsifying anything here, but I'd like to see some independent confirmation of the facts.
I am french and i really felt ashamed. I called them up and asked them if they realized they have ridiculized themselves. Then they passed me the guy responsible for all this. I told him about the slashdot article that suing some art organisation which existed for 30 years because it shows up in a search query result was foolish and that I wanted to know his version of the story. What he told me was that he didn't want to harm the artists but the MIT because Leornado Finance was founded by ex Stanford students and the Leonardo art org started to get involved into new technology thus infringin' their trademark and doing unfair competition (lame french translation). I replied that my girlfriend had an interior design degree, and studying to get her architecture license and that art or not art she had no choice but to get involved in new tech, she can't get a job in archi if she doesn't know autocad and shit like that. I told him he was abusin' his rights but he kept replying it was in fact a war between Stanford and MIT. Also he said he heard about the Slashdot post and despised it saying he didn't care about a few fools on a web page so I gave him the definition of the Slashdot effect and said he could check how this post affected his connection stats. I tried to remain polite and told him he can send a mail to slashdot with his version of the story if he wanted. (in france we have a law that say that if you think you have been wronged in a place article you have a reply right) If Leornado art org is condemned in France, it wont matter much anyway since he will never have to pay 1 million bucks, the damage and interest will probably be lessened or dropped. In the worst case, he will have 2 years (proof delay) to start to pay ... let's say 100$ per months... if you start just before the delay expires than you can just pay 100$ or 200$ and stop paying, the sentence application judge doesn't give a shit anyway. French laws have many flaws and are specially tuned for corrupt politicians. flame to root@cert.rog
The Unibomber(tm) patent 12451223 used a patented process of terrorism which involved long cabin retreats.
If you run off to a cabin then he can sue you for violation of that patent.
Also, if you use wood then I can sue you as I hold the patent on fibrous building materials,
and countersuits are a bad idea. I patented frivolous law suits.
hehe
well I have to pay my fees to hemos who owns resperation (I did that a bit today) so I'll stop my rantings.
I am the penguin that codes in the night.
Whenever you find a way to exploit something, there will always be someone trying to make a buck off of it. That is the way a whole segment of society works, and as long as humans make laws, there always will be.
Exemplar Logic sells a VHDL synthesis product called Leonardo.
I have just searched on the word Leonardo and the first 4 were -
2 sites about Leonardo Di Caprio
1 site about Leonardo da Vinci
and one site that must be sued -
http://www.monmouth.com/~sportnut/njbca.htm
Or do we sue the whole city of Leonardo?
I wish to know if I can patent the word "sue" and then I can claim damages from every lawer and forbid them to use the word (thereby stopping them from sueing me).
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
So why didn't they call it the "Big Dick"?
;)
They'd probably end up getting sued by some trademark-zealous adult-toy company.
RealFrench (TM) Copyrighted 1999 by Real Networks
--
Insert Witty Sig Here
Since.. when was being indexed by a search engine a crime? Are those that compose web pages going to have to run it through a w3.org-provied Checker, to make sure there's no Copyrighted Words in it?
Do the people of the 'net no longer have the right to use search engines to look for -keywords-?
I want a rock.
hmm, maybe something is warped here, is this
verified ?
FTHI:
Since Leonardo Finance is going to have to change its name, isn't the complaint moot? I mean, is *anyone* who knows who these assholes are, and what they've done, going to do business with them? -jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
.. before they arrest Leonardo DiCaprio?
you are a retard.
My gawd people! Its time to get a grasp on reality!
LW
By the way.. id like to patent water, ice, and the number 42.
At this rate, by the year 2012, the following terms will be copyrighted by major corporations:
Sex (Microsoft)
God (Procter & Gamble)
Love (MTV)
Computer (Packard Bell)
Internet (AOL)
Of course, my company decided to take a preemptive move; we've announced plans to copyright all letters of alphabet, the numbers 1 and 0, and using communication via verbal utterances. Anyone who henceforth writes, speaks, uses any sort of technology, adds, or thinks is subject to our prosecution.
Enough satyr, though; any person of reasonable intellect can see that what i've said above is completely absurd, just like the etoy.com issue and the leonardo issue. What we've got here is the blind leading the blind; crusty old bureacrats understand the internet as much as a meridian of longitude understands superstring theory, yet they can legislate for it.
While politicians doing stupid things is nothing new, it's just become easier and more effective. A republic only works when the people holding office are, on the whole, more intelligent and possess a great deal more moral fiber than the general public. While i'm not going to comment on the world's intellectual pros and cons for fear of being lynched by an unruly mob of angry 'individualists,' we can say for certain that the pigs in my legislature are so damned afraid of touching their new goose, eCommerce that they'd cast free speech and will to the wind so long as it gets them another term in office and another fat ol' paycheck.
So the economy's good. I'm the first to admit that I wouldn't care at all about free speech if there wasn't food on the plate and gas in the car, but we've got to strike some sort of a balance here!
EvilSoloman
(Disclaimer #2: Remember, this lawsuit is being brought in France, not the US.)
In American civil law, you can file a motion to dismiss a case (or for the judge to grant a "summary judgement" to one side) at the very beginning. You can do this if your opponent's case is so weak that even if all of your opponent's facts are correct, there's no reasonable interpretation of the law that would allow your opponent to win.
If you bring a lawsuit that is extremely bogus (e.g., suing the Department of the Interior for beaming mind-control rays at you through your houseplants), then the judge can fine you for wasting the Court's time. That doesn't happen too often, though.
--
"But, Mulder, the new millennium doesn't begin until January 2001."
send all spam to theotherwhitemeat@ropine.com
As far as I remember the name 'Leonardo' is in use and trademarked since quite a while for the ISDN adapters for the Macintosh made by Hermstedt. I guess this *may* help to nullify the claims of any other party.
