I don't know who you publish with, but copyright agreements I've seen and signed transfer the copyright to the publisher (but you retain certain rights, e.g., the right to make the paper available on your webpage, any rights in a process reported on in the paper).
For instance:
The IEEE: "The undersigned hereby assigns to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Incorporated (the "IEEE") all rights under copyright that may exist in and to the above Work, and any revised or expanded derivative works submitted to the IEEE by the undersigned based on the Work. The undersigned hereby warrants that the Work is original and that he/she is the author of the Work; to the extent the Work incorporates text passages, figures, data or other material from the works of others, the undersigned has obtained any necessary permissions. See reverse side for Retained Rights and other Terms and Conditions."
Springer-Verlag: "The copyright to the contribution identified above is transferred to Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New York (for U.S. government employees: to the extent transferable). The copyright transfer covers the exclusive right to reproduce and distribute the contribution, including reprints, translations, photographic reproductions, microform, electronic form (offline, online), or any other reproductions of similar nature."
Of course. But this wouldn't catch essays (a) bought on "paper mills" or (b) copied from other students (who took the course previously, for instance).
You're assumeing that the result of the plagiarism check is a simple "plagiarized" or "original" answer. But it isn't. Of course turn-it-in will document the sources from which a plagiarized paper is copied. And of course the prof will check whether the paper and the source are similar enough to constitute plagiarism. Every university I've been at required both the student's paper and the papers from which s/he copied as docmentation of a plagiarism case.
This made me feel like a criminal!! Mainly since I was not told about submitting the paper to Turn-It-In. I never would use someone else's work with out citing it and didn't have much to fear, but just the idea of missing one or two footnotes, was enough to get the nerves going.
Rest assured, every conscientious instructor will compare your paper with perhaps similar passages in the textbook or widely available other sorces, s/he wil put "suspicious" phrases through google, and will keep an eye out for similarities between your paper and that of other students. Does this make you feel like a criminal, too? Do they check ID's at exams at Western? Does that mae you feel like a criminal?
Remember that many universities policies require instructors to be vigilant in preventing and detecting academic dishonesty.
If I personally had to submit the papers and I was fully aware of the process, I would have ensured every source was cited.
Four weeks ago, Internet toy giant eToys announced to the press that it was "moving away" from its lawsuit against European art group etoy in response to the torrent of public outrage. As the weeks went by without further action, however, many activists decided that eToys' words had represented a typical corporate ploy to derail opposition, and that the company had no intention of actually dropping the suit.
Activists quickly renewed their campaigns against eToys. RTMark initiated two new campaigns to drive eToys' stock price yet further down (it has now sunk well below its opening value of $20 per share, after a high of $67 reached the day the protests began), and a new community platform, http://www.toywar.com, gathered a "toy army" of 1400 activists poised to perform "operations" on command.
The strongest attack to date was scheduled to coincide with eToys' earnings announcement on Thursday. Today, just in time, eToys formally dropped its case against etoy "without prejudice"--a phrase that means either party is still free to attack the other. eToys has also formally agreed to pay etoy's court costs and other expenses incurred as a result of the lawsuit.
"A precedent has now finally been set in stone," said RTMark spokesperson Ray Thomas. "eToys thought it could act like corporations typically do, but it had no idea how the Internet works. Now e-commerce corporations have a choice: either obtain a legal stranglehold on the Internet, so that this kind of defensive reaction is no longer possible, or behave decently towards the humans who use this medium for purposes other than profit."
"This is the Brent Spar of e-commerce," said Reinhold Grether, an Internet researcher and a mastermind of the anti-eToys campaigns. "Just as the petroleum industry learned it had to listen to environmentalists, so e-commerce companies have now learned that the Internet doesn't belong to them, and they can't do whatever they want with it." (See http://rtmark.com/shell for more about the Brent Spar, and http://www.hygrid.de/etoyrhiz.html for more comments by Grether.)
"eToys will try to paint this as a misunderstanding, as just a simple error that has now been corrected," wrote etoy in a prepared statement. "But this is not what happened. They tried to destroy us, and that got them into very big trouble. They wanted to drop their case 'with prejudice,' because they fear further attacks and trademark battles, but now they see they have no choice at all in the matter. It is a total victory."
WHAT NOW?
