Maybe this is good news, in that it might ultimately educate the "public" that Microsoft Office sucks so very very very much in so many many many ways.
Oh, were it so
that Shaun Shane's
tongue be
made of glass.
- a poem by GMacGuffin
(You may not quote the above sans attribution without subjecting yourself to a maelstrom of obtuse bullshit.)
(And Shaun/OnPress/Roth: Minors can be sued, and parents are generally not liable for their children's acts. Go off the Lithium for a few days and you should be able to talk to your lawyer directly about that.)
You are missing the point. ICANN, who runs UDRP, is not the UN in regard to UDRP arbitrations. R.Paul did not run to the UN, he filed a UDRP complaint and chose WIPO as the arbitration provider.
In the early 2000s, there had been speculation that the United Nations might signal a takeover of ICANN,[20] followed by a negative reaction from the US government[15] and worries about a division of the Internet[21] the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunisia in November 2005 agreed not to get involved in the day-to-day and technical operations of ICANN. However it also agreed to set up an international Internet Governance Forum, with a consultative role on the future governance of the Internet. ICANN's Government Advisory Committee is currently set up to provide advice to ICANN regarding public policy issues and has participation by many of the world's governments.[22]
Ron Paul's acts here do seem rather reprehensible as represented in this piece. Nonetheless, he apparently wants the .com of his name, and does not want to pay $250k at this point. So... his options are 1) file suit; 2) file a UDRP arbitration -- the quicker, cheaper route, with the only remedy being the domain name itself, not the content, or damages, etc. If current ronpaul.com owners lose, they could move all content elsewhere.
Under the UDRP, R.Paul only has two qualified ICANN arbitration bodies in US to chose from: the WIPO, and the National Arbitration Forum (NAF). For UDRP purposes, both simply function as providers of arbitration services. http://www.icann.org/en/help/dndr/udrp/providers
Had Paul simply chosen the NAF, would this whole UN angle have worked? Not really. And which arbitrating body to use was surely the decision of the attorneys, who probably only chose WIPO because they had the templates from the last time. (NAF appears to be the bigger player in UDRP in recent years, but the choice between the two remains.)
So, yes, I agree there is hypocrisy at play here, and some at the least *odd* and destructive decision making. But I do not see that choosing one arbitration forum over another as meaning R.Paul is running to the UN he hates for help.
...you don't try to disqualify a Federal judge for bias just because he asks a question you don't want to answer; or to accuse opposing counsel of fraud for showing evidence of yours (or something like that), and all the other things. Benchslap!
So it's not binding precedent. It's a District Court ruling. It's even maybe a bit over the top as to what needs to be alleged at the pleading stage. But ... the judge has a lot of discretion in this area, which is very difficult to flip on appeal, and the dude pulled the trigger. Awesome.
And even if it is a bit more stringent as far as basic pleadings than one might expect (must evidence entire vid downloaded?), I'm hoping it will lay the groundwork for a standard less potentially muddied by the case history here. I'm hoping other courts will pick up where this left off and craft a Baseline Pleading Standard for Copyright Trolls like the three elements here, that Courts can feel comfortable using to shut these folks down. But that's just me.
Monster Cable must have its own TM and brand management dept., which often includes a lawyer or someone who searches marks and scans the USPTO Gazette all day long. And yet they missed this obvious (yea, likely to confuse) similarities with the other mark?
Well, I've never heard of this "Dolby" company, so maybe they can make that excuse. (Oh, you mean Dubly? Like in Spinal Tap?)
At 56 years old, his 2 daughters are likely fully grown (unless the recent product of trophywifeism). Meaning, he probably had to Google Teletubbies to get their names and their apparent hit single -- none of which was on my radar.
We have Penal Code §528.5 in CA, which makes it a misdemeanor to do essentially the same thing.
528.5. (a) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, any person who knowingly and without consent credibly impersonates another actual person through or on an Internet Web site or by other electronic means for purposes of harming, intimidating, threatening, or defrauding another person is guilty of a public offense punishable pursuant to subdivision (d).
