[00:00.260 --> 00:01.660]  ...of the net.
[00:02.500 --> 00:14.560]  And at 8 o'clock in the other room is going to be Robert Steele speaking for two hours on spying and counterintelligence and unintelligence and various things like that.
[00:14.980 --> 00:19.540]  At 10 o'clock in this room is going to be Jello Biafra.
[00:20.480 --> 00:23.220]  So, action-packed evening.
[00:23.860 --> 00:28.080]  And Negativland is at 8 o'clock.
[00:28.760 --> 00:31.500]  So, Robert Steele and Negativland are running concurrently.
[00:34.780 --> 00:35.440]  What's that?
[00:36.380 --> 00:38.720]  Oh, dude, I could have sold that on eBay, man.
[00:38.820 --> 00:39.460]  Pud's pad.
[00:41.180 --> 00:46.080]  And be sure to stop downstairs and look at the exciting 2600 merchandise and pick yourself up a t-shirt.
[00:47.780 --> 00:48.660]  Emmanuel Goldstein.
[00:53.150 --> 00:54.210]  Can anybody hear me?
[00:54.490 --> 00:55.090]  Ah, there we are.
[00:55.730 --> 00:57.870]  Okay, I heard some people asking about Negativland.
[00:57.870 --> 01:03.410]  Negativland is going to be at 8 o'clock, not 7, coming from the other side of this room.
[01:03.730 --> 01:06.230]  In fact, everything after that will be coming from that side of the room.
[01:06.310 --> 01:07.350]  Jello will be on from there.
[01:07.510 --> 01:08.810]  Freedom Down time on after that.
[01:09.350 --> 01:11.630]  And Robert Steele is over in Area B.
[01:12.590 --> 01:14.570]  So, thanks for your patience and understanding.
[01:14.890 --> 01:16.390]  This is Bullies on the Net.
[01:16.430 --> 01:17.510]  We're not the bullies on the net.
[01:17.590 --> 01:19.830]  We're the ones who were victimized by the bullies on the net.
[01:21.730 --> 01:24.150]  2600 has gotten several lawsuit threats.
[01:24.150 --> 01:30.670]  But one of the more interesting ones happened about a year or so ago when the Ford Motor Company took us to court.
[01:30.790 --> 01:34.630]  They just went and sued us because we had a website.
[01:35.750 --> 01:41.710]  The website... Basically, what happened was NSI used to be the only place where you could register domain names.
[01:42.270 --> 01:43.490]  Network Solutions, Inc.
[01:43.490 --> 01:48.170]  And they had a rather puritanical view on language.
[01:48.170 --> 01:52.850]  So, you couldn't use certain words as domains because they found them offensive.
[01:54.090 --> 02:05.130]  So, when there was a degree of deregulation and there were other companies involved, there was sort of this wild dash for all kinds of obscenities on the net.
[02:05.410 --> 02:08.230]  And they went like... I think they all went in two days.
[02:08.910 --> 02:10.290]  And we got a few good ones.
[02:11.550 --> 02:14.450]  I won't say them here because it might offend some people.
[02:14.570 --> 02:18.850]  But one of the ones that we got had to do with General Motors.
[02:19.550 --> 02:21.770]  It was FWordGeneralMotors.com.
[02:22.470 --> 02:23.970]  And we had all kinds of fun with it.
[02:24.030 --> 02:25.650]  We pointed it at General Motors for a while.
[02:25.730 --> 02:26.630]  We pointed it at Toyota.
[02:26.790 --> 02:28.870]  We pointed it at Consumer Affairs.
[02:28.870 --> 02:35.110]  And then we pointed it at Ford because, you know, we thought that Ford was a competitor of General Motors.
[02:35.390 --> 02:39.850]  And if you wanted to screw General Motors, then what better way than to buy a Ford?
[02:40.090 --> 02:41.030]  And we thought it was funny.
[02:41.130 --> 02:42.530]  It was kind of like, you know, an online joke.
[02:43.650 --> 02:49.550]  And initially, when we got the website, when we got the domain name, rather, General Motors sent us a cease and desist letter.
[02:49.770 --> 02:51.930]  I don't know what they wanted us to cease and desist exactly from doing.
[02:51.930 --> 02:55.410]  But they were offended that we actually owned that phrase.
[02:56.530 --> 02:59.630]  And they demanded that we unown it or something.
[03:00.970 --> 03:02.490]  We basically reprinted that.
[03:02.930 --> 03:05.050]  And they went away as far as that goes.
[03:05.310 --> 03:07.550]  We find that when we get lawsuit threats, we print them.
[03:07.670 --> 03:10.130]  They generally get embarrassed and slink away.
[03:11.150 --> 03:13.230]  Well, Ford didn't do either of those things.
[03:13.330 --> 03:16.370]  They didn't send us a cease and desist letter.
[03:16.550 --> 03:20.450]  So we weren't able to print what they threatened us with.
[03:20.510 --> 03:21.310]  They just sued us.
[03:21.310 --> 03:24.590]  They just brought us to court saying, How dare you link this to Ford?
[03:25.150 --> 03:31.590]  Someone's going to type fuckgeneralmotors.com into their website, get directed to Ford, and think that Ford did this.
[03:31.970 --> 03:34.750]  And it was the most bizarre logic I had ever seen.
[03:35.470 --> 03:39.210]  We wound up going to court over it, spending a good deal of money defending ourselves.
[03:39.210 --> 03:40.450]  But in the end, we won.
[03:40.870 --> 03:46.590]  And a couple of weeks ago, Ford decided to not pursue it any further.
[03:46.770 --> 03:49.650]  They had tried to appeal.
[03:50.030 --> 03:51.430]  They were going forward with an appeal.
[03:52.450 --> 03:54.230]  I think we all knew it wasn't going to work.
[03:54.330 --> 03:56.190]  And they finally realized that it was a big waste of time.
[03:56.210 --> 03:57.810]  So they just dropped the whole thing.
[04:03.240 --> 04:11.460]  A lot of people asked us, Why are you wasting time registering four-letter words and getting these corporations really pissed off?
[04:12.000 --> 04:13.700]  Well, it has to do with speech.
[04:14.060 --> 04:22.240]  And obviously, Ford had the view that they were able to tell people who was allowed to link to them and who was not allowed to link to them.
[04:22.240 --> 04:25.260]  So, yeah, it may be folkgeneralmotors.com today.
[04:26.320 --> 04:30.080]  It might be, you know, mycarstinks.com tomorrow.
[04:30.400 --> 04:32.740]  It could be all kinds of things they deem offensive.
[04:33.200 --> 04:39.500]  If they think they have the right to determine who is allowed to link to them and who is not, that's a very dangerous precedent.
[04:39.540 --> 04:41.600]  And it's one that we had to fight.
[04:41.720 --> 04:51.980]  It's one that we had to provoke even because we're living in very turbulent times on the net where all kinds of rules are being challenged and changed and very bad precedents are being set.
[04:52.140 --> 04:53.380]  I like to think this is one of the good ones.
[04:54.000 --> 04:55.780]  And now I'd like to pass it on to...
[04:57.180 --> 04:58.580]  I think I'll take it from here.
[04:58.720 --> 05:01.040]  Okay, this is the guy that won the case for us, Eric Grimm.
[05:01.720 --> 05:08.040]  I'd like to give you a few horror stories on how this isn't just happening in the Fuck General Motors case.
