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!

Comments

Re:Reality Check

[David A. Madore]

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.

What the?

[Magus311X]

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
--

Reality Check

[Gromer]

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?).

There is no good excuse for a DOS

[DeathB]

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.