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eToys Inc. Drops etoy Suit - For Real This Time
from the nice-to-see-the-good-guys-win dept.
From: "etoy.AGENT027" [agent027@mail.toybomb.com]
Subject: VICTORY*VICTORY*VICTORY*VICTORY*VICTORY!
OFFICIAL etoy.PRESS-RELEASE:
TOTAL VICTORY for the etoy.CORPORATION AND THE INTERNET COMMUNITY ((WHICH PROVED THAT THE NET IS NOT YET IN THE HANDS OF E-COMMERCE GIANTS)).
NOBODY INVESTS TO LOSE MONEY! NOT EVEN MEDIA ARTISTS...
"MONEY AND SHARES ARE THE OBJECTS OF OUR DESIRE... BUT ART IS WHAT WE WOULD KILL FOR..." *
thank you for flying etoy....
_______________________________________
*QUOTE etoy.DAVE, TONGA 1994
(SANTA MONICA / ZUERICH / NEW YORK)
THE LAWSUIT AGAINST etoy IS DROPPED!
according to the etoy.LAWYERS chris truax in san diego and peter e. wild in zurich eToys Inc. gave up its naive fight against the famous international art group etoy this tuesday after a long and exhausting dispute about the terms and conditions of this settlement.
on monday, january 24, 2000, the TOYWAR.crisis-control-board, 1345 special TOYWAR.agents and media warriors triggered another firestorm : within a few hours many hundred EMAIL-TOY-BOMBS exploded in the brains of customers, e-shoppers, brokers and nervous business men all over the world.
no one got hurt - but the message is placed and the eToys share value sunk below its initial price of $20: value on tuesday / 11.12 AM: $19.0625 per share unit.
one of the targets of the violence-free toy-bombing was the eToys HQ in santa monica .. eToys felt that it is now time to drop this lawsuit and to accept all the demands the etoy.CORPORATION submitted.
IT WAS A PLEASURE TO DO BUSINESS WITH ONE OF THE BIGGEST E-COMMERCE GIANTS IN THE WORLD: F*U*C*K*I*N*G* INTENSE & REALLY EXPENSIVE BUT A KICK FOR ALL OF US! WE ALL LEARNED A LOT.
WE THANK ALL THE BRAVE AGENTS WHO LINED UP BEHIND US TO PROTECT THE ART BRAND "etoy" & FREEDOM ON THE NET!
all agents on TOYWAR.com get rewarded with etoy.SHARES and special compensations.
TOYWAR.heros will be awarded with etoy.MEDALS and TOYWAR.titles after champagne and drugs left the bodies of the TOYWAR.crisis-control- board-members.
THIS IS A GREAT MOMENT IN THE HISTORY OF INTERNET ART!
for one time we avoid long statements and launch the party rockets...
signed and verified: the etoy.BOARD
(MORE INFORMATION SOON!)
etoy.CRISIS-PRESS-OFFICE: 0041 1 242 40 81
etoy.PRESS-FTP: ftp://212.71.98.169/pub
____________________
if you joined this community because of the lawsuit....you can now
unsubscribe@toybomb.com without any negative feelings! good bye & it was
nice to meet you. otherwise stay tuned and wait for even more exciting
media viruses and twisted business plans from the etoy.LABORATORIES. we
are not done yet.
LAST MESSAGE TO the eToys LEGAL-DEPT:
THANK YOU FOR HELPING US GROW!
See you next year. (Score:4)
I wonder if there's anything that keeps etoys.com from simply refiling the lawsuit before next year's holiday spending season again. My impression is that etoys.com is really getting off scot-free here.
Let's face it, the only way that this kind of bullshit stops would be when ANYONE who brings frivolous and punitive lawsuits of this nature has to pay severe financial sanctions for abusing the legal process.
I'm, of course, not talking just about the etoys episode, but of others like that, like the current nonsense with the DVD-CCA. I'm not a big fan of class-action lawsuits, but I think that something like that, a class-action lawsuit, would be perfectly appropriate here. In my dreams, I see every Linux owner who wants to be able to play DVDs certified as a member of a class in an action against the DVD-CCA for restraint of trade and anti-competitive practices. The DVD-CCA is preventing anyone from introducing competitive DVD playing software, using coercion and intimidation. Microsoft is about to be grabbed by the short hairs, for doing something very similar, why can't the DVD-CCA?
--
RTMark Reaction (Score:4)
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.com], RTMark etoy Projects [rtmark.com], etoy Toywar Platform [toywar.com], Shell Oil [rtmark.com], Nazi toy [etoys.com]
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 [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 [rtmark.com] for more about the Brent Spar, and http://www.hygrid.de/etoyrhiz.html [hygrid.de] 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.com] 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 [rtmark.com] 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 [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 [rtmark.com] for another example of illegal behavior by Network Solutions.)