[05:08.040 --> 05:10.880]  It's happening in thousands and thousands of cases.
[05:10.880 --> 05:30.980]  There have been 4,000 so far Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy Proceedings in front of ICANN, which is a court that was set up on rules that were designed precisely to favor the big business and companies that own trademarks.
[05:31.200 --> 05:51.140]  It's basically the equivalent of if you had the American Trial Lawyers Association assigned to write the rules and to staff up the Uniform Insurance Policy Dispute Resolution Tribunal and you could imagine what would happen in the insurance industry and how many policies would be drained.
[05:54.960 --> 06:03.640]  The ICANN UDRP system has been pretty much designed to favor business as much as possible.
[06:03.880 --> 06:09.200]  There have been some cases in which the respondent has won.
[06:09.200 --> 06:16.680]  But really it's, I think, running in the neighborhood of 75% to 80% of cases result in transfers.
[06:17.080 --> 06:20.720]  There have been thousands more in courts around the world.
[06:21.100 --> 06:31.200]  The first one, and it's actually a lot like Mr. Nissan's case, but the case involves a man named Vijay Bharti.
[06:31.580 --> 06:38.280]  He lives in Washington, and if we have any lawyers from Washington State, I would love to take this case.
[06:38.480 --> 06:43.440]  Frankly, I don't have the time or the resources to defend this particular case.
[06:44.380 --> 06:46.780]  Electronic Frontier Foundation has also looked at it.
[06:46.860 --> 06:50.640]  They agree that it's a great case, but we just simply can't do anything with it.
[06:51.720 --> 07:01.780]  Mr. Bharti has been running a business, an online business and also a terrestrial business that's advertised over his website.
[07:01.780 --> 07:09.740]  I think it was some sort of fortune-telling business, but it was focused mostly on the Pacific Northwest, where he was doing business.
[07:10.860 --> 07:16.820]  The domain names were Bharti.com and Bharti.net, his own last name.
[07:16.820 --> 07:21.700]  He had that from 1996 through early 2002.
[07:22.600 --> 07:40.540]  However, in 2001, a company over in India named Bharti Telecommunications had an initial public offering, and Bharti Telecom went to the Delhi High Court and said, well, we think we should be the only Bharti on the entire Internet.
[07:41.620 --> 08:00.900]  The Delhi High Court, in some of the most unusual reasoning that I've ever seen, decided that Mr. Bharti, who had been using this to correspond with his friends and his customers and all of that, all of them had in their address books for email, you know,
[08:00.940 --> 08:02.440]  VJ at Bharti.com.
[08:03.800 --> 08:13.000]  The Delhi High Court said, well, you can really change your address, and it really should be your full first name, your full middle name, and your last name.
[08:13.060 --> 08:20.920]  And that's okay for you, but Bharti Telecom Company gets to take over the website that you've developed for this whole period of time.
[08:22.780 --> 08:30.320]  Here's another example, which involves a client that I've represented.
[08:30.480 --> 08:37.480]  This was actually just before I started representing Emanuel in the 2600 case.
[08:37.900 --> 08:54.020]  Ford Motor Company sued 60 to 70 owners of about 120 different domain names that contained, in some way, the word Ford, the word Lincoln, the word Volvo, the word Jaguar.
[08:55.400 --> 09:01.200]  In this case, this was a gentleman in Sweden by the name of Hans Reckstad.
[09:02.120 --> 09:03.980]  He's a former race driver.
[09:04.840 --> 09:10.840]  He runs a business out of his home, and it's got an internet component to it for over 20 years.
[09:10.840 --> 09:22.400]  He's been selling Volvo parts for cars going back into the 1950s in which, for the most part, the parts aren't available from Volvo anyway.
[09:23.640 --> 09:35.380]  But Mr. Reckstad put up a site called ClassicVolvo.com and was doing his parts thing, and Ford decided that that was one of the names on the internet that they just had to have.
[09:35.380 --> 09:37.060]  They weren't happy enough.
[09:37.320 --> 09:40.080]  Volvo is a half-owned subsidiary of Ford.
[09:42.020 --> 09:53.000]  So, instead of suing Mr. Reckstad over in Sweden, which is where the website is, which is where Volvo is, they decided to sue him in Detroit, Michigan.
[09:54.320 --> 09:57.240]  Forum shopped the lawsuit all the way over there.
[09:59.600 --> 10:08.840]  Mr. Reckstad, as you can see, had some help from a cartoonist who put together a nice graphic design.
[10:09.140 --> 10:14.540]  He tried selling t-shirts to finance his defense, and that wasn't very successful.
[10:14.880 --> 10:21.040]  He and a few others, and I'll give you some examples of their websites also, got together.
[10:21.040 --> 10:23.120]  They approached the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
[10:23.660 --> 10:24.860]  They approached me.
[10:25.020 --> 10:27.620]  I agreed to take the case on a pro bono basis.
[10:28.600 --> 10:34.360]  We've had... most of the lawsuits just dismissed outright.
[10:34.660 --> 10:37.980]  We had some other terms of settlement with Ford on some of the other ones.
[10:38.540 --> 10:47.520]  There were also a couple of animal preservation websites that Ford decided needed to be suppressed.
[10:53.820 --> 10:55.420]  The Jaguar Enthusiast Club.
[10:55.620 --> 11:07.280]  You can see the big 12 hits that Ford just absolutely had to make sure that these people wouldn't be confused by the website.
[11:14.520 --> 11:23.220]  I think for the most part, what we're going to be able to tell you here are a lot of horror stories and how there are a lot of abuses there.
[11:23.220 --> 11:34.300]  But there aren't... if you want the happy ending, that things all work out just great in the end, there isn't an answer yet to this problem.
[11:34.700 --> 11:38.020]  This panel is basically describing the problem that exists.
[11:38.700 --> 11:44.580]  But honestly, even in the Ford and 2600 case, yes, we won.
[11:46.120 --> 11:55.640]  Yes, we had the judge issue an opinion that says, I'm going to assume the truth of everything that Ford says.
[11:56.300 --> 12:00.620]  I mean, Ford had pages and pages of things saying terrible stuff about 2600 Magazine.
[12:00.620 --> 12:02.820]  The judge says, I'm going to treat that all as true.
[12:03.260 --> 12:04.840]  Even so, you don't belong in court.
[12:05.560 --> 12:06.600]  We're going to throw it out.
[12:08.380 --> 12:21.540]  But the reality is that in order to get that decision, which is a great decision and sets a great precedent to be used in future cases, the 2600 Magazine had to pay the trademark litigation tax.
[12:21.860 --> 12:23.640]  And they don't get their money back.
[12:24.460 --> 12:26.960]  They had to pay attorney's fees.
[12:27.180 --> 12:34.500]  Now, we had an agreement and I also shared some of the risk and some of the cost of the lawsuit.
[12:35.980 --> 12:39.560]  But 2600 also had to pay some for that lawsuit.
[12:40.380 --> 12:45.700]  And in order to defend a lawsuit, somebody has to pay for it.
[12:47.280 --> 12:59.120]  And in my opinion, the right thing to do is once 2600 won, especially when they won so resoundingly, the judge should order that they get their money back.
[12:59.440 --> 13:04.580]  And trademark statute says, well, in exceptional cases, you can get your money back.