I dont know if anyone else has noticed, but Slashdot recently (past 6 monthes) seems to jump on the band wagon, conclusions etc. way to fast. Sure, the etoy/etoys thing turned out to be true. But now, your starting to ask us to send money, all because of an article on the cusp of news? Relax guys! Let me just say this to people with money to burn out there, hold your money, until you see the facts, from multiple organizations before we break out the Witch burning kit.
This sheds some light on the Swiss firm that is trying the TM/Patent the word Linux
Has the whole world gone insane or what? Maybe this is that Y2K apocalypse I keep hearing so much about.
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro- Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
It seems that they are an investment firm. Money is their game. Lets do everything in our power to prevent them from ever being able to profit from Linux. Further we can spread the word and prevent them from profiting from any sort of science or art.
Hey, if Amway can spread to the deepest depths of American society, surely this can too. Spread it around. The name Leonardo Investment should make you angry. It should make you want to vent to someone else who will get angry too and want to tell someone else. Eventually all of this bad press will start to have a bad effect on these jokers...
--
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
Um...
perhaps you don't know the french educational
system very well. Unlike here in the US they
actually learn languages.
You can expect to write them a letter in French,
English, Spanish, or German and expect that they
will probably not only be able to read it, but
respond to it.
Do not forget...france isn't huge, just to their
North is Germany, South is Spain, and West is
England.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Are they acctually sueing MIT because a search engine has a link to there site? (in effect thats all it is)... hrm so if i have a link to say ibm's site... will compaq be comin after muh ass? BAH
http ://www.altavista.com/cgi-bin/query?pg=q&sc=on&q=le onardo&kl=XX&stype=stext
Leonardo DiCaprio and Leonardo Da Vinci are the only links I saw (I didn't go any further than the first 10 results)
US businesses that currently accept chip and PIN/signature
This is simply to hard to beleive.
More race stuff in one place,
than any one place on the net.
I agree with you on over-broad trademark enforcement attempts. In fact I am starting to wonder if the entire idea of "defending" a trademark has just gone too far.
For those not familiar with this (and after the endless problems that trademark/domain names has caused, that should be a small group), a company can lose some or all of its rights to a registered trademark by not challenging every contrary use of the trademarked term enthusiastically enough. Some lawyers apparently think that the case law is vague enough to require these challenges in even the most dubious cases. This has resulted in lawyers hiring people to scan and surf the web looking for "uses" of their clients trademark that they can challenge with nasty letters threatening lawsuits.
As already reported on Slashdot, search engines are becoming less effective all the time. If trademark lawyers are let loose to challenge the output of any search engine, forget it -- they will never be worth anything again.
If WIPO et al want something to do, work out uniform limits on trademark coverage and the extent to which trademark holders must defend their rights.
The Leonardo issue was also discussed at Monday's press conference at the MOMA, hosted by RTMark.
Roger Malina is in fact the editor of Leonardo, and Leonardo has been around for a long time. I used to subscribe to it in the late 80s.
leonardo is a well-respected arts publication, not a bunch of MIT yahoos. they're not the type of people to put something like that on their site if it isn't true. this issue has been on the digital arts mailing lists for a week. i've been in personal e-mail contact with them about it.
if this one's a hoax, it would be amazing....
Dealing with the French is the art of stroking the ego. 'Yes, yes, I know you've not won a decent war since the middle ages, but who's counting?'
Actually, I quite loved France, save that it seems the national sport is being closed. I thought I had a poor work ethic...
They are French after all... even if they knew English at some point in their lives (doubtfull) they probably dont read it on principle.
Buy a laser pointer.
--Fesh
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
Actually, there's an interesting reason behind this behavior, and for what it's worth, anyone looking to travel to or visit France might want to read this, as this can make all the difference to your stay :) You see, most French people speak some level of english... the reason that you got that reaction from people when you spoke to them in English is that they couldn't be bothered to help anyone who doesn't even make a token effort to try and speak their language... remember, you're in their contry, after all... However, if you make a serious attempt to speak to them in french, NO MATTER HOW BAD (trust me on this :P) they will react much more positively.
----
Dave
"I love chess! It is like ballet only with more explosions!"
- Dave
Ok, the etoy vs etoys debate was one thing, but man, this is a major case of bad mojo. What if Microsoft got into this act? Oh no, I owe them a million dollars? Because I said Microsoft? Oh no, another million! Man, that Microsoft sucks. Oh no, another million! Does anyone else see this as being a wee-bit rediculous?
I'm patenting the word "the"... everyone must pay me $1000 for the right to use my patented word.
I think that the whole point of the patent system has been twisted beyond recognition.
This is getting crazy. Do people actually understand what search engines are?! Joe Schmoe goes and starts his company and calls it Joe Inc., and one fine day he goes and searches the Web for "Joe". Shocked by the number of websites that "steals" his name, he calls the authorities, who promptly goes and incriminates everyone else on earth named "Joe" who happened to use their own name on a website.
This is really ludicrous. Do people even understand what search engines are?! And it's not as if the word "Leonardo" is something so special that nobody would use it unless they were deliberately infringing somebody's trademark. If the controversy were over another site using the name "Slashdot" on another site, it'd be different. But even then, I don't think Slashdot.org shows up as the first entry when you search for "Slashdot" on a search engine. That is certainly not a reason to go running to the authorities.
What is the world coming to?! Have people become so petty and childish that they would go running to Mommy Police Department just because their site doesn't show up at the top of a search engine? Makes me sick. In this age of corporatism and mass commercialization, are companies becoming not only exploiting consumers to make more $$$ but also becoming so childish that something like the position in a search engine becomes reason to bring in the authorities???
mikre he sophia he tou Mikrosophou.