Even though etoy has recovered its domain, the etoy Fund will not be retired, said RTMark spokesperson Thomas. Each project's discussion board will continue to function, and the resources of the etoy Fund pages will continue to be accessible for use and research.
"We hope that this campaign continues to serve as a reminder to people of what corporations do when left to their own devices, and as a reminder to corporations of what they cannot do, at least on the Internet," said Thomas. "We also hope people continue expressing their anger at eToys, if they so choose. There are many ways to embarrass and further damage this company--the Nazi figurine eToys advertises could lead to a boycott by Jewish groups, for example." Another immediate option would be a class-action lawsuit by eToys investors, said lawyer and RTMark member Rita Mae Rakoczi. "It could convincingly be argued that eToys, being an Internet company, should have known what it was getting into, and has seriously mismanaged its stockholders' money. If etoy's possession of etoy.com is so dangerous-- as perhaps it really is--why didn't eToys choose a different name for the company when they had the chance? And why did they choose to pursue in an openly hostile manner an art group best known for a piece called the 'Digital Hijack,' which made sophisticated use of technology to playfully attack users' browsers? It wouldn't take an Einstein to predict trouble."
"If eToys stumbled into this through sheer stupidity and negligence," Rakoczi continued, "it could be liable to investors for part of the $4 billion in value that's been lost as a consequence. A successful lawsuit could even entail eToys losing its own trademark, which would likely mean the end of the company." RTMark has set up a page containing links to resources on class action lawsuits against corporate managements.
"Things on the Internet don't go away," said etoy in its statement. "'Brick and mortar' corporations do this sort of thing and then bury it--but this will always be there when you search for information on eToys. It will always be very visible what bastards they were. They can never recover from this." The 1400 "Toywar soldiers" mustered by http://www.toywar.com will remain on high alert, according to the platform's operators, and are prepared to spring into action at the slightest indication of further aggression by eToys.
"And Network Solutions had better be careful, too," etoy said. "We will not tolerate any delay in the reinstallation of the etoy.com DNS entries." Network Solutions, the company in charge of Internet domains, illegally terminated etoy's e-mail shortly after the November 29 injunction, although no such move was required by the order. (See http://rtmark.com/etoyvaticano.html for another example of illegal behavior by Network Solutions.)
Late last year, eToys attempted to buy etoy.com from European art group etoy, and offered upwards of $500,000 in cash and stock options for the domain. etoy turned down the offer, so on November 29, 1999, eToys obtained a court injunction preventing etoy from operating a website at www.etoy.com, which had been registered before eToys even existed. To obtain the injunction eToys told the judge that etoy.com was confusing customers, and furthermore that it contained pornography and calls to violence. etoy.com had never made any reference to eToys or toys, nor featured anything resembling pornography or calls to violence.
During the subsequent weeks, activists attacked eToys by a variety of means that have been widely credited with contributing to the 70% decline in the value of eToys stock--a decline that began the same day as the protests.
The Dec. 15-25 Virtual Sit-in crippled the eToys servers, as CNN reported, and prompted eToys to file a restraining order against one of the organizations responsible for it, and to threaten another activist anonymously.
Simultaneously, the Disinvest! campaign filled eToys investment boards and other outlets with messages about the situation. Many investors responded by dumping their eToys stock. Even those who refused to see a link between activist attacks and the eToys stock fall were at a loss to explain how it could lose so much money, so consistently, on consistently good financial news. Some suspected foul play by eToys management, and the possibility of a class-action lawsuit was raised.
Finally, on December 29, eToys announced it was "moving away" from its lawsuit in response to public outrage. At first, etoy and the activists were delighted, and a formal counterpart to the statement was expected from hour to hour. Then, when nothing happened for days and then weeks, it became clear that eToys' announcement had been an empty verbal concession it had no intention of making concrete--a typical corporate ploy to derail activist momentum.
Activists quickly renewed their campaign to damage eToys. Perhaps startled by the endurance of its opponents, and nervous about further attacks and proof of instability during the week it is to announce its quarterly earnings, eToys today--at 15:20 Pacific Standard Time, to be exact--finally backed down on paper, ceding full rights to etoy.com on etoy's terms, without precondition and with payment of court costs and other expenses.