[13:05.680 --> 13:09.580]  But according to the judge, this one just wasn't quite exceptional enough.
[13:10.400 --> 13:26.040]  And what you'll find is, in cases that go the other way, like the Morrison and Forrester versus Wick case in Colorado, or some of the Zuperini cases that happened in Pennsylvania, the judges in those cases said, well, the winning trademark owner who's,
[13:26.120 --> 13:30.260]  you know, conquered the cyber squatter, they get their fees.
[13:30.260 --> 13:36.600]  But for some reason, the cases just aren't exceptional enough when it's the little guy who wins.
[13:39.460 --> 13:51.920]  I think that the Ford versus 2600 case, Ford wasn't really so much concerned about the F General Motors domain name pointing at their website.
[13:53.080 --> 14:09.040]  They just viewed this as a golden opportunity to get something out of the court system, essentially to legislate by use of a court proceeding, to get something that trademark lawyers had been just dying to get for about the year and a half preceding that,
[14:09.120 --> 14:12.560]  which is a way to shut down what they called cybergripers.
[14:13.500 --> 14:16.620]  And they were using this as their chosen test case.
[14:16.620 --> 14:19.160]  This was going to be the battleground on which they fought.
[14:20.340 --> 14:33.900]  And in some ways, based on lessons that I've learned from other cases that I dealt with involving similar issues before, we had, I thought, a surprising degree of success.
[14:34.120 --> 14:41.020]  And it's a great victory because it really says, you just don't belong in court with these kinds of issues.
[14:44.220 --> 14:56.920]  And we also have Uzi Nissan, who has dared to have a website in his name called Nissan.com before the auto company called Nissan even existed.
[14:57.260 --> 15:00.240]  And he's been paying through the nose for that privilege.
[15:00.640 --> 15:01.460]  Uzi, welcome.
[15:03.600 --> 15:04.160]  Thanks.
[15:09.740 --> 15:15.060]  I'll go real quick through the background.
[15:16.500 --> 15:18.240]  As you know, my name is Uzi Nissan.
[15:18.640 --> 15:20.080]  Let's talk about a mark for a second.
[15:20.540 --> 15:21.920]  The mark cannot be unique.
[15:22.980 --> 15:29.900]  Nissan is a biblical term mentioned numerous times in the Old and the New Testament.
[15:31.380 --> 15:37.000]  My last name is a derivative of the month of Nissan, which is the seventh month in the Jewish calendar.
[15:39.680 --> 15:48.180]  And I started using it in the United States in 1980 when Nissan was not known as Nissan.
[15:48.460 --> 15:49.420]  They were known as Datsun.
[15:50.120 --> 15:53.580]  I used to be in the automotive industry.
[15:53.980 --> 16:00.960]  I used to have a garage called Nissan Foreign Car from 1980 to 1986.
[16:02.820 --> 16:07.980]  In the mid-80s, Nissan... Let me correct one thing.
[16:08.060 --> 16:11.820]  Nissan Motors were always Nissan Motors around the world, but in North America, they were Datsun.
[16:12.600 --> 16:23.720]  They decided to change their name from Datsun to Nissan in North America in the mid-80s and had real problems till 1989.
[16:24.420 --> 16:33.320]  We have record that even in 1980... late 1988, they were running advertisements saying the name is Nissan.
[16:34.340 --> 16:40.100]  In 1987, I started an import-export company called Nissan International.
[16:40.640 --> 16:43.920]  In 1991, I started Nissan Computer.
[16:47.200 --> 16:49.840]  Registered Nissan.com in 1994.
[16:51.240 --> 16:59.260]  And in 1999, they sued me for trademark infringement, trademark dilution, cyber squatting, seeking $10 million in damages.
[17:01.700 --> 17:03.260]  That's the background.
[17:04.500 --> 17:09.380]  Just three or four months ago, on summary judgment, we won the cyber squatting.
[17:11.060 --> 17:16.760]  We won the infringement on non-automotive products.
[17:17.400 --> 17:21.660]  And we lost the infringement on automotive products.
[17:22.100 --> 17:22.740]  How?
[17:23.020 --> 17:24.680]  I don't have an answer for that.
[17:25.040 --> 17:26.840]  We've never been in the automotive business.
[17:29.200 --> 17:34.320]  As you know, as you heard, those cases are very, very expensive.
[17:34.860 --> 17:42.760]  Just to let you know, the defense of our case, it's been two and a half years already, has topped $2.2 million.
[17:42.760 --> 17:44.260]  That's just our side.
[17:46.100 --> 17:57.760]  And that's why most of those cases are going to the trademark owners, because the little guy just can't stand against them in court.
[18:01.460 --> 18:06.360]  On my side, I don't want to bore you, but on my side, there are some,
[18:19.060 --> 18:21.540]  well...
[18:21.540 --> 18:22.680]  The network's a little slow.
[18:23.020 --> 18:23.440]  Okay.
[18:23.780 --> 18:24.220]  Sorry.
[18:33.810 --> 18:35.070]  Talking about graphics.
[18:40.110 --> 18:52.190]  This is the company vehicle when I had a Nissan foreign car, and I even had a license plate Nissan.
[18:52.190 --> 18:53.710]  That was in 1981.
[18:55.130 --> 19:04.470]  And showing all the licenses from the state of North Carolina for that.
[19:19.480 --> 19:23.100]  These are some documents from my second company, Nissan International.
[19:24.280 --> 19:27.980]  And I'm not going to go into them right now, because it'll take a little bit too long.
[19:31.660 --> 19:32.460]  And
[19:37.990 --> 19:44.930]  in 1995, we registered a sales market in the state of North Carolina for Nissan computer.
[19:46.410 --> 19:48.350]  That didn't help either.
[19:49.730 --> 19:51.150]  The way...
[19:51.150 --> 19:56.270]  Where we're at right now is we're really trying to get public awareness.
[19:57.010 --> 20:00.830]  The mainstream media just don't want to touch it.
[20:04.010 --> 20:08.810]  Nissan Motors is spending about $400 million a year in advertisement.
[20:10.450 --> 20:13.550]  And none of the mainstream media wants to touch it.
[20:14.130 --> 20:23.830]  We have records in the last 75 days of over 1,800 emails that were sent to over 40 of the biggest name in the mainstream media.
[20:25.270 --> 20:26.310]  And nothing.
[20:27.010 --> 20:29.090]  Not even a phone call.
[20:29.190 --> 20:32.170]  The only two people who responded for that was Salon.com.
[20:32.190 --> 20:38.570]  And I was promised that by Monday, WorldNetDaily.com will have an article on that.
[20:39.690 --> 20:42.910]  It still remains to be seen, but I believe they will.
[20:45.150 --> 20:48.930]  So, the internet community was just tremendous.
[20:49.470 --> 20:53.830]  All the public awareness right now is through the internet community.
[20:55.110 --> 21:02.830]  And it seems like we'll have to continue doing it through the internet community because that's the only way we can get the word out.
[21:03.830 --> 21:18.930]  And especially with companies like that, such as Nissan or Ford, these are companies that most of the time will win in the courthouse, in the courtroom.
[21:20.110 --> 21:26.970]  But in the court of public opinion, the public can really change things.
[21:27.570 --> 21:30.450]  And we see that on the site.
[21:30.650 --> 21:37.250]  We already have over 10,000 messages that were sent by the public.
