[wg-b] Famous marks as advertisement of free speech

[mark@bitshift.org]

[NOTE:  Another call to the SprintLink NOC, and they've fixed the
problem with their backbone router.  Sorry for any late or duplicate
posts that may crop up.]


Steve Hartman just said,
  "In short, famous trademark holders are not saying that independent
  repair shops or free speech people can't advertise their services or
  criticize the famous trademark holder.  The famous trademark holders
  simply don't want their famous trademark to be used as the source of
  the advertisement or free speech."


Steve, I'm confused.  Admittedly, I'm not a lawyer.  But it seems on
the one hand you argue for forbidding using the exact string of a 
famous mark in a domain name.  On another hand, you want to argue that
it cannot be used as a substring within a label if it does not make
a clear statement.  Now, you want to change that position.

Let me offer you yet another example:

0re0s.com.  0r30s.com.  IHate0r30s.com.

Will you now change your stance such that any close match to the
substring is also forbidden?  While I'd like to side with Mikki and
say 'let's find a middle ground here', I find myself constantly 
pulled back to believing you're sliding down a very slippery slope.

-- 
Mark C. Langston
mark@bitshift.org
Systems Admin
San Jose, CA