There ought to be some major urges for tort reform, and I mean tort reform with punitive damages available. It makes me sick that deep-pocket corporations can use the high costs to the legal system to bully those annoying "citizens" who live in the country.
In the mean time, we've got to figure out a way to hurt these people without being juvenile about it (Script-kiddieing is not the way to go). Unfortunately, as EToys has pointed out, they don't really see an impact from our boycotts -- we're just not enough in the target audience.
I feel pretty helpless. If only we lived in a country where people had enough brain cells to take the system back from the corporate special interests that control it (but we don't). So many people vote straight tickets or for the candidate that promotes Jesus the most or whoever brings back the pork barrel programs, it just seems like intelligent people can't make any difference.
Well, I'm depressed now.
In case anyone does feel hopeful, here's my list of things that need to happen (in order):
Take away corporation's ability to interfere in elections. There's a bad Supreme Court decision that allows corporations to essentially buy candidates with "soft money" and the like.
Major tort reform: With punitive damages at the judge's discression. See above.
Pump money into the public schools: The smarter the populace, the more people who can think for themselves, the better. Better teachers, smaller school systems, smaller class sizes, more community involvement. This includes requiring decent alternative education choices for people who don't learn in the "conventional" way. While we're at it, get the fsck'ing corporations *out* of the school.
Start sending execs who break the law to prison: No fine will deter a major corporation from breaking the law. Sending the execs who cause said corporation to break the law will.
I could go on, but this post is long enough already. Suffice it to say: This bullshit will continue until America either breaks the hold of the corporations. The only alternative is revolution; CEOs everywhere should take notice that all the money in the world didn't protect, say, Nicholas II or Battista. In any event, we're (and I'm speaking to the non-Firsters, the non-trolls and the non-knee-jerk slashdotters, which disqualifies a lot of the people who port) the ones who will have to make the changes happen. I don't see it happening, and it makes me sad.
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
I hereby declare I'm patenting the word "the".
Anyone caught using the word "the" will be subject to strict penalties unless otherwise official sanctioned to use the word personally by me.
I tend to think that it's BS. Not merely on the face of it, but it seems that the company's lawyers are overwilling to justify their own existence. I'm surprised that it happened in France rather than the US; French civil law is extremely conservative in both judgements and damages.
Consider the recent judgement against tobacco companies in France. Where in the US the settlement was in the hundreds of millions of dollars, the French settlement ended up in the record books - at around 150k$US.
--
--
There is no premature anti-fascism. -Ernest Hemingway
Most of the population in France can't speak anything but french. It's a bit better than Spain, a lot better than Italy, on a par with Germany. Nothing like the Netherlands (English), Belgium (Flanders: french+english) or the scandinavian countries (English).
BTW, Germany is east of France.
IANAL, especially a not a French lawyer, but this is just nuts. No way in hell is this suit going to go in Leonardo Finace's favor. First of all, there is ample evidence that Leonardo Arts was there long before Leonardo Finance's trademark, and that alone should invalidate the case. The fact that Leonardo is a name of a person further invalidates it. If this suit succeeds, I will no longer be able to have any respect for the french legal system. Frankly, I would hope that this be thrown out the first time a judge takes a look at it.
Moreover, this suit cannot succeed on PR grounds. Not even CNN-style obfuscation as with the eToy issue can cover up the egregious stupidity of this suit. Leonardo Finance is clearly the bad guy here, and will certainly appear so if this gets any media coverage. Leonardo Finance's only hope is that this won't get any attention, because any attention it gets will be bad for them. With any luck, and some help from Slashdot (media people! we know you're reading this!), this will get lots of attention.
In fact, this is so obviously grounds-less that it seems to me it must be an intimidation tactic. Leonardo Finance is hoping that it can scare Leonardo Arts into backing down and settling in a manner agreeable to Leonardo Finance. Leonardo Arts is calling their bluff, and Leonardo Finance is going to have to back down very fast or be at risk of looking like a fool, wasting money on an unwinnable court battle, and possibly exposing themselves to countersuit (Is this possible under French law?).
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" -Salvor Hardin
So put up a "few" web pages that are indexed to their key words and express your feelings.
What a pile of chicken shit!
There's no reason for a sig here.
...go around to all of the art museums, demanding that they IMMEDIATELY cease and desist use of the name "Leonardo" da Vinci - clearly a copyright violation. And then, of course, they send round the police to pick up all of the infringing items... an interesting idea.
Leilah
~ Leilah
Pump money into the public schools: The smarter the populace, the more people who can think for themselves, the better. Better teachers, smaller school systems, smaller class sizes, more community involvement.
Like this hasn't been tried already? In Washington DC they're forking out nearly $7000 per pupil to turn out some of the least educated kids in the country. It's not the money, it's the fact that parents have no alternative...unless they're rich and powerful folks like Bill Clinton and Algore, who can afford to send their kids to private schools and keep them out of the wastelands that are the DC public schools. Why is it that people who would never put up with a monopoly in the software or hardware field are so trusting when it comes to a government-run monopoly?
Face it, the problem isn't just corporations and money- it's power, and political power works even better than economic power (money) in the short term since the government can always make the money worthless through taxes, inflation, fascist/Stalinist restrictions on money transfers, you name it. The only answer to breaking up the concentrations of political and economic power is to get rid of the professional politicians and to spread stock ownership as widely as possible so that people can actually affect what goes on at M$FT, GM, Dow and all the other corporations you seem to hate so much.
Of course, none of this has anything to do with the situation in France with Leonardo, but neither did that extended rant you posted.
We were originally going to call ourselves "the"(tm) but it was already taken.
And(tm) now back to our regularly scheduled comments.
All we need now is the p0rn industry to start claiming damages because sites other then theirs appears when someone types in the word "sex," and pretty soon all that nasty smut on the net will be gone!