[21:37.530 --> 21:42.550]  And the majority of them are voting against Nissan Motors, even with their wallets.
[21:44.090 --> 21:49.350]  So, really winning it in the courtroom, we hope.
[21:51.170 --> 21:56.630]  But winning it all the way 100%, I have my doubts.
[21:57.330 --> 22:03.010]  Winning it 100% with the help of the public, I think it'll work.
[22:05.650 --> 22:08.630]  I'll take questions if anybody...
[22:09.430 --> 22:11.490]  If you have questions, go up to the microphone.
[22:11.490 --> 22:12.890]  There's one right there so we can hear you.
[22:25.500 --> 22:27.320]  We can do something about that.
[22:28.480 --> 22:29.420]  Let's hear it for AV.
[22:38.130 --> 22:41.430]  Do you want me to go back where I was?
[22:43.070 --> 22:45.970]  Since I have a Toyota, I've never been to Nissan.com.
[22:46.130 --> 22:46.470]  Well, good.
[22:46.690 --> 22:48.270]  I see this is NCC Health.
[22:48.770 --> 22:50.250]  What is that Nissan.com?
[22:50.510 --> 22:50.790]  No.
[22:51.310 --> 22:53.410]  Nissan.com is our site.
[22:53.670 --> 22:55.290]  We're promoting our services.
[22:55.290 --> 23:00.130]  But there is a link there to Nissan Motors lawsuit against us.
[23:00.250 --> 23:03.810]  And it takes you to a complete different site, which is NCC help.org.
[23:03.890 --> 23:06.030]  NCC stands for Nissan Computer Corporation.
[23:06.810 --> 23:08.070]  And that's the site.
[23:08.250 --> 23:09.490]  There's nothing commercial about it.
[23:09.550 --> 23:13.110]  It's just covering our dilemma with Nissan Motors.
[23:20.840 --> 23:24.900]  All right, I'm told that that noise is not going to happen again because the speakers are blown out.
[23:25.640 --> 23:26.060]  So...
[23:26.060 --> 23:27.460]  Anybody else has another question?
[23:27.660 --> 23:28.500]  The microphone's okay.
[23:33.890 --> 23:34.930]  Nobody has a question?
[23:37.850 --> 23:38.730]  Okay, there's somebody.
[23:40.030 --> 23:40.990]  I have a question.
[23:41.090 --> 23:42.390]  I have a question for Emmanuel.
[23:42.690 --> 23:44.410]  How many websites have you registered?
[23:44.970 --> 23:46.810]  Like, I know you registered four.
[23:46.890 --> 23:47.590]  It really sucks.
[23:47.890 --> 23:51.710]  And do you have any idea how much money you've given to Network Solutions?
[23:52.570 --> 23:57.430]  Well, it's none really because these are all different registrars.
[23:57.730 --> 24:01.470]  Network Solutions still won't let you register certain words.
[24:03.930 --> 24:08.710]  But when that initial rush on four-letter words came out, the price had already dropped.
[24:08.810 --> 24:11.030]  And we registered maybe a dozen or two.
[24:11.170 --> 24:16.970]  Just, you know, in various forms of criticism of certain...
[24:17.670 --> 24:19.870]  We have fuckthemassmedia.com.
[24:20.090 --> 24:21.410]  We should point that someplace.
[24:22.050 --> 24:22.930]  SprintSucks.com?
[24:23.930 --> 24:25.010]  Do we have SprintSucks?
[24:25.150 --> 24:26.250]  You know, I've lost track, actually.
[24:26.350 --> 24:27.010]  We have so many.
[24:28.330 --> 24:31.350]  But really, we're open to all kinds of suggestions as to places.
[24:31.350 --> 24:32.190]  To put these.
[24:32.830 --> 24:38.830]  Now that we've won the case against Ford, we no longer need to point fuckgeneralmotors.com at them.
[24:40.110 --> 24:42.490]  We didn't agree to point it anywhere else.
[24:42.610 --> 24:43.610]  We can keep it there forever.
[24:43.870 --> 24:45.790]  But I'd like to use it for something more constructive.
[24:46.010 --> 24:52.930]  Like, for instance, a watchdog site about the auto industry would be, I think, a good thing.
[24:53.190 --> 24:55.890]  Point it to Nissan, NissanDriven.com.
[24:55.930 --> 24:56.770]  I can point it to Nissan.
[24:57.290 --> 24:58.770]  Yeah, I can do all kinds of things.
[24:59.050 --> 25:00.370]  That's basically how the net works.
[25:00.370 --> 25:02.070]  You can point things all over the place.
[25:02.750 --> 25:07.730]  We had a similar case where Verizon got mad at us.
[25:08.270 --> 25:11.630]  We couldn't register VerizonSucks.com because they already did.
[25:13.670 --> 25:16.330]  But we could register VerizonReallySucks.com.
[25:16.450 --> 25:21.710]  And that actually got them pissed off enough to send a threatening letter to us saying that we had to give that one up.
[25:22.550 --> 25:23.810]  We publicized it a bit.
[25:24.050 --> 25:31.110]  And they said indirectly through an interview, a spokesman said that they realized this was freedom of speech and they weren't going to pursue it.
[25:31.190 --> 25:32.670]  And we took that as a very positive thing.
[25:33.410 --> 25:35.290]  In the interim, though, we registered a site.
[25:35.470 --> 25:40.870]  I think it was Verizon really should spend more time on its network and less money on its lawyers.com.
[25:42.910 --> 25:48.210]  Which used every single letter possible as far as length of a domain name as well, which I thought was kind of cool.
[25:49.190 --> 25:56.950]  The net is really a big playground to mess with things technologically and also exercise your freedom of speech.
[25:57.050 --> 25:58.710]  And I think we have the obligation to do that.
[25:58.710 --> 26:02.810]  I know a lot of people think it's a waste of time to register four letter words with corporations at the end of them.
[26:03.110 --> 26:05.250]  But I also think we have an obligation to criticize.
[26:05.590 --> 26:08.830]  And yeah, somebody registered fuck2600.com and I think that's great, you know.
[26:10.070 --> 26:11.070]  That's what it's all about.
[26:11.270 --> 26:11.930]  It's called speech.
[26:12.090 --> 26:12.750]  It's called expression.
[26:13.450 --> 26:17.010]  And especially in Uzi's case where it's his name, for Christ's sake.
[26:17.410 --> 26:18.830]  You know, he got there first.
[26:18.850 --> 26:19.690]  He had it first.
[26:20.190 --> 26:21.950]  That's just the way it goes, you know.
[26:23.010 --> 26:28.090]  I mean, I remember back in the days when it didn't cost anything to register a name and people registered all kinds of things.
[26:28.530 --> 26:35.410]  Now all of a sudden it's like, you know, the corporate world has taken over and they just have the right to all these names.
[26:35.630 --> 26:41.610]  I don't know if anybody here participated in the .biz fiasco where it was supposed to be fair.
[26:41.730 --> 26:44.490]  It was supposed to be some sort of sunrise period where everybody had an equal chance.
[26:44.690 --> 26:52.330]  But somehow all the same people wound up with the domain names and independent folks had no chance at all of getting anything, you know, interesting.
[26:53.910 --> 26:57.970]  I think a lot of it has been subverted and that's something that we really should pay attention to.
[26:58.550 --> 26:59.090]  Right.