RTMark, which is in no way associated with etoy, aims to publicize the widespread corporate abuse of democratic institutions like courts and elections. To this end it solicits and distributes funding for "sabotage projects." Groups of such projects are called "mutual funds" in order to call attention to one way in which large numbers of people come to identify corporate needs as their own. RTMark projects do not normally target specific companies; the etoy Fund projects are an exception.
I taught an Intro to Epsitemology course last Spring. The Matrix came out just before my kids had their Descartes papers due. Some of them managed to sneak in references to it. They were really excited to find something they had read about in class in an action movie.
It's kind of a neat idea to use the Matrix for a philosophy course, but the philosophical content isn't that deep. As chart says, all there is really is an elaborate way to explain what the evil genius is or could be, which might have some pedagogical value.
"to give good faith consideration, as our neighbor on the Internet, to concentrating the profanity, nudity and violence that is sometimes part of the etoy corporation message on etoy corporation's other websites."
Incidentially, the "nudity and violence" have not been on etoy's main server since 1996, well before eToys went online. eToys' "precondition" was already satisfied before they filed their suit! The only objectionable thing on etoy.com proper was the word "fucking" in "Get the fucking flash plugin", one click away from the index page. (The old etoy site is archived at C3.)
Well, but the court order was directed at ETOY, and it directed them to shut down the WEB SERVER operating at etoy.com, which they did. The injunction was neither directed at NSI, nor did it require that the domain be disabled. Analogy: Court orders shop owner to show video in their shop window; shop owner complies; plaintiff runs to utility co. and has them turn off the shop's gas and electricity.
Speaking of enforcability: If etoy transfered their domain registration to a European registrar (AFAIK, they do register.com domains, and transfer of registration is possible), then wouldn't eToys be left out in the cold? I mean, a California court may be able to force Network Solutions to block a domain name, but can the force, say, France Telecom (ie, oleane.net)?
Yes. The original front page was pretty innocuous. Click on the "old fashioned way" link to see the "offensive" material. I don't know where the alleged porn went, but the article claims it was just a link to another site.
It would betray even worse judgment on the part of yahoo than it does for eToys to choose a domain name so close to one which had already been in operation for years, and whose content some may find unsuitable. And yes, I would fault Yahoo. Why would I not? But the eToy/etoys case is even worse: there are no s&m pictures on etoy's site. The only foul language is one use of the word "fucking", and it is not used on the front page. You have to click at least one link to get to any "objectionable" content. Furthermore, in the case of eToys it is clear that profits, not protectiveness of children, is the determining factor behind their actions. The "offensive content" allegations are a red herring.
etoy sent out an "official" toywar graphic with their last press release. It's alittle big, but kinda nice: Lego guy with a machine gun or something. Copy available here.
With deep consternation I have followed the coverage of your recent and ongoing attempt to reverse hijack the domain name of internationally acclaimed art group etoy. According to a report in the Village Voice of 1-7 December 1999, you have sued etoy, claiming that the artists' domain etoy.com infringes on your trademark rights and constitutes unfair competition. I have followed the activities of etoy since their inception in 1994, when the world-wide web was nascent, and e-commerce and certainly eToys was not even around yet. etoy has received much international recognition, among other things the prestigious Golden Nica in the.net category in 1996.
As silly as the fight and profiteering over domains in the.com top level domain seem to someone not involved in e-commerce, and as objectionable the practice of domain name squatting may be, I find your disregard for the freedom of artistic expression on the world wide web downright despicable. It is plain to anyone that etoy does not engage in domain squatting, and to the best of my knowledge, eToys has not even been the "victim" of any other etoy art project. etoy's use of the.com top level domain is an integral part of their overall artistic conception. To prevent them from using the etoy.com domain would be to deprive them of a fundamental component of their artistic program. To my mind, eToys' lawsuit smacks of corporate bullying and borders on censorship.
Needless to say, I will not shop with eToys, will sell any mutual funds I own which invest in eToys, and will urge my family and friends to do likewise, until you drop your lawsuit.
Slashdot Mirror
turnitin has a pretty interesting analysis of whether they infringe on the copyright of the student who submit the papers.
I don't know who you publish with, but copyright agreements I've seen and signed transfer the copyright to the publisher (but you retain certain rights, e.g., the right to make the paper available on your webpage, any rights in a process reported on in the paper).