I haven't heard any stories of abuse of the statute, but then I haven't been looking.
A few weeks ago, I would have thought it not likely ripe for prosecutorial abuse. Not so much now.
... somehow hoping to fumble their way into a payday while simultaneously burning their collective reputations to the ground, salting the earth and setting fire to the salt.
And Prenda et al. must just love Techdirt for continuing to keep this all so easily searched and retrieved.
Months ago I popped my wife's dumb-phone sim card into an old, unused smart phone I had laying around (HTC Aria!) to see if it solved her complaints about the call volume. Not really. But it did automatically start up a data plan, which I was informed of via the next bill+$30.
Easily fixed, if you call terse and uncomfortable phone calls, non-answers to questions (Q: why? A: smartphones must have a data plan), veiled threats if they didn't grant a credit, and a bunch of my time "easy."
(Aside: This is the same company who doesn't seem to know that my ancient calling plan -- still roams outside of SoCal -- and newer data plan, means that when I'm in roaming-land, I just use my Google Phone to make calls across the data plan to avoid roaming charges. Good for them on that...)
I was thinking about this issue when I heard about it yesterday. I'm guessing Netflix had enough stats to know it wouldn't hurt viewership. And if that's the case, then this approach gives the viewer more options: Binge if you want, trickle if you don't...
I like options, even ones I don't use (like being able to buy booze all night long in Nevada).
Say Glee wants to license this or that to some company for the big bucks. Licensing departments/folks are about as anal and single-minded as they come. (I was licensing a dead musician's famous 1960s song to a indy film recently, and the gal pointed out that the bass line sounded like a 60s Sly and the Family Stone bass riff and was afraid of litigation. I'm all, "Really? Don't you think Sly might have noticed in the last 45 years? Wouldn't there be a statute of limitations issue? Bigtime?")
Anyway, licensing's a bitch. Having one more credit just makes it more of a bitch.
Plus, how would it look if Fox did something simply because it was the right thing to do?
On the post: Microsoft Makes Retail Versions Of Office Single Install
Silver lining?...
On the post: Bizarre 'Attribution' Troll Bullies Twitter Users Into Compliance With Baseless Legal Threats
Re: Re: Ah, okay, so now you're for plagiarism too
That Kills. Made me plotz.
On the post: Bizarre 'Attribution' Troll Bullies Twitter Users Into Compliance With Baseless Legal Threats
that Shaun Shane's
tongue be
made of glass.
- a poem by GMacGuffin
(You may not quote the above sans attribution without subjecting yourself to a maelstrom of obtuse bullshit.)
(And Shaun/OnPress/Roth: Minors can be sued, and parents are generally not liable for their children's acts. Go off the Lithium for a few days and you should be able to talk to your lawyer directly about that.)
On the post: Ron Paul, UN Hater, Asks UN To Take RonPaul.com Forcefully From Ron Paul's Biggest Supporters
Re: Re: The UN part is not really an issue... IMO
From Wikipedia @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICANN
ICANN's "about" page: http://www.icann.org/en/about/welcome
On the post: Ron Paul, UN Hater, Asks UN To Take RonPaul.com Forcefully From Ron Paul's Biggest Supporters
The UN part is not really an issue... IMO
Under the UDRP, R.Paul only has two qualified ICANN arbitration bodies in US to chose from: the WIPO, and the National Arbitration Forum (NAF). For UDRP purposes, both simply function as providers of arbitration services. http://www.icann.org/en/help/dndr/udrp/providers
Had Paul simply chosen the NAF, would this whole UN angle have worked? Not really. And which arbitrating body to use was surely the decision of the attorneys, who probably only chose WIPO because they had the templates from the last time. (NAF appears to be the bigger player in UDRP in recent years, but the choice between the two remains.)
So, yes, I agree there is hypocrisy at play here, and some at the least *odd* and destructive decision making. But I do not see that choosing one arbitration forum over another as meaning R.Paul is running to the UN he hates for help.
On the post: IP Address Snapshots Not Sufficient Evidence To File Infringement Suit; Prenda Lawyer Faces Sanctions
And that is why ...