[26:59.330 --> 27:03.610]  And in a couple of cases, for example, I think it's paint.biz.
[27:04.530 --> 27:15.070]  There's a French company that participated in the process of trying to acquire those.
[27:15.190 --> 27:24.990]  It actually went to a company in the United States that has been selling paint for a long, long time and has every legitimate right to use paint.biz.
[27:24.990 --> 27:34.390]  Nevertheless, this French company, after they found out that they lost, they went up and printed up something like a million labels for paint cans.
[27:34.770 --> 27:46.210]  They went to the French and the Tunisian and a couple of other places that register trademarks and do it much more quickly than you can get in the United States.
[27:46.850 --> 27:49.630]  And they'll register just about anything as a trademark.
[27:50.110 --> 27:55.850]  Then they turned around and went to this dispute resolution panel and said, well, we should be paint.biz, not the other paint seller.
[27:56.630 --> 27:57.670]  And they got it.
[27:58.370 --> 28:00.930]  I mean, it's absolutely unbelievable.
[28:01.810 --> 28:03.900]  J.Crew picked up crew.com.
[28:04.470 --> 28:06.830]  I mean, this is a common dictionary word.
[28:06.990 --> 28:14.530]  And nevertheless, they've decided that, you know, they're so much more important than everybody else and more deserving of those eyeballs.
[28:15.890 --> 28:27.830]  And it seems that there are enough trademark lawyers who are willing to participate on these panels and just turn over people's existing addressing rights.
[28:28.230 --> 28:29.650]  Who's next with the questions?
[28:29.830 --> 28:30.890]  My question is for Mr. Nissan.
[28:31.390 --> 28:39.190]  When you were accused of cybersquatting, when they accused you, on what grounds did they stand that you were trying to cybersquat?
[28:39.190 --> 28:40.870]  And what proof did they have in court for?
[28:44.210 --> 28:49.030]  Well, originally, they contacted me.
[28:49.110 --> 28:51.610]  Their e-business manager contacted me in October.
[28:53.050 --> 28:54.930]  Sometimes in the middle of October, we met.
[28:55.050 --> 28:56.130]  He came to North Carolina.
[28:57.270 --> 29:02.710]  He told me that, obviously, they would like to have this name and he'd like to discuss it with me.
[29:03.310 --> 29:07.970]  I mentioned on the phone to him before he came that the domain name is not for sale, but he came anyhow.
[29:07.970 --> 29:09.230]  We discussed different issues.
[29:10.150 --> 29:16.270]  He said he'll take it back to his superiors and contact me later.
[29:16.810 --> 29:24.270]  He contacted me at the beginning of December 1999, said that he would like to come and talk to me.
[29:24.550 --> 29:25.930]  He came on December 10th.
[29:26.790 --> 29:32.090]  At that point, all he wanted is a price for the domain name.
[29:32.090 --> 29:36.150]  He says, my superior said they don't want any partnership with you.
[29:36.270 --> 29:37.350]  They want the name.
[29:37.350 --> 29:38.210]  What is the price?
[29:38.810 --> 29:41.530]  And for two, two and a half hours, I fought with him.
[29:41.710 --> 29:42.510]  He says, it's not for sale.
[29:42.570 --> 29:43.290]  It's not for sale.
[29:43.330 --> 29:49.210]  Until I got tired and I said, Mr. Meryl Davis said, Mr. Davis, you're just asking me for a price.
[29:49.330 --> 29:50.530]  Okay, $15 million.
[29:50.730 --> 29:52.830]  Do you understand now that I don't want to sell?
[29:54.010 --> 29:54.950]  Well, that was it.
[29:55.430 --> 29:57.590]  He went out, talked to his superiors.
[29:57.730 --> 30:01.390]  After five minutes, their attorneys called me, said they're filing a lawsuit against me.
[30:04.010 --> 30:07.450]  I went back and asked him, what is it all about?
[30:07.670 --> 30:11.170]  And he says, I'm sorry, that's not the way it was supposed to be.
[30:11.270 --> 30:12.470]  I didn't know anything about it.
[30:12.470 --> 30:20.870]  But four days later, when my attorneys got their complaint, they saw that he already signed his declaration for the complaint two days before he came to see me.
[30:21.930 --> 30:28.730]  Taking consideration that the anti-cybersquatting law was signed in on November 29th, 99.
[30:29.010 --> 30:31.070]  That was 11 days before they sued me.
[30:31.210 --> 30:36.610]  They needed me to give them a price to add the cybersquatting claim.
[30:37.510 --> 30:49.490]  And this is an unbelievably common tactic among the trademark bar, is trying to browbeat somebody until they finally name a price and then trying to use it as evidence against them.
[30:49.890 --> 31:09.170]  In fact, there have been a number of cases that I've learned about in which they hire a third party to go out and pretend that they're not really affiliated with the company and try to see if they can solicit a price from the domain name owner.
[31:09.790 --> 31:28.190]  And any kind of hint that you may be engaging in market behavior, which is, you know, something that's ordinarily sacrosanct in America, that's going to be used as evidence against you in order to take away your lawful addressing rights on the internet because they don't think that they have a case otherwise.
[31:30.290 --> 31:52.850]  It's also helpful to note that the senator that introduced the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, which was Senator Abraham from the state of Michigan, who is now our energy secretary, this is one of the firebrand pro-free market, allegedly,
[31:53.190 --> 31:58.850]  super Republican legislators that we've had in the last couple of decades in Congress.
[31:59.070 --> 32:01.870]  I mean, this guy is, you know, the market all the way.
[32:02.050 --> 32:04.730]  We hate regulation, we hate regulation, we hate regulation.
[32:04.930 --> 32:06.610]  The trial lawyers are bad.
[32:06.810 --> 32:09.410]  The trial lawyers engage in forum shopping.
[32:09.550 --> 32:12.290]  The trial lawyers are greedy and are trying to take everybody's money.
[32:13.070 --> 32:16.070]  Punitive damages should be eliminated.
[32:16.390 --> 32:20.150]  He's introduced all kinds of laws against punitive damages.
[32:20.150 --> 32:37.770]  But when the trademark lobby came to him in an election year with the statute already written, he was more than happy to say, number one, market behavior in this context is going to get you a lawsuit.
[32:37.910 --> 32:48.670]  Number two, we're going to let the trademark company walk around with a $100,000 punitive damages club to threaten people to get their addressing rights.
[32:49.570 --> 32:57.350]  Plus, we're going to put in there a couple of provisions that make it possible to forum shop from all over the world.
[32:57.730 --> 33:13.130]  There's a provision that basically says, in any case in which it's unconstitutional to exercise jurisdiction in Virginia, that's precisely the case in which this statute purports to give you jurisdiction.
[33:13.630 --> 33:15.710]  And you can take people's domain names away there.
[33:17.170 --> 33:34.530]  Along with Cindy Cohen of the EFF, I've taken one case up already to the Fourth Circuit, which they used a doctrine called mootness to get rid of the case because they didn't want to rule on the constitutionality of whether that statute violates the U.S.
[33:34.670 --> 33:36.330]  Constitution, the due process clauses.
[33:38.670 --> 33:48.270]  Now there's another case that's being handled by some other lawyers in which we filed an amicus brief, and we're trying to get that jurisdiction, that forum shopping provision struck down.