For instance:
The IEEE: "The undersigned hereby assigns to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Incorporated (the "IEEE") all rights under copyright that may exist in and to the above Work, and any revised or expanded derivative works submitted to the IEEE by the undersigned based on the Work. The undersigned hereby warrants that the Work is original and that he/she is the author of the Work; to the extent the Work incorporates text passages, figures, data or other material from the works of others, the undersigned has obtained any necessary permissions. See reverse side for Retained Rights and other Terms and Conditions."
Springer-Verlag: "The copyright to the contribution identified above is transferred to Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New York (for U.S. government employees: to the extent transferable). The copyright transfer covers the exclusive right to reproduce and distribute the contribution, including reprints, translations, photographic reproductions, microform, electronic form (offline, online), or any other reproductions of similar nature."
Of course. But this wouldn't catch essays (a) bought on "paper mills" or (b) copied from other students (who took the course previously, for instance).
You're assumeing that the result of the plagiarism check is a simple "plagiarized" or "original" answer. But it isn't. Of course turn-it-in will document the sources from which a plagiarized paper is copied. And of course the prof will check whether the paper and the source are similar enough to constitute plagiarism. Every university I've been at required both the student's paper and the papers from which s/he copied as docmentation of a plagiarism case.
This made me feel like a criminal!! Mainly since I was not told about submitting the paper to Turn-It-In. I never would use someone else's work with out citing it and didn't have much to fear, but just the idea of missing one or two footnotes, was enough to get the nerves going.
Rest assured, every conscientious instructor will compare your paper with perhaps similar passages in the textbook or widely available other sorces, s/he wil put "suspicious" phrases through google, and will keep an eye out for similarities between your paper and that of other students. Does this make you feel like a criminal, too? Do they check ID's at exams at Western? Does that mae you feel like a criminal?
Remember that many universities policies require instructors to be vigilant in preventing and detecting academic dishonesty.
If I personally had to submit the papers and I was fully aware of the process, I would have ensured every source was cited.
That's something you should do anyway.
Austrian.
It's the other way round: A problem is NP-hard if SAT can be reduced to it.
$20 was the IPO price. It was up at about $70 two months ago.
ETOYS FINALLY DROPS LAWSUIT, PAYS COURT COSTS
Waited a month to make good on promise, just in time for earnings report
Contact: mailto:etoyfund@rtmark.com
More information: Press cverage, RTMark etoy Projects, etoy Toywar Platform, Shell Oil, Nazi toy
Four weeks ago, Internet toy giant eToys announced to the press that it was "moving away" from its lawsuit against European art group etoy in response to the torrent of public outrage. As the weeks went by without further action, however, many activists decided that eToys' words had represented a typical corporate ploy to derail opposition, and that the company had no intention of actually dropping the suit.
Activists quickly renewed their campaigns against eToys. RTMark initiated two new campaigns to drive eToys' stock price yet further down (it has now sunk well below its opening value of $20 per share, after a high of $67 reached the day the protests began), and a new community platform, http://www.toywar.com, gathered a "toy army" of 1400 activists poised to perform "operations" on command.
The strongest attack to date was scheduled to coincide with eToys' earnings announcement on Thursday. Today, just in time, eToys formally dropped its case against etoy "without prejudice"--a phrase that means either party is still free to attack the other. eToys has also formally agreed to pay etoy's court costs and other expenses incurred as a result of the lawsuit.
"A precedent has now finally been set in stone," said RTMark spokesperson Ray Thomas. "eToys thought it could act like corporations typically do, but it had no idea how the Internet works. Now e-commerce corporations have a choice: either obtain a legal stranglehold on the Internet, so that this kind of defensive reaction is no longer possible, or behave decently towards the humans who use this medium for purposes other than profit."
"This is the Brent Spar of e-commerce," said Reinhold Grether, an Internet researcher and a mastermind of the anti-eToys campaigns. "Just as the petroleum industry learned it had to listen to environmentalists, so e-commerce companies have now learned that the Internet doesn't belong to them, and they can't do whatever they want with it." (See http://rtmark.com/shell for more about the Brent Spar, and http://www.hygrid.de/etoyrhiz.html for more comments by Grether.)
"eToys will try to paint this as a misunderstanding, as just a simple error that has now been corrected," wrote etoy in a prepared statement. "But this is not what happened. They tried to destroy us, and that got them into very big trouble. They wanted to drop their case 'with prejudice,' because they fear further attacks and trademark battles, but now they see they have no choice at all in the matter. It is a total victory."