----------
The sun beams down on a brand new day, No more welfare tax to pay, Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light...
A class-action suit by a 'large number' of people with the letter 'B' in their name has been launched against Koosh Inc., a potato-focused organization.
The plaintiffs seek "One Billllllion Dollars!" in damages.
A spokesman, also known by the name "Brian" said in a prepared statement, "It's a frightening time when people like this Koosh Kook can infringe on the letter-rights of millions (if not billlllions) of people out there. We fully expect to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law and the Billllllion Dollars we plan to spend on launching a special website that visciously attacks any using any of these letters. If we're lucky, research we plan to do in Robots with lasers in their eyes will pay off and then instead of even sending email, we'll simply send in the robots to do their job."
Koosh Inc. made no comment.
Oliver's Law: Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.
Ok I have a great idea. Lets try to get millions of dollars from a non-profit organization. Sounds like a winner there. Oh but, wait, not just any lawsuit, but one that is complete nonsence. And to make it better lets attack an organization that is affiliated with a university. And to top it all off, it will probably annoy everyone who ever has gone to, or is going to MIT. Sounds like a great case to me. One corporation vs. the most elite minds in the world. Hmmmm... yeah I'm sensing a little sarcasm.
In the meantime perhaps someone here at /. can see about interviewing these people?
hi folks- and new friends- this is roger malina chairman of Leonardo/ISAST re the trademark distpute on the word leonardo a) first thanks to so many of you that have responded with support and suggestions. We arent very good at this, and dont plan to become experts, but want to do it right. We suspect this company is trying to create a precedent by stealing the name leonardo and have chosen to attack a small arts group first. b) This is not a hack- I dont know how you prove this on line...we are a non profit arts organisation-we have a contract with mit press for our publications and through this our web sites http://mitpress.mit.edu/Leonardo is hosted on their machine. I can assure you my 8 year old son knows this is not a hack- he was suitably rattled by the appearance of 8 policement in his grandmother's living room. You try explaining why the policemen came to arrest a man called Leonardo dead now for hundreds of years best- and thanks again to the words of support-the web energy is feeding in roger malina
> Most of the population in France can't speak
;)
> anything but french.
Yes but when talking to people at a finance
company, you can generally assume they are more
well educated.
Certainly English, German and Spanish are
fairly standard at their schools.
> BTW, Germany is east of France.
Hmmm I always thought of it as north....
I guess it depends where in france you are
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
OK, I think it's time for us to do something about this. I suggest everyone who has a web site put as many Leonardo-related META tags in every search-indexed page as possible. Then start re-registering your pages with every possible search engine (or even us a meta-search registrar (List at Yahoo!).
/. effect can help rectify this one.
Then, we should probably start registering the bad guys (their email addresses were posted before) for every single Leonardo DiCaprio mailing list in the world.
Just as a public service, to let them know that Leonardo is not a copyrightable name.
Sheesh. Give me a break. Let's hope the
Can your IM do this?
First: Let's all write some very intelligent and thought provoking letters about the situation. Then: We're going to run them through Babelfish. Finally: we're going to send it to them!
I would *love* to see the look on their face when they read the twisted Babelfish phrases...
I look it reprehensible that the enterprise of you would thwart a pre-existing non-money group that stocks the lowly phrase of "Leonardo" which you have somehow run to be handed intellectual posession protection to which. You should be shamed filled!
Actually they'll prefer to use English because any French that someone outside of France could use is not RealFrench, and they really hate it. I know a french canadian girl who went to France and when she spoke French the people told her to stop because it wasn't good enough and to use English instead.
Nascantur in Admiratione. (Let them be born in Wonder)
hi duzxup this is roger malina, chairman of leonardo/isast in the flesh the press release was handed out monday at a press conference organised by RTMARK at tbhe NY Museum of Modern Art I dont have a web cam handy to show you i am real.. i wish this was a hack- i have better things to do with my xmas holidays roger malina let a million leonardo web sites bloom
Read L. Ron Hubbard's intro to _Mission Earth_. He traces the etymology of "satire," finding that it is really not related to "satyr." Instead, "satire" derives from "satura," meaning medley or mixture. carcass
There was also a case in which the Polo shit people sued a California Polo club because they were selling shirts with a Polo horse on it. (Of course the shirt also said "Cali. Polo Club", so there was no mistaking it for the real think) I guess people just need to get good layers. There are way to many greedy/stupid people out there.
I still don't think this is on the same level of EToys/EToy. I can't believe EToys is that damn stupid. Arg. I'm still boycotting those bastards.
So let's track down all the startups these guys finance and tell them we're going to block them (the start-ups) from OUR network servers all over the world until leonardofinance.fr ceases and at least apologizes. Then let's see if we can find out who their investors are. Are there any laws in France that would allow finding that information?
access-list 101 deny ip 195.114.78.12 0.0.0.0 any
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Here's some excerpts..
Roger Malina, Chairman of Leonardo/ISAST, San Francisco, announced Monday that the Association Leonardo in France was being sued for trademark infringement on use of the word "Leonardo."
[...]
Following issuance of the suit, Transasia asked that a search warrant be served on the legal address of the Association Leonardo, now the home of the widow of Frank Malina - the founder in the 1960s of the Leonardo Journal. The search warrant was served with no prior warning by a squad of eight policemen.
So stop thinking this is a hoax! Of course, if it is, I'll choke on my own foot and die.....
Man's unique agony as a species consists in his perpetual conflict between the desire to stand out and the need to blend in.
72656B636148206C72655020726568746F6E41207473754A
I am dismayed by the complaint of your company of the damage by association of Leonardo. Your company cannot have named Leonardo more that pope John Paul II can have named John! What you have marks it is terrible and must be punished. Your company deserves to be put out of the companies for a so bad act. I will make sure that each one that I know avoid your company for the remainder of my life.
