This page is meant to be an extensive, if not comprehensive, list of sites that have gotten
slammed in one way or another for trademark concerns. The purpose of this list is to
document what may be an increasing trend toward the use and abuse of intellectual property
law as a form of online censorship. Although they're usually trademark-related, I'm not including domain-name controversies in this list. These are well-documented elsewhere on the net, especially at the excellent What's in a Name pages at Georgetown. Linking to closed sites is a little paradoxical. Most of the sites listed here still exist, but have been modified. In most cases, I've chosen to link to the "what happened here" page, where you can typically find lawyers letters, laments, etc. Follow backlinks to see the rest of the sites, some of which are quite worthwhile and entertaining. I do a lot of searches to try and keep up with new trademark cases, but I rely more and more on user feedback. I've been adding one or two new cases a week, but I'm sure I'm still missing any. If you know of anything you should be listed, please let me know. I'd also love to hear any comments etc. I can be reached here. |
Trademark owner |
Toys R Us |
Targeted site(s) |
Roadkills R
Us |
These guys make trademark woes look fun. Not only have they reported on
everything
that's gone on, they've also started a contest
to rename their site, called for a boycott
and even started a list
of other unauthorized "R-us" sites.
Don't miss the very salient Torts R Us.
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Trademark owner |
LucasArts |
Targeted site(s) |
http://www.e
erie.fr/~tassin/Starwars/close_ord.html http://www.frii.co m/~joe/soa.html |
Star Wars fans on the net organized something called the Star of Alderaan
Campaign meant to move LucasArts to a more lenient trademark strategy. Near
as I can tell, they received some tepid support from LucasArts and are now satisfied...
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Trademark owner |
Fox (Simpsons) |
Targeted site(s) |
http://ww
w.snpp.com/fox_letter.html Steve Rapport's Simpsons Page |
D'oh! Suck said it best when they pointed out the weirdness of any Matt Groening work getting all hostile when people engage in cultural appropriation. |
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Trademark owner |
Spelling Entertainment Group |
Targeted site(s) |
Spelling
Land |
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Trademark owner |
Intel |
Targeted site(s) |
Intel Secrets
Page
|
""Intel Secrets" and "What Intel doesn't want you to know" are trademarks
of Robert Collins.
Pentium and Intel are trademarks of Intel Corporation. 386, 486, 586, P6,
and all other numbers are not!"
More than just trademark issues: There are concerns here about trade secrets too, as well as a modified Intel logo. In mid-July, Collins added a huge slew of info about the suit, |
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Trademark owner |
McDonnell
Douglas |
Targeted site(s) |
Joke
McDonnell Douglas Warrany Card
|
Pretty darn humourless, these arms manufacturers...
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Trademark owner |
Warner Bros. (Adorable
cartoon chracters w. moxie) |
Targeted site(s) |
The @cme Page
|
Is the Warner Internet
Fan Association for real?
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Trademark owner |
Sega (Sonic the
Hedgehog) |
Targeted site(s) |
Perverted Sonic
Pix
|
I guess it's sort of unsurprising that Sega would be upset about this...
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Trademark owner |
Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc. |
Targeted site(s) |
Elvis home page
|
This one has a pretty happy ending- the King's lawyers had the site
stripped down to just about
nothing back when it was the Cyber Graceland Tour,
but it's back and running just fine now.
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Trademark owner |
Dutton Children's Books (Winnie The Pooh) |
Targeted site(s) |
Poohbear
|
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Trademark owner |
The NBA |
Targeted site(s) |
Sean Shepard's
Pacers Page
|
You can read about the NBA trademark crackdowns at The Competitor.
Check out Unofficially
Endagered and The
Missing Link.
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Trademark owner |
The BBC |
Targeted site(s) |
The Fast Show
Unofficial Official Unofficial Homage Page
|
Currently, the BBC seems to be allowing the page to exist, but in modified
form. You can read about it at Andrew Wiseman's Television
Room (John Arundel emailed me saying that his problems were related to copyright, not trademark- An important distinction.) |
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Trademark owner |
Interlego |
Targeted site(s) |
Lego WWW
|
Turns out that David Koblas, maintainer of one of the net's frighteningly
numerous Lego-related sites, was in fact disserving the public, who were
left "confused and misled about the source of information they [were]
receving". He has been stopped.
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Trademark owner |
Various (Middleberg and Associates) |
Targeted site(s) |
KMart Sucks
The Original KMart Sucks page |
Middleberg's stated intention is to help companies protect their "brand
images" on the web, by shutting down disparaging pages.
They have thus far only talked
about the
KMart Sucks page: The maintainer of the page tells me that, as of June 19, they haven't
actually talked to him. This could well represent a scarier future trend. So far, corporate attacks on individual pages have mostly been media companies attacking fan sites, a phenomenon that has more to do with cluelessness than malice. Companies like Middleberg seem to intend to use trademark claims, or anything else they can think of, to frighten people who have real grievances into online silence.
