..the target/trademark owner typically bases its objection on trademark infringement and related federal and state law claims designed to protect trade identity and reputation, such as dilution, unfair competition, anti- cybersquatting, deceptive trade practices, defamation, and the like. However, there are significant difficulties with these claims. For the trademark infringement, unfair competition, and other claims that require a showing of likely confusion, there is the obvious problem that in most cases people are not likely to believe that the trademark owner has sponsored or approved a site that is devoted to disparaging the trademark owner, its brand, and its products or services - particularly when the site contains disparaging qualifiers such as "hate," "bad," or "sucks." In other words, there is no confusion. Also, the gripe site's use of the target's brand is almost always nominative and a fair use. The gripe site wants its readers to know its targets; it does not desire any confusion or mistake as to whom it is disparaging. This clarity of victim and purpose also makes it very difficult for any dilution claim to succeed - at least a claim of dilution of the distinctiveness of the mark.
So what can corporations do? First, realize that we love, LOVE posting your adorable cease and desist letters, so if you're going to send one, please make it nice and pleasant. You can also try buying up permutations of yourcompanysucks.com, but that doesn't work. As an absolute last resort, you can provide good customer service.
Finally, (Ed. emphasis ours, clearly, this is a contingency option) the target might seek to engage the operator of the gripe site to find out just what his/her problem is and see if it can be rectified. This would be the cleanest, easiest, and cheapest solution. It might not work, but it has little downside risk and might, if not immediately successful, attenuate the ferocity of the attacks and might in the long run hasten the end of the site, by causing its operator's interest to wane.
Gripe Sites: Sue or Stew (pdf) [Law Journal Newsletters—The Intellectual Property Strategist via Consumer Law & Policy Blog]
(Photo: Skelekitten)
@LJKelley: "I must ask why you think you have the right to post copyrighted material on your blog."
===============================
Why did you read it? BTW Tarbutt only filed a copyright on the material 30 days after it was first posted online by Scott Hupp. Clearly they didn't care much about a copyright until it appeared online and by that time the cat was out of the bag.
It also seems that by their not finishing the case they realized just how foolish their claims were. If 2 major legal firms didn't care enough to finish the case I don't see why you care about their 'copyright'.
]]>@Don't take anything aaron8301 says seriously:
Pi is an infinite decimal.
The first 1000000 decimal places contain: 99959 0s, 99758 1s, 100026 2s, 100229 3s, 100230 4s, 100359 5s, 99548 6s, 99800 7s, 99985 8s and 100106 9s.
Enjoy.
]]>Move for a continuance because...my dog ate my homework...?
]]>The problem is that the majority of customer complaints in retail, like Target, have nothing to do with mistakes the company made but customer's not understanding or deciding they need not be bound by the original terms of sale. People who decide they should be able to return items without boxes or receipts. People who think they can return things days after a return policy states they can be. People who believe when a six-month old product breaks they can just return it rather than going to the manufacturer for warranty service.
Now, -should- a retailer take care of some of these things? Sure. Would it be a good idea for a customer to ask if they could? Absolutely. But in the end they're asking the store to go outside what both the store and customer agreed were the terms of the sale. If the company says no, that should be the end of it. Both sides have fulfilled their obligations. Time to move on.
What would you say to Target if six months after you bought an item they asked you to pay a bit more for it as an issue of merchant satisfaction? Asked that you give back a barely used product because they'd really like to sell it to someone else? You'd tell them no.
Just because a customer has a complaint does not make it reasonable, a fact visitors to this website often seem to overlook. Despite repeating "the customer is always right" over and over again it simply isn't true.
]]>@Felix the Cat: I must ask why you think you have the right to post copyrighted material on your blog. If I was working on a book for example and a copy leaked I would have every right to sue you if your posted such book.
I mean this posting really is more about companies sueing sites that say "Target sucks because they refused my return" and isn't about breaking copyright law.
So then, my question to you... What is it that make you think Target sucks? What experience. I sure hope it wasn't the fact they sued you for illegal posting copywritten material.
I will also note that I think the directive is a good. Policies such as not chasing a suspect by foot or car defineately encourage the safety of all involved.