Not bad, actually.
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
My experience was not identical, since I speak no French at all, really. But I prefaced every conversation with "Parle vous anglais?", and consistently got polite affirmative responses. I left Paris wondering where the Parisian's reputation for snobbery had come from.
Don't assume right off the bat that whoever you're addressing speaks english, and you won't have any trouble.
Wired is running a story on this as well. See http://www.wired.com/news/p olitics/0,1283,33254,00.html. Nothing terribly new from the other online stories but it looks like they tried to reach the idiots at Leonardo Finance to no eval.
-- I can't say enough in 120 chars!
This Christmas I downloaded an mp3 from an xxx porn site that had pictures of Michaelangelo having sex with a cabbage. I await you in court. :)
There are about 30 trademarks of "Leonardo" as a single word in the US, including Mitsubishi (monitors) and Mentor Graphics (design software). Leonardo Finance is a latecomer, and the USPTO has initially rejected their trademark application.
So, I have seen postings with mail-addresses to be flamed and telephone numbers to be wardialed. Don't you think that there is a slight possibility that this is all an elaborate prank pulled by some MIT-guys? Don't you think we should verify this all before we start flaming the french?
Maybe it is for real and I'm just being naive but this just seems a little over the top for me. Even in our current corporation-controlled society I find something like this pretty unlikely to happen.
The trouble with the USA is the overwhelming number of small minded individuals who arrogantly pass judgement on civilizations and cultures that dare to suggest that
maybe the USA should think a bit about the rest of the world for a change
The trouble with the rest of the world is the overwhelming number of small minded individuals who arrogantly assume that a vocal minority of small minded Americans justifies stereotyping the rest of the population. I for one am sick of listening to Europeans whining about how evil America is. We've got our problems, just like everyone else, but we're no worse than anyone else either.
Roses are red, violets are blue. I'm a schitzophrenic, and so am I.
Just sent this off to the transasia people. ;-)
.net and .org are all in use by other entities on the Web. You're going to have to play some hardball with these groups to enforce your trademark. Have you tried threatening their families yet? I've heard that usually turns these deals around in record time!
Ethermeme
----------
To: fmonnot@leonardofinance.fr, yves.delacour@leonardofinance.fr
Subject: Protect your trademark from dilution, pay me $$$
Hi there,
I read that you're hammering the Leonardo Art/Science Network through slashdot.org this morning. Having the police raid them for incriminating evidence was quite a coup d'etat. What a great idea! I hadn't thought of that tactic before. Since I admire your style so much, I'd like to make a suggestion or three to you. Here's some other possibilities you may want to consider investigating to protect your trademark from further dilution:
1. da Vinci - He's dead, so there's probably not much money to be made here, but perhaps you could pioneer retrograde trademark dilution payments. Think of the possibilities: For every mention of this man in every form of media, you could get a few pennies restitution. You'd bankrupt the education system and put the entire science community in disarray, but hey, they're not competing with you very hard, are they? It must be their lack of foresight.
2. DiCaprio - Like he even *deserves* to use your trademark! This opens teen magazines and most syrupy Hollywood producers to your lawyers. This could be a very big stream of revenue for you. Sure, he's had the name since birth, but only your company was wise enough to trademark it, right? The last ones to the party always get the stale chips. Tough for them. And think of the possibility of royalties on every pre-teen girl's bedroom wall space!
3. Leonardo, New Jersey - Were you even aware of the money-making potential that this city holds for you? I can see a future where every city pays licensing fees in the form of higher local taxes to legitimize their use of corporate-owned trademarks. I'm sure you could, ahem, influence US politicians to help you set up the licensing structure. After all, they've got lots of other peoples' money to give away, and you will be neither first nor last in line at the trough.
By the way, leonardo.com,
Now, I believe in the right for business to succeed despite all resistance from society at large and their silly ethicists, and I can see that your heavy-handed tactics will lead you to greatness. So I'm offering the information I've shared with you in this message as complimentary trial information, meaning that you can peruse the concepts for free for the next 30 days. But if you decide to pursue any of these fine money-making possibilities, I will bill you a 30% finder's fee for any revenues earned from such efforts. I'll make best-guess estimates on the first bill to get the process moving. Sound good?
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me through this email address, or simply squelch the basic rights of another non-threatening group of people and I'll be sure to follow the stench right to you.
Sincerely,
Troy Davis
V.P. Persecution
Copyright Retaliation & Arbitration Panel
Cincinnati, OH USA
I appreciate the claims here are pretty terrible. However I expect more from /. before something like this is posted. All the proof there is at the moment is something that amounts to a press release on Leonardo on-line's website.
Perhaps for future stories should include the press releases "handed out" at Comdex?
Perhaps I should take my domain and post an interesting story about being raided and sued by some large company . . . people might just send money without checking.
All you have to do in France is file a suit, then you can use the police as your own private invasion force to execute a search warrant? So, for example, the Leonardo arts organization could file a silly little nuisance suit against Transasia, then use it as an excuse to raid their offices?
I am going to send $100 to the legal defense fund.
France sues Italy for recovery of all paintings, drawings, manuscripts and inventions of Leonardo Da Vinci.
All major aircraft manufacturers were sued as well, using Da Vinci's works as prima facie evidence of prior art.
In the USA, additional warrants were served on General Electric, requesting that all profits related to their "Electric Boat" division be turned over as well.
Wow, the Web is really great isn't it?
...but McDonalds is a famous name, and it was created (I assume) by a guy named McDonald.
Nope, Ray Kroc (sp?)
Chris
San Francisco values: compassion, tolerance, respect, intelligence
The Bottom Line is that the art-sies have been using the name since 1968.
I mean, it's not like we're talking 1998 vs 1997, or something, this is a thirty year old magazine.