WHAT NOW?
Even though etoy has recovered its domain, the etoy Fund will not be retired, said RTMark spokesperson Thomas. Each project's discussion board will continue to function, and the resources of the etoy Fund pages will continue to be accessible for use and research.
"We hope that this campaign continues to serve as a reminder to people of what corporations do when left to their own devices, and as a reminder to corporations of what they cannot do, at least on the Internet," said Thomas. "We also hope people continue expressing their anger at eToys, if they so choose. There are many ways to embarrass and further damage this company--the Nazi figurine eToys advertises could lead to a boycott by Jewish groups, for example." Another immediate option would be a class-action lawsuit by eToys investors, said lawyer and RTMark member Rita Mae Rakoczi. "It could convincingly be argued that eToys, being an Internet company, should have known what it was getting into, and has seriously mismanaged its stockholders' money. If etoy's possession of etoy.com is so dangerous-- as perhaps it really is--why didn't eToys choose a different name for the company when they had the chance? And why did they choose to pursue in an openly hostile manner an art group best known for a piece called the 'Digital Hijack,' which made sophisticated use of technology to playfully attack users' browsers? It wouldn't take an Einstein to predict trouble."
"If eToys stumbled into this through sheer stupidity and negligence," Rakoczi continued, "it could be liable to investors for part of the $4 billion in value that's been lost as a consequence. A successful lawsuit could even entail eToys losing its own trademark, which would likely mean the end of the company." RTMark has set up a page containing links to resources on class action lawsuits against corporate managements.
"Things on the Internet don't go away," said etoy in its statement. "'Brick and mortar' corporations do this sort of thing and then bury it--but this will always be there when you search for information on eToys. It will always be very visible what bastards they were. They can never recover from this." The 1400 "Toywar soldiers" mustered by http://www.toywar.com will remain on high alert, according to the platform's operators, and are prepared to spring into action at the slightest indication of further aggression by eToys.
"And Network Solutions had better be careful, too," etoy said. "We will not tolerate any delay in the reinstallation of the etoy.com DNS entries." Network Solutions, the company in charge of Internet domains, illegally terminated etoy's e-mail shortly after the November 29 injunction, although no such move was required by the order. (See http://rtmark.com/etoyvaticano.html for another example of illegal behavior by Network Solutions.)
BACKGROUND AND TIMELINE
Late last year, eToys attempted to buy etoy.com from European art group etoy, and offered upwards of $500,000 in cash and stock options for the domain. etoy turned down the offer, so on November 29, 1999, eToys obtained a court injunction preventing etoy from operating a website at www.etoy.com, which had been registered before eToys even existed. To obtain the injunction eToys told the judge that etoy.com was confusing customers, and furthermore that it contained pornography and calls to violence. etoy.com had never made any reference to eToys or toys, nor featured anything resembling pornography or calls to violence.
During the subsequent weeks, activists attacked eToys by a variety of means that have been widely credited with contributing to the 70% decline in the value of eToys stock--a decline that began the same day as the protests.
The Dec. 15-25 Virtual Sit-in crippled the eToys servers, as CNN reported, and prompted eToys to file a restraining order against one of the organizations responsible for it, and to threaten another activist anonymously.
Simultaneously, the Disinvest! campaign filled eToys investment boards and other outlets with messages about the situation. Many investors responded by dumping their eToys stock. Even those who refused to see a link between activist attacks and the eToys stock fall were at a loss to explain how it could lose so much money, so consistently, on consistently good financial news. Some suspected foul play by eToys management, and the possibility of a class-action lawsuit was raised.
Finally, on December 29, eToys announced it was "moving away" from its lawsuit in response to public outrage. At first, etoy and the activists were delighted, and a formal counterpart to the statement was expected from hour to hour. Then, when nothing happened for days and then weeks, it became clear that eToys' announcement had been an empty verbal concession it had no intention of making concrete--a typical corporate ploy to derail activist momentum.
Activists quickly renewed their campaign to damage eToys. Perhaps startled by the endurance of its opponents, and nervous about further attacks and proof of instability during the week it is to announce its quarterly earnings, eToys today--at 15:20 Pacific Standard Time, to be exact--finally backed down on paper, ceding full rights to etoy.com on etoy's terms, without precondition and with payment of court costs and other expenses.