BACKGROUND AND TIMELINE [rtmark.com]
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 [cnn.com], 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 have one to trash.. (Score:3)
(relevent post [slashdot.org]). These people need to be "informed" of the error of their way.. or crusified if they will not reform. It would be especially helpful if people would track down the law firm's customers, so we can complain to them.
[switching back to topic of this article] I'll be curious to see the real analysis of the etoy thing. I'd love to think that we really hurt their stock price.
Also, I should say that I really liked the style of the etoy press release. These guys are pretty good.
Jeff
Now.. (Score:4)
Mistake (Score:3)
You mean eToys dropped the suit earlier. Probably obvious, but the subtle difference between "eToy" and "eToys" is what started the suit anyway.
Re:A truly great thing. (Score:3)
how about other entities?
for example, I applied for that oh-so-cheesy linux logo credit card. [yeah, I'm a sucker for penguins]. I used my brand new PO box as my mailing address - I'm trying to cut down on the # of places that have my real physical addr - right to privacy and all..
so anyway, I get this letter in my PO box asking for verification of my addr (since my credit history only lists my street addr). I call the issuing bank up and read the case # (and other special #'s that were on that letter I received) to the bank guy - as proof that I did in fact get the letter and I am who I say I am. so even though I can recite the special check codes I listed on the credit app, etc, - still no dice - the bank guy insists on getting a copy of a utility bill or similar that goes to this PO box. (ok - how many utility bills do YOU have that go to your PO box?)
I then ask the bank guy (who, whether he realizes it or not, is representing linux via the linux credit card) if he has net access (since I remember that my PO box is listed as my whois record address. and of course he's clueless about that whole whois thing. I guess I should have expected as such ;-(
so anyway, I guess us neticens who spend way too much time online assume that many other folks are net.versant. and of course, its still only like 5-10% of the US pop who's really online.
well - the banks - I can live with them as they are. it was a pain to resubmit my credit app all over again (using my actual street addr. this time) but I did it and now have that shiny penguin in my pocket [vbg].
but when it comes to things legal, I DO expect our judges and lawyers to be net.versant (when arguing and deciding things in that domain). and of course they're not aware of technology and this field - so things like the DVD/decss crap drags on and on, usually heading in the wrong direction. and spam laws are still slow to be put on the books. oh, and now that guy from Norway is harassed by his gov't who clearly seems clueless on the actual subject at hand.
sigh...
--
The Bigger Picture -- Goliaths Are Out of Control (Score:5)
I'm still waiting for jamie (/. regular) to publish something about the Superbowl of Domain Name Disputes (need to trademark that title :) !! ) -- the NFL, NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball are all going after a company called FlairMail (www.FlairMail.com) that makes vanity email addresses (like HotMail addresses, but you get to have [myname]@goyankees.com or [myname]@bulls1.net, instead of advertising for a Bill Gates subsidiary) available for FREE to subscribers. All of the sports vanity names are DIFFERENT from the team names, by adding "go" or "1," and several non-sports names are also available. FlairMail has NEVER claimed to be endorsed, sponsored, or approved by the sports leagues (and it doesn't have to be -- the law does not require the approval of the sports leagues).
Some fans who buy hats and clothing or who subscribe for vanity email addresses may perfer to pay extra for the knowledge that they have the "official" product. Other customers may not prefer to pay extra. The bottom line (and there are quite a few court cases to prove it) is that THAT CHOICE BELONGS WITH THE CUSTOMERS. The sports leagues do not have the right to make that choice for them. But that doesn't stop sports licensing organizations from trying. For example, a couple of months ago, Collegiate Licensing went after a father and son in Ohio for selling "Beat Michigan" sweatshirts. Collegiate Licensing claimed it violated U of Michigan's trademarks. I live in Ann Arbor and I graduated from Michigan law school, and no matter how big a Michigan fan I am, I am still upset and embarrassed by the greed of Collegiate Licensing.
There are lots of other Goliath v. David lawsuits pending or that have been resolved by the courts. Here is a sample (less than a third of the examples I know about):
Avery-Dennison vs. Sumpton -- Vanity Email Business had to go through trial and appeal before "little guy" won on appeal in the Ninth Circuit. Appeals court told the trial court to consider awarding attorneys' fees to deter the big company from doing the same thing again.
Hasbro vs. Clue Computing -- It only cost Eric Robison, a Colorado computer consultant, $100,000 and his marriage to defend himself after toy giant Hasbro decided it wanted to take over the domain name www.clue.com . Robison ultimately "won" in the sense that the court said he could keep his domain name. But did he really "Win?"