Finish Human Genome Project. Opensource DNA. Figure out what it does. Improve it. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
Ahhh c'mon now. You belittle Americans as "small minded individuals" and then wrap up with a generalization and an emphatic "I say fsck the usa." Don't fall prey to the same behavior you abhor! Besides, I like the French. They are smart. They can't produce any software themselves (well.. unless you count Infogrames) but they are smart enough to purchase 90% of all US game developers! Croisant? Anyone?
oh my gosh this has pissed me off so bad. I hate those dumbass people. -lint
The French are snobs. Though, admittedly, Americans are not well enough versed in foreign languages, the French hold themselves in far too high regard in my personal opinion. I recognize that some Americans (and others as well) will butcher French to some degree, but I've also seen the French show little tolerance for others who're clearly sufficiently well educated and perfectly understandable, yet for whatever minor reason they refuse to listen. If a person has made the effort (not just here and now, but taken the time to really learn it) there is no excuse for that kind of behavior. I certainly don't take on airs foreigners attempt to speak English.
;)
I recognize that not all the French are like this, just some of them (e.g., some Parisians). You might be right, in fact, you are. I'm just ranting.....
PS: There is actually an argument that the French spoken in Quebec is actually closer to the original language than the French spoken in modern France (the same can be said for many immigrant cultures).
I can see the first three mail messages in each inbox now for the next seven days.
"Hey, I know of this great new porn site, www.xxxsteamingassholes.com. Check it out!"
- Sender, joebloggs@pornspam.com
and
"Here's your daily porn mail" w/file attached
- Sender, joebloggs@picsspam.com
and
"Get a new lease on life with the edgerizer mark 2! no more hair falling out..."
- Sender, joebloggs@spamsales.com
Oh yes, the joys of knowing an idiot's email address. What say we all send them a copy of SuSE?
Dan. -- So what if it's spelt wrong, nobody's perfect
We are nearing the point at which armed action might be considered philosophically justifiable in defense of freedom.
That is the funniest thing is read in a while. I want one.
History will not be kind to the United States. The trouble with the USA is the overwhelming number of small minded individuals who arrogantly pass judgement on civilizations and cultures that dare to suggest that maybe the USA should think a bit about the rest of the world for a change. The internet gives these ugly Americans a screechy, whiny, belligerent voice. It's a voice the rest of the world really doesnt care to hear, but which is hard to shut out. So what if there is some nonsense lawsuit in France? You can certainly oppose this without using it as part of some random prejudice. I say fsck the usa...the quicker it devolves into tiny independent states, the better for the rest of the world.
We are one more day closer to to having a gag
shoved in our mouths.
whats next is somebody going to register the word name? or how about life? i suppose the pope will want to own God. this just sickens me. If something doesn't change real soon then the web will die. The web can't funtion with big business dictating what can be said/used/printed/ and the small guys can't afford to pay companies like this for use of a word/name THAT SHOULD BE IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN.
going up against the source of the argument is worthless, we need to have a stern talking to to the people that allow this to happen.. big brother needs to stop supporting crap like this
who sez death can't be funny....www.endlesssorrow.com
This almost surrealistic situation should be corrected as soon as possible. I suspect on the grounds of reason that any judge would throw this case out. When this happens, the people who approved this raid should be severely reprimanded. A conviction in this case would lead to absolute proof of insanity or evil on the side of the legal system with all its consequences.
Leonardo, Leonardo, Leonardo.
Sue me.
but that just might be me.
If this is just performance art, MIT Press (the host of the Leonardo Arts Organization) and everybody involved had better hope that no charitable netizens donate to the cause, as suggested on their page. Soliciting funds like that is fraud in any country.
First, do we have any confirmation of this story? I'm sorry to imply any distrust of the source, but I would like to see an independent sighting of something as ridiculous as this.
Second, if it does prove true, I suspect there are going to be more than a few open source project web pages carrying a brief summary of this issue and mentioning the parties involved by name, while providing links to any coverage on the web. And I trust they will provide links to each other so that they will be widely referenced and easy for search engines to find.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
Are they not going after leonardo.com, leonardo.net or leonardo.co.uk? These sites should look at what has happened to etoy.com and shudder. But I notice that Yahoo finds 190 hits with a search of leonardo... and "the bad guys" do not appear to be in the top 30 or so. Altavisa found over 400,000. These guys have their work cut out for them if they are going to ga after the lot. This is too silly for words. The scary bit is that they found some cops dumb enough to do anything other than laugh.
...the Europeans had the patent rights to whining all sewn up. Americans beware: at least check with your lawyer before arguing with this guy...
While MIT *does* have a reputation for "hacks" (skillful pranks, not compromising a computer), the university staff would never allow this to occur. And asking for money for a nonexistant legal fund isn't even a hack; it's a scam. This would never get past the staff; if it was a fake, the PR for MIT would be nightmarish.
Friends don't let friends misuse the subjunctive.
I urge EVRY SINGLE Slashdot reader to put a link to http://mitpress.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/ on their websites as well as to use the word leonardo in as many ways as possible! Lets stage the first ever Cyber Sit-IN and screw the french dogs... Les chers stupid!
For an interesting perspective on police != protection, you might read Dial 911 and Die, which was put together by the Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership. Even if you're not ESR with a tallit and sidelocks, you might be interested.
PS, moderators, a post's pro-firearms content is insufficient cause for moderating it down.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
Does anyone have a single report from anyone except a group of artists (who could easily be doing this as a publicity stunt/performance art piece?
Personally I think it's a great parody of the ETOY(S) joke.
No Zen is good zen
Rant
Why did the police take their stuff? Have they commited any crime? How about if you searched for "finance" and it came up with Schwab AND Leonardo, would they go after Schwab? This is so stupid its incomprehendible(sp?)!!!