]]>I'm glad I'm not the only one who was thinking the exact same thing *lol*
]]>I've gotten a couple rather large settlements for my clients out of corporations who decided to "just ignore it" when we sued them, and then realized just before trial that holy shit, these people are serious! Of course, by then it was way too late for them to do anything to mount a defense, and you can't really tell a judge "Can we have some more time? We thought the plaintiff was just funnin' us."
]]>Absolutely, a big firm suing someone is foolish, once something is out there the horse is out of the barn, all such suit does is make the complaint more visible to others. Had T not filed the suit then only a few hundred people would have ever noticed that the T Directives were available on line. Once they sued I ended up with over 27k in look ins, of course that is nothing with the internet. I believe the Consumerist gets about half a million look ins a day.
As to plants/chairs in the condo. Initially there was a problem with things left outside the units, even surf boards proped up against exterior walls. So some regulation is absolutely needed, but this problem with outside junk had pretty well been taken care of when the sole owner on the BOD stuck his nose in and decided that EVERYTHING needed to be removed. So some nice potted plants had to be removed by other owners and the chair 'ban' seems to have gone nowhere, the owners just take them in when finished sitting on them. I'm glad I have a house to go to when the BS at the condo gets to be too much.
]]>@humphrmi: It seems that the laws have changed a bit and now the owners of blog sites are not held accountable for what posters put on their sites. This is an evolving area where law is well behind what is going on with the internet usage, but I think that today had Retail-Worker gotten that emailed notice to cease and desist that they would have been on solid ground to simply ignore it without any legal problems. Of course if you have your own blogs that is a bit different. There is also the problem of 'discovery' which both sides are entitled to use to ask the opposition nosey questions and that was one reason I did not want to get into a court situation with Target, they can and will ask a lot of questions as to where your assets are and if you are still beating you dog etc.
Having my residence in Fla I have a great deal of protection from any adverse civil suit, you might recall that OJ sold up his residence in Ca and moved to Fla as he knew that he could keep a lot of his assets there by good state laws that protect you from judgements.
]]>@mythago: Absolutely, but they then need to actually collect on it and if they can't do that then they have spent 250k for nothing.
]]>@P_Smith: By the way, if you want to tell the liar - sorry, lawyer - what you think of his words, here is his email address:
wpecau@steptoe.com
Except for removing the last line ("too stupid to figure it out") and changing pronouns (e.g. "them" to "him"), I sent the above post verbatim.
]]>If they want to silence complaints, fixing their mistakes would work faster and better.
As Peters and Waterman noted in their famous book "In Pursuit Of Excellence,", one satisfied customer will tell one person, while one dissatisfied customer will tell ten.
Those who complain aren't malcontents. Their complaints are a direct results of the companies' actions.
Too bad the lawyer is too stupid to figure that out.
]]>@Felix the Cat: Ah yes the wonderful world of condo commandoes . Did I read it right on the chair and dog rule ? I've seen towns in Florida implement similar rules it all comes back down to appearance or don't affect MY resale value .
Back to the topic : I see blogging or websites no different than sending letters to the editor or giving reporters story ideas . Some of these companies should feel lucky in that these websites probably prevent things from like consumers doing just that .
Freedom Speech or infrigement rights aside . These companies draw attention to themselves when these things go to court or the mainstream press/media . From a strategy stand point it would behoove them to back off .
]]>If you want to take a look at a typical 'cease and desist' order take a look at: [www.retail-worker.com]
This was emailed to the owner of Retail-Worker on 7/27/06 and the result was the site removing my post of the 'Target AP Directives' and banning my screen name. See also:
[www.targetfiling.blogspot.com]
The reason I asked is, I have my own blog where I sometimes post fair use content. It's fairly obscure and only my family reads it, never got any corporate attention, but still, I like to think that I can survive a takedown notice. Add to that, I've done some pro-se cases myself (where I was the plaintiff, i.e. recovering security deposits and such) so I'm sort of just trying to prepare myself for the inevitable.
]]>Reply to dakotad555
Yeah I see I was a bit off in my editing of that paragraph and I thought your little miscue was one of those pot and kettle things. Thanks for the time to read my blog.
I read this Consumerist site several times a day there is always something of interest here and I am always amazed at how one little post by me and cite of one of my blogs gets so many people to look in to my blog.