You can read more about Middleberg on the objectively-titled "Bastard PR Firm" web page, or read
the somewhat
less interesting Money Daily arti
cle reprinted on the astoundingly cool and comprehensive McSpotlight Site.
The KMart Sucks page has been renamed XMart sucks after a lawyers letter was sent. Read about it here, or check out the letter from the site's sysadmin. I'll try and get the actual letter sent by Middleberg... Update 2: November 4: Glen L. Roberts, one of my favourite online rabblerousers, emailed to tell me he's keeping a mirror copy of the original KMart sucks page on his site. |
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Trademark owner |
Smith
Barney |
Targeted site(s) |
Smith Barney Page
|
Michael Lissack is a self-descibed wistleblower who runs a web site
documenting bond scandals. The site includes a section dedicated to
outlining various scandals, lawsuits involving the firm Smith Barney, who
most of us remember from the John Houseman ads: "We make money the
old-fashioned way, we earn it." Of course, Smith Barney isn't real happy about the page. But there's no law against publishing true, well-documented information about a company's wrongdoings. Smith Barney is accusing Lissack of trademark violation.
You can read about the threats on Lissack's site, or in this
really active
Usenet
thread.
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Trademark owner |
Ohio Art Company (Etch-a-
Sketch) |
Targeted site(s) |
Web A Sketch
|
Nifty Site. Ohio Art seems to have taken an unusual strategy in demanding that the creator
give them the
content rather than remove the page.
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Trademark owner |
Fox (X-Files) |
Targeted site(s) |
XFiles
Episodes
|
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Trademark owner |
Viacom Inc (Star
Trek) |
Targeted site(s) |
Star Trek Movie Info
|
David Henderson's page included a "leaked" synopsis of the plot of the next Star Trek
movie.
This can't have made Paramount happy, but there's no law against it. They sent him a letter
demanding that he
remove the information. He did. And it then reappeared on Vidiot. Who also got a letter. As of July 19, you can still find versions of the synopsis here, here, here and here.
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Trademark owner |
Radio
Shack |
Targeted site(s) |
RadioPhone
|
A page of, uh, technical information about cel phones. You can read the correspondence
and comments here.
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Trademark owner |
Tyco Toys |
Targeted site(s) |
Magic
Infinty Ball
|
Jake Donham wrote to let me know that his web site used to be called the Magic 8Ball, until
he got this
letter from Tyco Toys and turned the mark sideways.
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Trademark owner |
The Bitter Agency |
Targeted site(s) |
David Lowry Fan
Page
|
Yet another fan page dramatically abrdidged after a lawyer's threat. Okay. The Lowry page is a fake- a cheap stunt by some folks doing local theatre. But it's sort of sad that a convincing web page parody must now include links to a trademark suit.
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Trademark owner |
Viacom/Paramount (Brady
Bunch) |
Targeted site(s) |
The
Unofficial Brady Bunch Home Page
|
Standard fan page story: Fan starts page. Gets mean letter. Takes stuff down.
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Trademark owner |
Hachette(George
Magazine) |
Targeted site(s) |
george jr.
|
George Myers Jr. had the audactity to name his web zine, george jr., after himself. The
name
George, of course, is owned by Hachette's George Magazine,
"The
Political Magazine for People who Don't Want to Know Anything about Politics",
published by John Kennedy Junior (who, presumably, has full rights to his name).
Read Myers's article on
the subject.
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Trademark owner |
University of Nebraska
(Huskers) |
Targeted site(s) |
Misc. Huskers Pages?
|
Read about it here. I'll
post more info
as it becomes available.
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Trademark owner |
Gateway 2000
Computers |
Targeted site(s) |
Gateway 2000
Sucks
|
A disgruntled former employee, Jeff Blackmon, had a popular page, till the lawyers for
Gateway,
the leading direct marketer of personal computers in the United States, found out about it.
They said "Mr. Blackmon is and will always be free
to express his honestly held opinions about Gateway and its products," by which they
meant, of course, that the page must be removed. It's an increasingly familiar
story of trademark law being used to shut down a site that hurt the feelings of a large
corporation.
The page is down now, but you can read all about it at the WebBanner site.
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Trademark owner |
Fox Network (Millenium) |
Targeted site(s) |
The First
Unofficial Millennium site Gil's Millenium Page |
Fox's new show had generated all sorts of buzz on the Web for months before its
premiere. On October 24, the day before the
show aired, Fox squelched the buzz. Check out this Usenet thread for latest
details. Or post your opinions to the discussion area on the
official Millenium site's dicussion
area.
Update: Nov 4 Millenium fans and X-Philes are not taking this lying down. I got mail from the maintainer of Athair's Free Speech is Out There page, pointing out that dozens protest sites are springing up really fast. | |
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This site was created especially for students of the UNC School of Journalism's JOMC 050 Class, and anyone else who may be interested. For more information, please contactdaikat@email.unc.edu |