So it's not binding precedent. It's a District Court ruling. It's even maybe a bit over the top as to what needs to be alleged at the pleading stage. But ... the judge has a lot of discretion in this area, which is very difficult to flip on appeal, and the dude pulled the trigger. Awesome.
And even if it is a bit more stringent as far as basic pleadings than one might expect (must evidence entire vid downloaded?), I'm hoping it will lay the groundwork for a standard less potentially muddied by the case history here. I'm hoping other courts will pick up where this left off and craft a Baseline Pleading Standard for Copyright Trolls like the three elements here, that Courts can feel comfortable using to shut these folks down. But that's just me.
On the post: Monster Cable Finds Itself On The Other Side Of A Trademark Case (But Still Losing)
Honestly...
Well, I've never heard of this "Dolby" company, so maybe they can make that excuse. (Oh, you mean Dubly? Like in Spinal Tap?)
On the post: Putting Together A Database Of Bogus DMCA Takedowns
Re:
Why doesn't the nightly news do stories on law abiding citizens who didn't drive drunk and cause an accident? Oh, the bias!
On the post: Harper's Magazine Publisher Shakes Verbal Fist At Google; Romanticizes Own Profession; Quotes Teletubbies
Re:
On the post: Harper's Magazine Publisher Shakes Verbal Fist At Google; Romanticizes Own Profession; Quotes Teletubbies
And how does he know so much about Teletubbies?
Is that irony or hypocrisy? I'm never sure.
On the post: Arizona Politician Parodied By Fake Twitter Accounts Pushes Bill To Make Online Impersonation A Felony
Re: Sounds like California's Statute ...
On the post: Arizona Politician Parodied By Fake Twitter Accounts Pushes Bill To Make Online Impersonation A Felony
Sounds like California's Statute ...
528.5. (a) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, any person who knowingly and without consent credibly impersonates another actual person through or on an Internet Web site or by other electronic means for purposes of harming, intimidating, threatening, or defrauding another person is guilty of a public offense punishable pursuant to subdivision (d).
I haven't heard any stories of abuse of the statute, but then I haven't been looking.
A few weeks ago, I would have thought it not likely ripe for prosecutorial abuse. Not so much now.
On the post: More Prenda Insanity: Lawyer Claims Defendant Erased Infringing Activity Using A Registry Cleaner, Citing A Single EHow Submission
And Prenda et al. must just love Techdirt for continuing to keep this all so easily searched and retrieved.
On the post: AT&T Can Foist Its Data Plans On You, Whether You Use It Or Not
Yup, happened here too...
Easily fixed, if you call terse and uncomfortable phone calls, non-answers to questions (Q: why? A: smartphones must have a data plan), veiled threats if they didn't grant a credit, and a bunch of my time "easy."
(Aside: This is the same company who doesn't seem to know that my ancient calling plan -- still roams outside of SoCal -- and newer data plan, means that when I'm in roaming-land, I just use my Google Phone to make calls across the data plan to avoid roaming charges. Good for them on that...)
On the post: Netflix Releases All 13 Episodes Of Its Own TV Show House Of Cards At Once
I like options, even ones I don't use (like being able to buy booze all night long in Nevada).
On the post: Just Weeks Before Coulton Story, Glee Was Accused Of Copying Without Credit On Another Song
Licensing headaches preemption...
Anyway, licensing's a bitch. Having one more credit just makes it more of a bitch.
Plus, how would it look if Fox did something simply because it was the right thing to do?
On the post: One Of The Funniest S#*$r B$@l Ads You'll See This Year Makes Fun Of NFL Trademarks
On the post: Dangerous: European Courts Considering Requiring Search Engine Filters Over Embarrassing Content
Re: Someone should really add this...
On the post: Dangerous: European Courts Considering Requiring Search Engine Filters Over Embarrassing Content
And ...
On the post: Copyright As Censorship: Birth Blogger Fight Goes Legal Over DMCA Abuse
Re: Re: $5 on NO Lawyer
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