[33:49.330 --> 33:50.910]  I don't know where you were sued.
[33:50.990 --> 33:55.190]  Were you sued in North Carolina or were you sued halfway across the country in Florida to drive up your costs?
[33:55.190 --> 33:55.910]  California.
[33:56.230 --> 33:59.130]  In California they sued you even though you're in North Carolina, right?
[33:59.410 --> 33:59.470]  Yeah.
[34:00.610 --> 34:02.310]  That is incredibly common.
[34:02.430 --> 34:04.970]  We appealed the personal jurisdiction and lost it.
[34:05.190 --> 34:05.370]  Right.
[34:05.530 --> 34:20.350]  And in exactly the same way, the Indian Telecom Company, they're going to forum shop that all the way to Delhi when the defendant lives in Washington state and hasn't had anything to do ever with the country of India.
[34:21.170 --> 34:27.510]  In the Hans Reckestad case, they forum shopped at 3,000 miles from Sweden to the United States.
[34:28.290 --> 34:29.910]  But let's take the next question.
[34:30.650 --> 34:31.350]  Two parts.
[34:31.490 --> 34:32.430]  Actually, the first part is a comment.
[34:33.050 --> 34:49.010]  When Mr. Nissan was talking about, you know, trying to get media exposure and everything, and a point that I want to make up is I first found out about Mr. Nissan through listening to WBAI on the Internet and everything, and I ended up getting involved in doing a community television program.
[34:49.450 --> 35:01.230]  And it's something that a lot of people, especially those of you that aren't like in metropolitan New York and everything, it turned out to be a fantastic outlet, which is really good for me because I'm sandwiched between NBC and Fox, which is a really great place to have a community station.
[35:02.890 --> 35:05.630]  But in that, it turned out to be a fantastic way.
[35:05.750 --> 35:15.750]  It went from not being covered anywhere to two of the networks have actually caught what we were talking about on our show and start asking us questions, which turns out to be a really fantastic thing.
[35:15.870 --> 35:21.350]  So I invite anybody, if anybody has any questions, to pull me over and I can, you know, point you in the right direction and help you out with that.
[35:21.750 --> 35:30.970]  And also, talking about Mr. Nissan's case, especially with $2.2 million, I'm from the bad side of town, we can't afford that.
[35:30.970 --> 35:34.270]  I had a lot of email questions from viewers.
[35:34.670 --> 35:35.390]  Any advice?
[35:35.610 --> 35:49.110]  Because it seems like whenever people get slapped with similar types of lawsuits, corporations always tend to typically try to drag you across the country or, you know, get you to drive up your expenses to fight these types of cases.
[35:49.150 --> 35:56.870]  Is there anything that the smaller guy can do to help offset this or any techniques or anything like that they can use to...?
[35:56.870 --> 36:08.110]  Well, I've been trying for quite some time to get courts to be more amenable to the award of attorney's fees after you win, either on the jurisdiction question or on the ultimate merits.
[36:08.410 --> 36:29.230]  And, well, at least with Judge Cleland, who handled both the Ford and Great Domains case, which is the one in which we had Reckestad and the Jaguar case and all of that, the judge was not... was not eager to work with us on that issue.
[36:29.590 --> 36:32.910]  In the Ford and 2600 case, we had the same judge.
[36:33.490 --> 36:50.950]  This also happens to be a judge that in a case called Westside Mothers versus Haviman, Michigan, and he's been reversed in very aggressive terms by the Sixth Circuit, just saying, how can you possibly think this?
[36:52.550 --> 36:59.070]  This is the appellate court that has authority to reverse any decision that Judge Cleland makes.
[36:59.350 --> 37:20.930]  But in the Westside Mothers versus Haviman case, he has said, well, the state government of Michigan, if it fails to provide in the Medicaid system adequate health care or adequate dental care to the people who deserve these services and who have a mandatory level of service that they're supposed to get under the statute,
[37:21.790 --> 37:36.890]  or if the state of Michigan fails to reimburse providers, in Judge Cleland's view, none of those people had any right to sue the state of Michigan to get the services out of the government that they've been promised under the Medicaid system.
[37:37.190 --> 37:42.490]  Because, well, he doesn't... he and Governor Engler don't like Medicaid so much.
[37:43.450 --> 37:54.110]  The Sixth Circuit has said, your reasoning is very, very much unsound, but I think you can see the viewpoint where that judge happens to be coming from.
[37:54.550 --> 38:03.150]  I have another case that's pending out in California right now where I'm trying to seek attorney's fees from Kevin Spacey.
[38:04.930 --> 38:11.670]  Kevin Spacey's lawyers have basically been caught in a lie by Judge Gary Feese out there.
[38:11.870 --> 38:13.410]  So I have my fingers crossed.
[38:13.670 --> 38:25.210]  And at some point, we're going to get one of these, and once we have the precedent, we'll be able to walk around and say, you know, your honor, apply the same standard and let the people who won get their attorney's fees back.
[38:25.730 --> 38:30.530]  We've already beaten Kevin Spacey twice in that case and had it kicked out of California.
[38:32.110 --> 38:33.210]  Anything else?
[38:33.270 --> 38:36.110]  Talking about... you said they're making it more expensive.
[38:37.730 --> 38:52.110]  When they saw that they cannot bankrupt Nissan Computer, they went ahead and added to the complaint another company which I'm the majority shareholder, the Internet Center.
[38:52.850 --> 38:59.010]  And the court allowed that even though the Internet Center Incorporated doesn't utilize the word Nissan at all.
[38:59.790 --> 39:10.330]  And that's just to make sure that I'll have to have a different attorney to a different company because if not, they claim alter ego and made it more expensive.
[39:10.330 --> 39:21.050]  Another thing is that on the dilution, the judge originally wanted to give it to us, but then he sent it to trial.
[39:21.310 --> 39:22.690]  They did not like it.
[39:23.670 --> 39:33.430]  And they are now... we are now... they went through a second chance, asking the court for a second chance on summary judgment right now.
[39:33.430 --> 39:37.450]  And the oral argument on that will be on August 5th.
[39:37.870 --> 39:44.910]  And hopefully... we know we cannot lose it, but hopefully we'll win it, and then we won't have to take it to trial.
[39:45.670 --> 39:51.530]  And by the way, I didn't answer the question, what are they claiming?
[39:51.710 --> 39:53.390]  They're claiming just about anything.
[39:53.670 --> 39:55.090]  One thing is just behind me.
[39:55.210 --> 39:58.730]  They're claiming that we displayed similar logos.
[39:58.730 --> 40:01.330]  Can't you see how similar those logos are?
[40:03.130 --> 40:06.030]  So, they're claiming just about anything.
[40:06.530 --> 40:08.250]  They claim that I misspelled my name.
[40:10.610 --> 40:18.930]  You know, they claim... well, we had advertisers on our site, about 23 of them.
[40:19.090 --> 40:22.450]  Three of them were to automotive informational site.
[40:22.450 --> 40:26.930]  They claim that we had two automobile merchandisers.
[40:27.350 --> 40:32.490]  I don't know if they know or not, but their attorneys should know what's an automobile merchandiser.
[40:32.630 --> 40:35.550]  None of them were in the business to sell or manufacture vehicles.
[40:36.010 --> 40:39.010]  So, they just twist everything.
[40:42.500 --> 40:43.180]  Hi.