End rant
Anonymous Hay goes in and I come out...
This does not surprise me coming from a country
that planted a bomb aboard a Greenpeace ship which
resulted in deaths and the ship being destroyed.
The Greenpeace ship was anchored at the time (can't remember where) and was involved in protesting French nuclear testing in the Pacific.
I can beat that...thinking about starting up a business calle Greenpeace or the ACLU or something like that...well maybe not the ACLU...they have lawyers...hell they are lawyers
that neither Le Monde or La Tribune have any stories about this - and it supposedly happened Monday?
As I read through alot of this and other threads, I notice many people getting ready to DOS them off the face of the earth. By flooding their mailboxes, you make sure that they will not have a chance to read any of the well thought out (but probably still scathing) responses to their action.
By all means, I'm not saying don't flame them. I'm working on an email in french which might blister some of the paint... But I'd really appreciate it, if there was a chance that they might hear some of us.
I know Slashdot is hardly known for it, but it'd be nice to show some maturity.
More on topic: I think that actions such as these are a disgrace, the warrent should never have been issued or served. They said that their first concern in all of this was that the MIT site came up first in a search engine... Isn't that evidence enough? When they are sending out a journal by that name, and also have a web site using it, what does searching the premisis do besides constitute harassment?
I almost hope someone is getting the facts wrong here, because this is amazingly stupid.
Would you do it for some scoobie crack?
This makes no sense whatsoever. If someone is searching for Leonardo FINANCE's homepage, I highly doubt that they're interested in The Leonardo FOUNDATION! Finance is not art by any means, nor is art a route to financial security.
If you live in France, please do no business with Leonardo Finance. If you are already in business with them, I suggest you cancel that arrangement and let them know why.
When Leonardo Finance loses this case, I seriously hope that the court costs cripple them and they have to go out of business. It's time for stupidity to be painful again.
"Reality is less than television."-Brian Oblivion
Just like what we did to the French embassy in Libya!! We will ask all the hot French girls to go to Bretagne then we'll bomb the rest of your country.
Man, those French are *damned* clever! Now why didn't the rest of us think of that? :-)
I gotta stop reading when I'm this tired.
Don't forget to send it in HTML and text =)
--
Everyone put the word "Leonardo Davinci" in your web page meta tags. That'll show them!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
>Partially, yes, but that's not exactly the point. As I said, the unspecified search engine should also be held liable to some degree. This >isn't all that far-fetched, if you think about it. How many times have you gotten side-tracked on the Web and forgotten what you were >originally looking for?
Yes, this has happened to all of us. However, if I really wanted the item, I would go back for it later. Net loss to the company: $0. And you cannot claim lost revenue based upon the cluelessness or forgetfulness of your customers. Are you going to sue the MacDonalds down the road because when Bob was going to buy a new widget at your store, he dropped in for a burger, got sidetracked, and didn't buy the widget after all?
> Corporations have rights too, you know
No one is suggesting they don't. The corporation has the right to exist and to make a profit. They do not, however, have the right to crush any and all others who dare use their name for something totally unrelated to their business.
> And I don't think it's particularly outlandish to suggest that these rights be given to these corporations who are, after all, footing the bill.
Footing the bill for what? The lawsuit? They brought it themselves. Footing the bill to keep the 'modern internet' running? They don't. I highly doubt the majority of wan traffic for Europe runs through www.leonardfinance.fr. However, a large chunck of traffing does run through MIT's routers. Please elaborate on what the company is footing the bill for, aside from launching a completely ludicrous lawsuit.
> if we could get all major search engines to sign agreements to return corporate Web matches first...
Again, why should the rights of business come before the rights of common users? You are splitting the groups into A:) businesses, who have the absolute right to use the internet for their purposes, and B:) other irritating peons, who should only be using the net with permission from the companies. _The net was not designed with e-commerce in mind!_ A quick glance at bugtraq will show you that witness the numerous security holes showing up daily). Business came to the net, the net did not come to business, and they would do well to remember that. They are not the rulers and masters of this medium, but rather should be equal players with no more nor fewer rights than anyone else, be they IBM or the newest newbie ever to view webtv.
Cheers,
GC
And why the hell should we do that?
Because that way, the TLDs are placed in increasing order of their likelihood of being associated with a corporation that does business online.
Stop this man, please.
Why? This isn't that far-fetched. Looks like somebody hasn't been reading his Ayn Rand.
I just wanted to let every one know I've filed for a trade mark on the name Brian. Actully this trademark includes any word using the letters b, r, i, a or n. I've done extensive research and found when my friends try to look up my phone number online or in the phone book an enormous amoount of of people with the same first name as me are also found. How can I expect my friends to find me under these conditions. This just will not do. Any one caught using or saying the name Brian without prior written consent will have legal actions brought against them. If your name is also Brian please begin legal procedings to have this changed ASAP. At the begining of the new year anyone caught still using the name Brian will have their homes raided by a top police swat team. Then the offender will be strip searched and asaulted with night sticks in a most uncomfortable place (it won't be in the back of a volkswagon either). Thank you for your time.
----------------
The Whole Earth Review ran an article several years ago, giving five rules of human stupidity. I don't remember any of the others (actually, I don't remember any of them), but I do remember that the first rule parsed true only if the percentage of stupid individuals in any population was 100%. It went something like "the percentage of stupid people in any group is always larger than anyone in the group believes". So, if all the people in a group think that everyone but themselves is stupid, the rule is satisfied.
It was a very funny article, I'll have to go see it I can find it anywhere.
