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The Lawsuit That Wasn't 10

Posted by michael from the flexible-courses-of-action dept.
John Hawkins writes "Brass Knuckles Webzine (http://www.brassknuckles.net) has done an article on a recent attempt by Revlon to acquire the flex.org domain name from Seaholm high school. Revlon threatened to take legal action against the high school unless the high school gave up their domain name. However, soon after Revlon was contacted about a possible article that would be coming out on the dispute, they changed their tune. Was it coincidental timing or the fear of bad press making a corporation do the right thing? Read it here (http://www.brassknuckles.net/revlon.html) and decide for yourself." I think this is a fairly common sequence of events. If a threatening letter suffices to scare the recipient into giving up the name, the company gained the name for nothing. Letters are cheap.
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The Lawsuit That Wasn't More

The Lawsuit That Wasn't

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  • I just clicked on flex.com to see what it is and to my supprise (not really) the site should be flex.net; it being an ISP in Hawaii. Except that www.flex.net is already take, by a Hoston area ISP. Did the other 'flex' sites get harras^H^H^H^H^H^H legal letters also?
  • uuh... should they not be trying to register flex.com? [flex.com] After all they are not an orginization. And the Hawains don't need the internet anyway.

    It was just a matter of time before someone jumped on the "YOUR CYBERSQUATTING!" band wagon with no good reason.
    -----
    If my facts are wrong then tell me. I don't mind.
  • Beyond utter stupidity..."

    What makes you think you have to look beyond utter stupidity for the answer? I think utter stupidity is a perfectly good asnwer.

  • Is there some kind of a software out there that checks trademarked names against the whois database, and then GENERATES threatening letters?

    Well, sort of. For example, register.com offers a service to its corporate customers called Trademark Guardian[TM] [register.com], which "will include detailed information about current and potential infringements on your trademark including... previously registered domain names." I imagine other registrars have offerings which are similarly creepy.

  • It's high time specifically to sue these companies for terrorism and conspiracy under the R.I.C.O. statutes. Those terrifying police-state statutes are used against ordinary folks for anything and everything and nothing at all, so it's time to get the corporations all stirred up against those Nazi-like statutes, and dish out some justice as well.

  • And here I thought it was a fast lexical analyser generator!

    http://www.gnu.org/software/flex/flex.html

    Hmmm... I must not be watching the soap operas where Revlon is spending all their advertising dollars...
  • When an ex-girlfriend of mine gave notice that she was moving out of her high-rise appt., she got back a letter from the landlord. The letter asked her to sign and return a 'standard form'. The so-called standard form gave the landlord the right to show her apartment at any time they wished without any further notice to her or permission from her. In effect, they were asking her to give up all sorts of tennant and privacy rights for free.

    What bothered me is that she even considered signing that letter.

    Some companies know that, simply by asking or blustering, they can get people to give away all sorts of rights. It's not limited to Domain names.

    If you've ever been stopped by police, they may tell you something like:

    Now, We're going to search you. This is a simple search, but if we find anything incriminating on you, we may charge you and use whatever we find in that trial,
    OK?
    If you say OK, you're not just indicating that you understand what they're going to do. You're giving them consent. Many people don't seem to understand that until you respond with some sort of assent, they usually have no right whatsoever to search you. The police rely on a combination of ignorance and/or docility to get what they want.

    We've seen similar bluster attacks with many of the 'cease and desist' letters flowing all over cyber space. Probably the vast majority of them have absolutely no basis in law, but that's irrelevant.

    It's like poker. If the people you threaten roll over and play dead, it doesn't matter that the bluff was empty. On the other hand, if they say 'no', you really have nothing on the table other than the time and materials spent making the threat. You can walk away any time you want. If you're already taking on a real case, you can get economy of scale working for you by snarfing a couple of legitimate domains almost for free.

    Hmmm, I wonder if you can charge them with blackmail?
    `ø,,ø`ø,,ø!

  • It's good that we can scare off bad people from doing bad things just by taking notice and sending letters and wirting articles. But it's bad when it works the other way around. Like when some company (let's call them AnalogDivergence) sends C&D letters to honest hackers and scares them into taking down their material, when they really have no legal leg to stand on.

    There should be protections against these scare tactics. There should be specific laws about what MUST be stated in such a letter (specific cited laws, whether they have successfully won this same case yet against others, exactly what you're doing wrong legally and practically, etc..).

  • What is patently obvious from both the original letter, and the follow-up letter to brassknuckles is that they never even looked at the site before they threatened to sue!

    So what is this? Is there some kind of a software out there that checks trademarked names against the whois database, and then GENERATES threatening letters?

    Beyond utter stupidity, tt's the only explanation I can think of.

  • What makes you think you have to look beyond utter stupidity for the answer? I think utter stupidity is a perfectly good asnwer.

    I was having a short-term case of faith in human intelligence.

    Thank you. I'm cured, and feel much better now.

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