[40:43.600 --> 40:46.760]  I have a similar or related question on...
[40:48.020 --> 40:52.820]  regarding the legality of posting links to other websites.
[40:53.320 --> 40:59.860]  There's a similar website called FuckedMicrosoft.com, where they have links to other software publishers.
[41:01.540 --> 41:04.060]  And one of the sites listed, I think, was...
[41:05.220 --> 41:06.000]  I don't remember.
[41:06.120 --> 41:07.380]  It was one of the free software sites.
[41:07.520 --> 41:11.780]  But they received a letter that asked them to cease and desist their link.
[41:12.160 --> 41:15.660]  And I'd like to know what opinions you have on the legality of that.
[41:16.640 --> 41:18.220]  Now, they received a letter from whom?
[41:19.240 --> 41:20.840]  From the software publisher themselves.
[41:21.600 --> 41:23.600]  Asking them to remove the link to their site.
[41:23.600 --> 41:24.300]  From which software publisher?
[41:25.560 --> 41:26.440]  From Microsoft.
[41:27.000 --> 41:28.320]  And there was another site, too.
[41:28.600 --> 41:30.640]  I believe it was an open source software.
[41:30.920 --> 41:32.900]  Maybe Red Hat or Linux or Debian.
[41:32.960 --> 41:33.620]  I'm not sure which.
[41:33.820 --> 41:36.080]  So, they've received two cease and desist letters?
[41:36.300 --> 41:36.480]  Yeah.
[41:38.760 --> 41:39.720]  Well, apparently...
[41:39.720 --> 41:41.300]  And you're saying that the website...
[41:41.300 --> 41:42.880]  Does it point directly at the website?
[41:43.040 --> 41:47.220]  Or they just have a page with a bunch of listings on it?
[41:47.220 --> 41:48.840]  They have a page with a bunch of listings.
[41:50.920 --> 41:55.340]  And I just would like to get your opinion on whether that is actual legal.
[41:55.860 --> 41:56.320]  Right.
[41:56.520 --> 41:57.880]  That seems like a gray area to me.
[41:59.920 --> 42:03.640]  I'm usually hesitant to give a formal legal opinion.
[42:03.640 --> 42:11.320]  Because I don't want that quoted back at me if things don't turn out for you the way that I think they're likely to.
[42:11.320 --> 42:14.040]  I mean, we can only talk about probabilities here.
[42:14.240 --> 42:18.660]  You do have at least one precedent, which is Emanuel's precedent.
[42:20.340 --> 42:30.000]  In the Ford and 2600 case, that there are situations in which that does not infringe trademarks.
[42:30.060 --> 42:33.140]  And that doesn't even state a cause of action for trademark infringement.
[42:33.140 --> 42:44.200]  It's pretty clear to me that one of the essential elements of a trademark infringement claim just isn't there, which is likelihood of confusion.
[42:44.220 --> 42:47.920]  Who's going to be confused by talkmicrosoft.com?
[42:51.580 --> 42:57.620]  Nevertheless, when you see one of those cease and desist letters, you would be surprised at the things that somebody will put in a pleading.
[42:57.620 --> 43:06.500]  It could be very expensive to fight for your rights in order to publish that website and keep doing that.
[43:08.340 --> 43:16.620]  You know, that financial decision is a decision that should be made separately from the decision on the legal merits.
[43:16.620 --> 43:25.300]  I mean, you've got a case that is probably more defensible than most cases under the Cyber Squatting Act.
[43:25.440 --> 43:34.080]  But remember, the courts have been interpreting the word confusing in a different way in...
[43:35.420 --> 43:40.540]  It may be helpful to take apart what the statute is.
[43:40.540 --> 43:53.000]  All three of these causes of action, these theories on which lawyers can go to court, are all in the same section of the Lanham Trademark Act, which is Section 1125.
[43:53.400 --> 44:01.540]  There's trademark infringement or false designation of origin, which is the ordinary likelihood of confusion theory.
[44:01.540 --> 44:16.700]  The second one that's been recognized since the mid-90s is called trademark dilution, which means that even if there's no confusion and even if you have completely different kinds of products, there's a certain subclass of trademarks called famous marks.
[44:16.700 --> 44:19.960]  And those famous marks get to occupy the whole universe.
[44:20.220 --> 44:31.840]  And, you know, nobody should sell Xerox pianos because, well, Xerox is such a powerful brand, you don't want it to take away its distinctiveness.
[44:31.840 --> 44:37.840]  And then the third one, which is recognized in the end of 1999, is called cybersquatting.
[44:38.280 --> 44:47.640]  And the cybersquatting statute, like I mentioned, and I can even give you the names of the lawyers who wrote it and went to Senator Abraham.
[44:47.640 --> 44:52.240]  It's a guy named Greg Phillips who had lost the Porsche decision.
[44:53.260 --> 45:03.200]  He and, let's see, Ann Chasser from INTA was very active in promoting it and put some of the language in there.
[45:03.300 --> 45:06.420]  Phil Sparbrough from Network Solutions was involved in the markup.
[45:07.260 --> 45:14.460]  But, I mean, it was mostly lawyers who sat down together with a couple of committee staffers and put together the statute.
[45:14.460 --> 45:25.460]  And what it's designed to do is it has this multi-factor test where the court just babbles on about these nine or ten different factors.
[45:25.460 --> 45:30.200]  And it has the opportunity to add in a couple more if it thinks that makes the case stronger.
[45:31.020 --> 45:40.400]  It's almost impossible to advise any client how to avoid the law.
[45:40.400 --> 45:48.000]  I mean, there is no clear line where you can say, okay, client, stay on this side of the line and you can't be sued.
[45:48.100 --> 45:51.000]  Or client, stay on this side of the line and you're sure to win.
[45:52.000 --> 46:08.340]  The test is just so flaky and, you know, bendable and amorphous that it's almost impossible to be sure that, you know, you have the right position in the case.
[46:09.140 --> 46:12.760]  So that cyber squatting act is something you really have to be concerned about.
[46:13.080 --> 46:14.800]  We have just five minutes left.
[46:14.800 --> 46:16.640]  So we have three people left to ask questions.
[46:16.720 --> 46:18.200]  Let's make them as quickly as possible.
[46:18.200 --> 46:21.100]  That led right into my question or statement.
[46:21.620 --> 46:38.920]  Several months ago in Harper's Magazine, they had a, I believe it was an ICANN decision where an Indian banking family, banking and I believe transportation family called the Tatas, had sued bodacious tatas.com for the right to use tatas in a sentence.
[46:38.920 --> 46:53.600]  And I believe that the Harper's Magazine filed a decision in which they said, well, whereas the Tata family is this excellent banking family, and whereas they could not ever be confused with bodacious tatas, therefore we rule for them.
[46:54.020 --> 46:57.880]  And I'm looking at it and going, where's the logic in any of this?
[46:57.880 --> 46:58.600]  Right.
[46:58.600 --> 47:08.120]  Because you wouldn't, if you, if you were to go to the one website, you would not confuse it at even first glance with another website.
[47:08.140 --> 47:08.280]  Right.
[47:08.360 --> 47:13.860]  I understand some of the pictures were unlikely to look like a major Indian construction company.
[47:15.020 --> 47:28.660]  And the other question is, if the Nissan company is suing you and then they hand you to a separate company, why don't you go into your, to their books?
