Posted on 07/15/2002 7:47:23 AM PDT by truthandlife
William Purdy Sr., of South Saint Paul, Minn., has purchased about 30 controversial domain names that carry the graphic message of abortionismurder.org.
When visitors click on sites like mywashingtonpost.com, mymcdonalds.com and mychicagotribune.com, they are greeted with the close-up image of a dismembered fetus.
"I love the pictures," Purdy said. "I think they'll prevent abortions. But that's not what this is about."
Purdy has been slapped with stern legal letters threatening lawsuits by some of the multi-national conglomerates whose names he is using in his Internet domains. So far, he has heard from McDonald's, The Washington Post, USA Today, and the Minneapolis Public School System.
Attorney Patrick J. Carome of the international law firm Wilmer, Cutler and Pickering, who is representing The Washington Post, minced no words in his correspondence with Purdy.
"We demand that you and all other persons and entities associated with this activity immediately cease and desist," the letter states.
Carome writes that Purdy's domain, mywashingtonpost.com, is a copyright infringement and in violation of other federal laws, including the Anti-Cybersquatting Act.
"As you surely know, your unauthorized hijacking of The Post Entities' content and names to disseminate your message is utterly illegal," the letter states.
Purdy thinks his message is the issue.
"I still can't believe The Washington Post, an icon of the freedom of speech, would threaten to sue me for this," Purdy said.
The Post and McDonald's have been successful in shutting down a few of Purdy's sites, but so far he has been able to switch Internet service providers and have the sites operational again in a matter of hours.
"They can't stop me," Purdy said.
Sigmund Solares of InterCosmos Media Group Inc. used to host one of Purdy's controversial sites. That's before attorneys representing McDonald's contacted Solares and let him know they were not pleased with the content of Purdy's site.
Solares said copyright and content issues are common among his 900,000 registered customers.
"I don't usually shut them down," Solares said. "But the graphic nature of this site, it managed to get to me."
Solares admitted he had no intentions of battling McDonald's in court. But he did say Purdy's fight was a constitutional one.
"He's trying to exercise his first amendment rights," he said. "But we can't host the domain because there is a trademark issue there."
As of Thursday night, no suit had been filed against Purdy, but letters continued to spill out of his fax machine, arrive by registered mail and fill up his e-mail account that, as if to twist the legal knife, is dontkillyourbaby@washingtonpost.cc.
All of Purdy's sites redirect to abortionismurder.org, but Purdy has no connection with that site. He just agrees with the message its gory images carry. According to Tom Fitch, the man who operates abortionismurder.org, Purdy is just one of many.
"There are thousands of sites taking my content," Fitch said. "We get 1.3 million visitors every week."
Although Fitch said he receives no money from the site, there is a place for donors looking to support the cause. Clicking the help window links the viewer to a legitimate non-profit company called Face Life.
Face Life, based in Florida, is one of 850,000 non-profits gathered under the umbrella of Network For Good, a coalition of non-profits founded by the AOL TimeWarner Foundation. Fitch, who is on the board of directors of Face Life, said the foundation is a way for organizations to receive electronic donations.
"It allows donors to use credit cards without us having to go to merchant services and pay $500," Fitch said. "That's all it is."
Although Fitch is the operator of abortionismurder.org, and on the board of Face Life, and although clicking to donate funds to abortionismurder.org connects the donor to Face Life, Fitch said the two entities are not related.
"It is a complete legal separation," he said. "There is no link whatsoever."
AOL TimeWarner Foundation Chief Operating Officer Ken Weber said that although the images carried by abortionismurder.org may be offensive, he will probably not remove them from his organization's site.
"We don't discriminate," Weber said.
As long as the non-profit is in good standing with the IRS, and as long as no "guerrilla tactics" are being used, Weber said Face Life and its friends will remain welcome in his foundation.
"We have a lot of progressive social change groups," Weber said. "I don't want to alienate them."
The foundation was founded less than a year ago by America On Line, Cisco Systems and Yahoo!, but the corporate side is separate and does not meddle with the foundation business, Weber said.
Weber admitted the for-profit company may be unhappy with its recently launched non-profit progeny catering to anyone who proudly splashes around pictures of mutilated infants. But he didn't seem worried. In fact, he appeared to take as much stock in the freedom of expression as Purdy, who is presently setting his sights on stretching that unique amendment to its hazy limits.
"My McDonald's" is a corporate phrase (SM'ed? or TM'ed?) but his website name has no spaces or apostrophe.
The Post and McDonald's have been successful in shutting down a few of Purdy's sites, but so far he has been able to switch Internet service providers and have the sites operational again in a matter of hours.
The correct statement would say that The Post and McDonald's have been successful in threatening a few of Purdy's internet service providers into denying Purdy is contracted webspace. It doesn't sound like any court orders have come down yet forcing the action.
Solares said copyright and content issues are common among his 900,000 registered customers."I don't usually shut them down," Solares said. "But the graphic nature of this site, it managed to get to me."
So the trademarked name issue wasn't the reason, but the graphic pictures was???
Maybe Time-Warner-Turner found a new way to make money and off of their political opponents no less.
LOL
Mistype google or yahoo and you may wind up at another search engine/web hosting site or even a porn site.
Trademark infractions come into play when there is confusion in the marketplace (would someone mistake the site for the "intended" destination?).
If he is not appropriating any corporate logos, then the only name confusion is in that address block. If his sites were .org or .net sites, would that reduce the confusion since it would indicate that it is not a ".com commercial" entity?
Where do to spaces fit in his names? Mywa Shinto Npost?
This anti-cybersquatting act is bogus. The copyright/trademark office shirked their responsibilities by not being the US's repository for domain name registration. Since there are companies that will "sell" you any name that you request, provided it has not already been sold, people are under the mistaken assumption that their names are legal.
If I apply for a DBA (doing business as) license, would the state do any cross checking to see if my name is already being commerically used? I had a friend that researched some names for a marble flooring business and realized that his was not the only one in Texas (he bought the company and name). I don't recall what his findings were if he decided to trademark the name (already in use by some others).
It's also hypocritical that the politicians' names (even for candidates who have not held office) have been exempted from the cybersquatting law; so you can't sit on a corporate name but you can on a private name? What about names like Dave Thomas, Col Sanders, etc?
Bad laws written by people who aren't in the business of protecting copyrights.
When a porn site has the name www.whitehouse.com. I'm not so sure. Such a ruling would outlaw parodies and I doubt the SC would do that.
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