Guy Sues Twitter For Taking Away His Twitter Handle
from the good-luck-with-that dept
Leonard Barshack, who founded BigFoot, which was a (quite popular) internet forwarding mailing service in the dotcom era, has apparently sued Twitter for taking away his username, @SunValley and giving it to the Sun Valley resort. Barshack, who lives in Sun Valley, Idaho, claims that taking away his username was a violation of Twitter's policies, because he didn't really violate Sun Valley's trademark. As Eric Goldman notes, this lawsuit has little likelihood of succeeding. Twitter claimed that the combination of using the name @SunValley with a sun logo similar to Sun Valley's, was a non-parody impersonation of the trademark holder.Reading through the actual filing, Barshack, who is represented by his wife, Erin Smith, who also is a plaintiff, focuses on the fact that Sun Valley doesn't indicate on its website that its logo is covered by trademark. That's about as close to meaningless as you can imagine. Not only do you not have to show that it's a registered trademark, you don't even need to have a registered trademark (though, it helps if you're seeking damages) because common law trademarks are perfectly acceptable in most cases.
But, more to the point, Twitter has no legal obligation to let you keep your account. If it wants to take away the account and shut it down, it can. If it wants to change the name of your account, it can. I just don't see what the purpose of the lawsuit is, other than that Barshack is upset. I can understand that, and I might even agree that Twitter could and should handle disputes like this differently, but that doesn't give him any basis at all for a lawsuit. Not liking something that a company does isn't a reason to sue.
Filed Under: leonard barshack, sun valley, trademark, twitter, twitter handle
Companies: sun valley