Northern Light Technology vs. NorthernLights.com A search engine was not happy enough with its own domain name and the roughly 300+ additional domain names that NLT registered. So the search engine (which is named after a clipper ship) sued one of its neighbors (which uses the domain name NorthernLights.com -- a reference to the Aurora Borealis), in an effort to take over that domain name, too. The defendant (NorthernLights.com) was using the domain name almost an entire year before the search engine website was launched. The case is still pending in Boston federal court. The judge has suppressed the expressive activity of the little guy by ordering a black "jump page" to be posted in front of his website. (I confess I have a personal interest in this one and the "Superbowl" case.) See http://www.NorthernLights.com/new/
HealthNet.org -- this website belongs to a charitible group of international physicians. However, there is an insurance comapny in California that already owns HealthNet.com and HealthNet.net. As you can imagine, the Insurance company sent a threatening letter to the physicians' organization, who had to file a lawsuit to defend themselves in Boston.
There are many more examples, but I'm tired of typing.
And Congress isn't helping to fix things. Some members of Congress are actually trying to make things WORSE! Congress is making things worse by passing laws that encourage more of these kinds of lawsuits. Senator Abraham of Michigan (who is up for re-election this year), along with Senators McCain and Hatch (who also needed campaign $$ this year), were the original sponsors of S 1255 -- the original so-called "Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act."
The "Cybersquatting Act" did not need to be passed -- existing trademark law already provided adequate remedies in cases of REAL cybersquatting. Remember, Dennis Toeppen lost all his lawsuits, even without the passage of the law. What the law REALLY does is that it allows Hasbro to threaten Eric Robison with $100,000 in punitive damages if Robison doesn't give up and settle. The law lets Health Net the big insurance company threaten the charity HealthNet.org with $100,000 in punitive damages if the charity does not cave.
Some of the "Internet-smartest" law professors, like Johnathan Zittrain of Harvard, signed onto a letter by the Association for Computing Machinery opposing the "Cybersquatting Bill," but Congress ignored the advice of people who know something about the Internet. The Clinton Administrration was on record as opposing the bill (but remember the line-item veto was struck down as Unconstitutional).
To make a long story short, at 4:00 in the morning on the day the Omnibus Appropriations Act (essentially the budget for the Whole Government) was up for a vote, Senator Trent Lott, Congressman James Rogan, Senator Abraham, and Congressman Howard Coble slipped the so-called "Cybersquatting Bill" into the Appropriations Act. The "Cybersqatting Bill" could not have passed Congress any other way. Which leaves nonprofits, small businesses, artists, and others (like ETOY) at the mercy of big commercial enterprises (like eToys).
So what do you do about it? I have in mind what I call an "Open Source Democracy Project" to help communicate to Senator Abraham and others that decisionmaking about the Internet needs to be done in the open -- subject to public scrutiny and with input from the Internet community. Decisionmaking about the Internet needs to be done with the interests of the entire community in mind and not just a few big-$$ campaign contributors.
If any /. readers are interested in helping to use Open Source methods of collaboration and cooperation in order to achieve political ends -- to communicate effectively with elected representitives, the I urge you to contact me at your earliest convenience. Specific skills that are needed are (1) factual research (fact gathering), (2) writing, (3) high-quality website design, (4) fact-checking (we need to be absolutely accurate), and (5) publicity. If the project is a community project, it will be FAR MORE EFFECTIVE than a single person's efforts ever could be.
Eric C. Grimm
Attorney at Law
CyberBrief, PLC
Ann Arbor, Michigan
eric.grimm@CyberBrief.net
Timing (Score:3)
THIS IS HARDLY A VICTORY.
If Goliath can push David around until Goliath gets his feast, only then letting poor David go, Goliath is still in charge. As others have said, the only way to assure a proper victory is to make sure stupid preliminary injunctions cannot be carried out in the first place. This requires a court decision or legislation. Since the latter is pretty unlikely (Wall Street owns Congress, yadda yadda yadda), we need someone to take one of these lawsuits to completion.
How about a countersuit, etoy? You and the rest of us first-amendment-pushers deserve to reap the rewards.
Gentlemen!! (Score:3)
Wow, something finally goes right (Score:5)
But...
Etoy simply backed down, rather than have a court rule on it. I was kind of hoping (like many others) that this would set a precendent to avoid this kind of crap in the future.
I hope something like this doesn't happen again, or the accused would be back to square one. Another thing to note is that Etoy fought *hard* to retain their rights, much harder than most people would. I have incredible respect for those guys. I hope the victims of any future abuse follow their example.
Um..is this for real? (Score:3)
Last time i checked
IT WAS A PLEASURE TO DO BUSINESS WITH ONE OF THE BIGGEST E-COMMERCE GIANTS IN THE WORLD: F*U*C*K*I*N*G* INTENSE & REALLY EXPENSIVE BUT A KICK FOR ALL OF US! WE ALL LEARNED A LOT.
was not common in an offical press release.
Bummer (Score:3)
Re:Um..is this for real? (Score:3)
Most press releases are sleep-inducing. At least etoy is interesting. And (just maybe) that's why they are so loved in online art circles.
:-)
- Robin "roblimo" Miller
Domain (Score:3)