If you are thinking of a condo in Florida, here is one to avoid, I know I live here:
[nautiluscondosrules.blogspot.com]
Reply to humphrmi
The difference here was that the Target case was actually not one that I could win. There was an issue of 'freedom of speech' which some University types commented on but when you actually get past the hot air it would have cost a min. of 50k to mount a defense and I did not choose to put that much into it, so I just ignored it entirely. I Did not file any reply at all.
One thing that complicated the Tarbutt action was that they could not serve me in person. They just were not bright enough to get it done despite about 1/3rd of the way thru it they did find my actual name and out of date address. Eventually they got the Judge to OK the rather unusual 'service by publication', however at this point with the case more or case more or less won by my default they let a bit over six months pass with no action and the Judge tossed it out for lack of their action. Had they kept on they would probably have won.
As to the Waterstone case, this is more personal, not a big corporate bully, but a company that owns 4 units in my own condo complex. The reason I put in a reply on this was just that the case is so crappy that I got pissed off. This particular firm has 9 LLC's, 7 of them with Waterstone in their name. I have a case filed via an attorney against the LLC that owns the condos and the condos BOD and Waterstone used another LLC of theirs to file this suit against me. One of those you sue us we will sue you things. So I'm not putting any $ into this lame case of theirs and my replies to the court are filed pro se.
no, it's not the final option. He uses finally to show that he is near the end of his writing on the subject. In fact it's the final paragraph of the PDF.
]]>Of course I forgot to proofread my OWN post just now :P
]]>"You might recall that last year it was dismissed after Target put on its case and before Therrien's case could be presented. The matter was appealed on the basis that the Federal Judge James Payne had not considered the new changes to Oklahoma statutes and had thur ruled incorrectly. So the case was retired with the result that Target lost. (of course they also can appeal)"
I am not a grammar Nazi, but do enjoy clarity and reasonably proof read copy. I want your page to have the biggest impact possible, and those sorts of things go a long way in currying legitimacy and wider range impact.
]]>In 2007 I posted on a blog site the Target Corporation AP Directives. They were on several sites, the first post was by an ex-Tarbutt security employee who sent me a copy that I put up.
Target got him to remove his and several sites that I had used to post them got those cease & desist letters from the Tarbutt lawfirm. Some sites removed my posts and even banned me.
I continued to post on blogs which I created and Tarbutt sued me for 23 months in Federal Court in Atlanta. On July 16, 2008 Judge Cooper tossed it out. My blog remains and you can see it below. I suspect that Tarbutt with its 2 major law firms (one in MN and one in GA), private investigators, etc probably ran up 250k in costs before it was finally tossed out. My costs were $0 as I just ignored them.
[www.targetfiling.blogspot.com]
I am also being sued for another blog I posted which tells those looking in just how bad a firm that Waterstone Resort Realty, LLC is. I have responded to this one with 2 pro se filings asking it be tossed out. I suspect it is also going to be tossed out. Drop them an email and let them know you saw their worthless firm on line- tony@colaw.org This site can be found at: [waterstoneresortsllc.blogspot.com]
]]>@We needa more Lemon Pledge.: Or maybe he shines shoes in front of the courthouse?
I kid, I kid.
]]>Cost in reputation and image: again untold many thousands. When I've visited sites like this in the past, all the "STOP USING OUR TRADEMARK / INFRINGING / ETC" letters just sort of justified the site's existence.
How about:
Cost to offer the site owner a contract job in which he defines a set of standards and practices that prevent another case like his from ever occurring again: A few thousand + the taking down (or least polite conclusion / "we won and I am vindicated" wrapping up) of the site.
Now this may give rise to some copy cats with less than legitimate claims who create similar sites, but for the real sites and the people who read them, this WILL matter. Or something similar.
Any site like this that had a bold "I don't update any more because CompanyX resolved all my problems" would work in the company's favor.
]]>Asshole!
]]>@bohemian: I love the "Streisand Effect" it sure puts the consumer on even ground with the company in terms of embarrassing enough to perhaps fix the problem.
]]>I hope they keep trying to sue, i've made good money of of stupid lawyers and ignorant corporations. I say let them waste their money!
]]>I just checked...up...hell just froze over.
]]>