RTMark, which is in no way associated with etoy, aims to publicize the widespread corporate abuse of democratic institutions like courts and elections. To this end it solicits and distributes funding for "sabotage projects." Groups of such projects are called "mutual funds" in order to call attention to one way in which large numbers of people come to identify corporate needs as their own. RTMark projects do not normally target specific companies; the etoy Fund projects are an exception.
It's kind of a neat idea to use the Matrix for a philosophy course, but the philosophical content isn't that deep. As chart says, all there is really is an elaborate way to explain what the evil genius is or could be, which might have some pedagogical value.
Incidentially, the "nudity and violence" have not been on etoy's main server since 1996, well before eToys went online. eToys' "precondition" was already satisfied before they filed their suit! The only objectionable thing on etoy.com proper was the word "fucking" in "Get the fucking flash plugin", one click away from the index page. (The old etoy site is archived at C3.)
Where do you have that from? I've heard, on the contrary, that etoy offered to put up an eToys banner (for payment, of course), which eToys refused.
Well, but the court order was directed at ETOY, and it directed them to shut down the WEB SERVER operating at etoy.com, which they did. The injunction was neither directed at NSI, nor did it require that the domain be disabled. Analogy: Court orders shop owner to show video in their shop window; shop owner complies; plaintiff runs to utility co. and has them turn off the shop's gas and electricity.
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.
Speaking of enforcability: If etoy transfered their domain registration to a European registrar (AFAIK, they do register .com domains, and transfer of registration is possible), then wouldn't eToys be left out in the cold? I mean, a California court may be able to force Network Solutions to block a domain name, but can the force, say, France Telecom (ie, oleane.net)?
Boycott eToys! on deja.com
Yes. The original front page was pretty innocuous. Click on the "old fashioned way" link to see the "offensive" material. I don't know where the alleged porn went, but the article claims it was just a link to another site.
Check out eviltoy.com, the anti-eToys site.
Nicely put. And they advertise their wehrmacht toys for kids 5 years of age!
It would betray even worse judgment on the part of yahoo than it does for eToys to choose a domain name so close to one which had already been in operation for years, and whose content some may find unsuitable. And yes, I would fault Yahoo. Why would I not? But the eToy/etoys case is even worse: there are no s&m pictures on etoy's site. The only foul language is one use of the word "fucking", and it is not used on the front page. You have to click at least one link to get to any "objectionable" content. Furthermore, in the case of eToys it is clear that profits, not protectiveness of children, is the determining factor behind their actions. The "offensive content" allegations are a red herring.
etoy sent out an "official" toywar graphic with their last press release. It's alittle big, but kinda nice: Lego guy with a machine gun or something. Copy available here.
IdeaLab had the nerve to submit their site to the etoy dmoz.org category today!
Little detail: Switzerland is not part of the EU.
Write to eToys "Uncle of the Board" Toby Lenk. For more information, go to the etoy ODP catgeory.
With deep consternation I have followed the coverage of your recent and ongoing attempt to reverse hijack the domain name of internationally acclaimed art group etoy. According to a report in the Village Voice of 1-7 December 1999, you have sued etoy, claiming that the artists' domain etoy.com infringes on your trademark rights and constitutes unfair competition. I have followed the activities of etoy since their inception in 1994, when the world-wide web was nascent, and e-commerce and certainly eToys was not even around yet. etoy has received much international recognition, among other things the prestigious Golden Nica in the .net category in 1996.
As silly as the fight and profiteering over domains in the .com top level domain seem to someone not involved in e-commerce, and as objectionable the practice of domain name squatting may be, I find your disregard for the freedom of artistic expression on the world wide web downright despicable. It is plain to anyone that etoy does not engage in domain squatting, and to the best of my knowledge, eToys has not even been the "victim" of any other etoy art project. etoy's use of the .com top level domain is an integral part of their overall artistic conception. To prevent them from using the etoy.com domain would be to deprive them of a fundamental component of their artistic program. To my mind, eToys' lawsuit smacks of corporate bullying and borders on censorship.
Needless to say, I will not shop with eToys, will sell any mutual funds I own which invest in eToys, and will urge my family and friends to do likewise, until you drop your lawsuit.
Sincerely yours,
Richard Zach