Hacker Site Raises GM's Hackles

[InfoSec News <isn () C4I ORG>]

[Another dog and pony show from Mr. Corley.   -WK]


http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,39585,00.html

by Leander Kahney
2:00 a.m. Oct. 21, 2000 PDT

Bloodied but not bowed from recent courtroom skirmishes, 2600 Magazine
is courting fresh legal battles by registering unflattering domain
names referring to large corporations.

In recent weeks the magazine has received letters threatening legal
action from General Motors, NBC and Verizon, demanding the hacker
quarterly turn over a series of rude domain names it has registered.

Only last month, 2600 lost a high-profile court case brought by the
Motion Picture Association of America for posting links to DeCSS, a
piece of software that can circumvent the encryption system on DVDs.

The latest cease-and-desist letter came from General Motors, the
world's largest auto maker, which objects to 2600's registration of
"FuckGeneralMotors.com."

FuckGeneralMotors.com, according to the letter, constitutes
unauthorized use of the "General Motors" trademark.

"General Motors is a registered trademark of General Motors
Corporation and has been used by General Motors for more than 70
years," the letter says. "Your registration of Fuckgeneralmotors.com
domain name constitutes a trademark infringement."

GM demands that the website be turned over within 14 days of the
letter, or by Oct. 25.

Charles Ellerbrock, the General Motors attorney who sent 2600 the
letter, said that in line with a lot of other companies, General
Motors is protecting its trademarks.

"If every factory making General Motors burned down tomorrow and all
our dealers were flooded out, the banks would be lining up to lend us
money to start making vehicles again because the name General Motors
is a very important asset," he said. "It's the same story for Coca
Cola and the Ford Motor Company. In my estimation it is the most
important asset a company has, and for that reason we need to protect
it."

Ellerbrock said General Motors had sent out a handful of similar
cease-and-desist letters to other website owners in recent weeks, but
he couldn't remember which ones.

He said GM will not necessarily take 2600 to court, but will review
the case when the two-week deadline expires.

Attorney Dave Dolkas, an expert in copyright law, said if GM and NBC
took 2600 to court, they would likely sue under the Lanham Act, a
federal statute protecting against trademark infringement and
dilution.

"The use of General Motors dilutes the mark," he said. "It defames the
mark. That's one of the tests of dilution. It's tarnishment."

During the MPAA court case, 2600 unsuccessfully mounted a free-speech
defense, arguing that links on the Internet to the DeCSS software were
protected by the First Amendment. The court disagreed.

Dolkas said he didn't fancy the chances of 2600 successfully using the
free-speech defense if it is sued for trademark infringement.

"Yeah, you can make a free-speech argument but I don't think it's
going to fly," said Dolkas, who is a partner with Gray, Cary, Ware and
Freidenrich of Palo Alto, California. "You can't run roughshod over
someone's trademark rights on the basis of free speech. Further, I
think a judge would say, 'Why is this speech?'

"It's part of a mark in a domain name to defame a company. It's not
free speech," Dolkas said.

"Their (GM's) logic completely escapes us," says a posting on the 2600
site. "This is a little thing called speech which, even when
offensive, is entitled to protection.

"That is one of the reasons why registering such sites is an important
act -- you can see the utter arrogance of these people who think that
they can actually control when and where people speak their corporate
name."

2600 asks readers to start watchdog sites that it would link to from
the FuckGeneralMotors.com site.

"This is an issue of speech and we need to send a message that free
speech is something we just cannot back down on," the editorial said.

"We find ourselves facing no fewer than five lawsuits at the moment in
what can only be interpreted as a last-ditch attempt by corporate
America to take us out of the picture once and for all," said another
editorial on the site. "We will not and cannot back down on such an
important matter."

Despite numerous attempts, 2600's publisher Eric Corley, aka Emmanuel
Goldstein, could not be reached for comment.

In the past few weeks, 2600 has also received threatening legal
letters from Diageo, owner of the Guinness Book of World Records (for
GuinessRecords.com), NBC (for registering FuckNBC.com) and Verizon
(for VerizonReallySucks.com).

However, Verizon dropped its case last month after discovering
VerizonReallySucks.com was a parody site and not an attempt at
cybersquatting. The company had been pursuing about 200 alleged
cybersquatters who had registered sites with "Verizon" in the domain
name.

"It turned out 2600 was the one exception," Verizon spokesman Larry
Plumb told the Washington Post. "Once we saw it met the standards of
fair use, we decided not to pursue it. We're out to defend our brand
against confusion and dilution, not squelch free speech."


*==============================================================*
"Communications without intelligence is noise;  Intelligence
without communications is irrelevant." Gen Alfred. M. Gray, USMC
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