Information is not Knowledge
who should expect a lawyer soon. We must, however, address the larger issue of the legal system we are building. The principle of first use is based on "adversarial" (sp) use of lawyers. The lawyers like to get paid to argue for money, and it serves many cases well. However-- in issues important to society in general, we need to establish a way to discourage false or destructive use of the legal system, and not depend on the little guy to fight the battle alone. When it takes more money than you have, or can afford without affecting your family, defending the "Right thing" is not reasonable. ?? Suggestions ?? We create our society each time we interact with another person. What kind of society did you create today? Richard C Bond, Sr. 1986!!!
We create our society every time we interact with each other. What kind of society did you create today?
Apparently, Didier Benchimol, VP of Netscape Europe is part of this outfit. I attempted to confirm that Didier Benchimol really is VP of NS Euro, but, alas, it was too late when I tried to call the California offices of Netscape. Perhaps a few calls/emails to Benchimol's Netscape offices (and his superiors at NS) might be beneficial. EUROPEAN HEADQUARTERS Netscape Communications SA CNIT, B.P. 370 2 Place de La Défense 92053 Paris-La-Défense France +33 1/41.97.55.55 +33 1/41.97.55.00 Fax
--- --- --- Don't just do something! Sit there!
Corporations and online commerce are one of the things that keeps the modern Internet up and running (and allows you to read services like Slashdot.) Entities like search engines have got to start giving preferential treatment to corporations if they expect to continue to be allowed to operate.
What a pile of flame bait. There is no such thing as Corporate sponsership of web. Some how much to you suppose Leanardo pays to underwrite the web.
Press that did a writeup for them
- La Tribune, 28/10/98
- Le Quotidien du Multimedia, 16/10/98
- Les Echos, 07/10/98
- La Tribune, 04/09/97
- L'Entreprise n130, Juillet-Août 1996
- Agefi, 17/04/96
Prespective Startups (at one time)- Integra
- Monte-Cristo Multimedia
- Synchronix
- AlloCiné
- Imediation
Board of DirectorsIt also lists more stuff about the board members, but you can go read it yourself.
Feel free to let any of these people know what jerks these guys are
If I had the money, I'd like to help out in this case, but not at the risk of potentially having to pay out tens of thousands if the good guys lose.
Karma makes sense. It makes a lot more sense if you add reincarnation.
This is to any Transasia-related readers. You might want to look into suing the companies related to these sites as well - each of them appeared before your site on Yahoo when searching for the word "Leonardo":
e onardo_DiCaprio.html / leonardo.html o _leonardo/index.html o _ext.html r do.html . html / leo.html 4 /index.html / a in_lc.html h tml 7 / . html x .html / index.html h tml e xangl.html e nt/actors/dicaprio/
http://www.leonardo-dicaprio.com/
http://www.fansites.com/leonardo_dicaprio.html
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/4932/L
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/5986
http://www.absolutes2.net/celebrities/d/dicapri
http://www.dgsciences.com/leonardo/
http://www.ocaiw.com/leonardo.htm
http://banzai.msi.umn.edu/leonardo/
http://www.mos.org/sln/Leonardo/
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/ftptoc/leonard
http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/1070/leona
http://208.4.223.8/lecagot/leonardo.html
http://www.leonardo.net/
http://webtalk.elet.polimi.it/museo-1.html
http://members.aol.com/OSaraBaraO/index.html
http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/2923/leo
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Academy/1743
http://www.geocities.com/hollywood/bungalow/490
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Academy/2551
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/set/1711/
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/4525
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/5301/m
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/4362/
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/8483/
http://www.indiana.edu/~baiu/leo.html
http://www.geocities.com/vienna/1217/
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/2515/
http://members.tripod.com/~keyser_fan/leosucks.
http://members.tripod.com/~Ilovedicaprio/
http://howto.yahoo.com/ask/980803a.html
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Rhodes/4731/
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Bungalow/423
http://www.admiringdicaprio.athome.to/
http://www.leofest.com/
http://surf.to/leowd
http://nkntr.dynip.com/vic/leoportal/amy/
http://www.angelfire.com/hi/absolutelyleo/index
http://angelfire.com/az/LWDnoodle/index.html
http://galileo.imss.firenze.it/news/mostra/inde
http://www.davinci-museum.com/
http://www.fee.unicamp.br/~leonard1/
http://www2.fortunecity.com/lavender/python/298
http://mrshowbiz.go.com/people/leonardodicaprio
http://www.leonardodicaprio.com/
http://www.ecf.toronto.edu/apsc/davinci/
http://members.tripod.com/~leodv/leobirth.html
http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~mberglan/antileo.
http://surf.to/dicraprio
http://perso.cybercable.fr/faldc/Site%20web/ind
http://www.ams.com.br/leoveira/
http://www.di.ufpe.br/~lms/
http://www.chasque.apc.org/lvx/mensmald.html
http://www.leonardodibujos.com/
http://w3.nai.net/~merlindl/home.htm
http://www.thepassword.com/Magazines/entertainm
http://www.kcweb.com/superm/l_dicaprio.htm
http://www.qis.net/~tony/leo.html
http://defiant.inf.ufrgs.br/u2/
http://www.leonardos-bride.com.au/
http://ieva05.lanet.lv/~sd50074/killleo.html
http://dicaprio.uninhibited.net/_mlist
And the list of course goes on and on. Check for yourself, because several of these sites are run by people who have pirated your trademarked word and used it as part of their name! You should fine them billions AND have them tortured to death!
"Try that in Windows!"
Hey, all is cool until the attack Flint from ARBH.
There are two possibilities to this... 1.) This suit is legit and Leonardo Finance is really suing the arts site for using the name. (If this is true then the people who thought this up are perfect specimens to start practicing active darwinism with). 2.) This is a test case brought forth because of it's absurdity. Perhaps they have reasons to want this law fixed as soon as possbile and bringing up this case is their way of doing so.(If this is true then we should applaud these people). Either way, get some popcorn and watch the show.