I like the first graf of Public Citizen's response: http://www.citizen.org/documents/FalwellBrief.pdf >"In this proceeding, Jerry Falwell, a notoriously humorless right-wing >preacher, is trying to shut down a non-commercial Internet site that makes >fun of him for blaming the September 11 bombing of American landmarks on >the supposed moral decline of America, and quotes the Bible at Falwell in >exactly the same way that Falwell likes to quote it at other people..."
Previous Politech message: "Jerry Falwell demands to own jerryfalwell.com parody site" http://www.politechbot.com/p-02756.html -Declan --- Date: Tue, 02 Apr 2002 11:59:16 -0500 From: "Paul Levy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Response to Falwell effort to bully critic off the web Today we filed with WIPO in Geneva a response to Jerry Falwell's UDRP complaint against Gary Cohn, trying to divest him of the jerryfalwell.com name that Cohn uses for a site that parodies Falwell for his hateful words last September, blaming the September 11 bombing on America's sins. Falwell complains that the mere fact that Cohn calls his web site a parody doesn't make it funny, and that Cohn is misusing Falwell's name to create a site that will, supposedly, lure Internet viewers to learn of Cohn's "false teaching" about the bible. We remind the arbitrators that they do not have to decide wither whether the site is funny or whether Falwell or Cohn has the more accurate view of the bible, because Falwell does not meet any of the three requirements for a valid UDP complaint. In this regard, we argue that Falwell has not established that he has used his name as a trademark, that it is perfectly legitimate to use of his name because that domain name accurately describes the content of a non-commercial web site that makes fun of him, and that there is no sign of bad faith. Our press release is posted at http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=1070 The response is posted at http://www.citizen.org/documents/FalwellBrief.pdf We can supply copies of Falwell's complaint, and of the exhibits to our response, on request Paul Alan Levy Public Citizen Litigation Group 1600 - 20th Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20009 (202) 588-1000 http://www.citizen.org/litigation/litigation.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Politech dinner in SF on 4/16: http://www.politechbot.com/events/cfp2002/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