[47:28.840 --> 47:38.820]  Because I'm pretty sure that they have about 14 different parts suppliers with the word Nissan somewhere in them and sue each and every one of them.
[47:38.960 --> 47:44.920]  Add them to your suit, forcing them to add 14 lawyers onto their, onto each part of their case.
[47:45.060 --> 47:56.640]  Because even if you lose the subsidiary cases, now they've gone from saying, oh, well, Phil, back in the back office, we can handle this, to, oh, gee, it's taking up three quarters of the law firm now.
[47:56.940 --> 47:58.460]  Well, funny that you mentioned that.
[47:58.560 --> 48:00.160]  It's something that you will appreciate.
[48:01.300 --> 48:05.660]  Originally, they, first of all, let me tell you, it's very, very expensive to do that.
[48:05.660 --> 48:06.840]  So I need to stay away.
[48:06.960 --> 48:08.760]  I have, I have my portion of that.
[48:11.040 --> 48:16.420]  But according to my attorneys, there's no way it can be any dilution in this, in this case.
[48:16.600 --> 48:28.260]  As you, as you mentioned, the Dilution Act is, is just for a very short list of, of marks that enjoy the, the protection across all goods and services.
[48:28.680 --> 48:29.680]  And, and...
[48:29.680 --> 48:40.180]  Honestly, in every lawsuit, not, not just internet or domain name cases, but every trademark lawsuit that I have ever seen, it doesn't matter how obscure the trademark is.
[48:41.060 --> 48:45.400]  In, in the mind of the trademark owner, the trademark is always famous.
[48:45.620 --> 48:47.320]  They always allege they're famous.
[48:47.580 --> 48:48.830]  It, it, it...
[48:49.360 --> 48:49.460]  Yeah, but...
[48:49.460 --> 48:51.260]  It could be something that only three people have ever heard about.
[48:51.400 --> 48:56.080]  And by golly, they're famous because, well, the, the owner's mom has heard about it, so...
[48:56.080 --> 49:05.740]  But the judge, the judge got already a, a, a document that we got through discovery that Nissan Motors, with five other Japanese companies, have a contract.
[49:06.040 --> 49:14.820]  All six of them can use the mark Nissan in their own, under different, different goods and services.
[49:14.820 --> 49:19.000]  So, in their own doing, they're diluting their name.
[49:19.200 --> 49:19.580]  Okay.
[49:19.740 --> 49:25.440]  Did, did, did the, uh, did the judge, uh, rule for you on summary judgment on the famousness issue?
[49:26.400 --> 49:26.980]  Uh, no.
[49:27.140 --> 49:27.880]  On the famousness?
[49:27.980 --> 49:28.240]  No.
[49:28.460 --> 49:35.520]  He, uh, originally he wanted to give it to us, but, uh, they argue in the oral argument, his tentative, his tentative ruling was for us.
[49:35.520 --> 49:44.920]  But they argued that they brought an article from 1989 saying that Nissan is one of the top 200 famous marks in the United States.
[49:45.360 --> 49:48.540]  And we think that the judge just protected himself and sent it to trial.
[49:48.740 --> 49:48.740]  Okay.
[49:48.980 --> 49:50.480]  So, so you just sent that issue to trial.
[49:50.640 --> 49:53.000]  So there's a genuine factual dispute on whether that...
[49:53.000 --> 49:53.220]  Exactly.
[49:53.420 --> 49:53.540]  Okay.
[49:54.180 --> 49:54.780]  Go ahead.
[49:55.060 --> 50:07.320]  I was wondering in the, uh, Indian, uh, company thing, which set of laws is going to be used, or, uh, which set of laws would normally be used because each company would be, uh, under the laws of their own respective countries.
[50:08.160 --> 50:14.640]  And, uh, I was wondering which set of laws you think would be used and which set of laws would normally be used in, uh, a normal situation.
[50:15.240 --> 50:18.380]  Well, that, that's, that's a big problem under these statutes.
[50:18.620 --> 50:23.760]  In, actually, the Tata case was also brought in the Delhi High Court from what I understand.
[50:24.000 --> 50:26.660]  And that was, that was even before ICANN.
[50:26.780 --> 50:29.840]  But, yeah, it was, uh, uh, an interesting decision.
[50:29.840 --> 50:38.200]  But in, in the, the Bardi case and the Tata case, an Indian court applied Indian law to an American citizen.
[50:38.980 --> 50:45.980]  And, I mean, the Americans, uh, as far as I know, didn't have any contacts, ties, or relations to India.
[50:46.200 --> 50:50.080]  So, I mean, that, that strikes most of us as, as deeply unfair.
[50:50.380 --> 50:52.500]  I mean, who's on notice of what the law of India is?
[50:52.680 --> 50:58.940]  At the same time, the United States is doing just the same thing to people from all over the world.
[50:58.940 --> 51:08.980]  The whole world, everybody who's, who's, uh, secured a domain name from Network Solutions, at least according to the Cyber Squadding Act, can be sued.
[51:09.580 --> 51:12.380]  Uh, there, there are 22 million dot com domain names.
[51:13.080 --> 51:17.060]  Uh, 11 million of them belong to people outside of the United States.
[51:17.680 --> 51:23.640]  Uh, the majority of those domain names were registered through Network Solutions, remain registered through Network Solutions.
[51:23.640 --> 51:27.060]  According to the statute, all of those people go to Virginia.
[51:27.800 --> 51:29.000]  Every single one of them.
[51:29.820 --> 51:42.080]  Um, I, I, I've, I've argued, and, and the briefs are actually up on, on the internet, that that is, is, uh, just facially unconstitutional under a case called Schaffer versus Heitner.
[51:42.080 --> 51:50.720]  Um, but, nevertheless, uh, Judge Bryan of the Eastern District of Virginia did not buy that argument.
[51:50.980 --> 51:55.760]  And several other judges on the Eastern District of Virginia have held the opposite way.
[51:55.940 --> 52:06.020]  We're waiting for the Fourth Circuit, uh, which is, uh, uh, an appellate court that sits in Richmond, Virginia, actually to issue a decision on whether that's constitutional or not.
[52:06.020 --> 52:08.980]  I think we have a very strong argument as to why that violates the U.S.
[52:09.100 --> 52:13.020]  Constitution, and it violates the due process rights of people from all over the world.
[52:13.760 --> 52:14.700]  Okay, last question.
[52:16.460 --> 52:16.860]  Hi.
[52:16.860 --> 52:24.020]  I, uh, went through much of the same thing myself a few years ago, being sued by an American company for a domain name while I was in the U.K.
[52:25.520 --> 52:33.840]  To all intents and purposes, I actually won this case because, um, they ended up having to pay me for the domain name.
[52:33.840 --> 52:41.100]  The only reason I managed to achieve this was I was acutely paranoid about saying anything to their lawyers.
[52:41.480 --> 52:47.620]  And as Mr. Nissan discovered, the moment he mentioned the figure, he opened himself up.
[52:48.200 --> 52:57.540]  Is there any advice, any location on the net where there are general do's and don'ts if you get approached by a lawyer on one of these matters, things that you should and shouldn't say?
[52:58.080 --> 52:59.300]  Anything you would recommend?
[53:03.880 --> 53:05.120]  Out of an employer lawyer.
[53:05.440 --> 53:07.080]  Well, I will, that's what I will say.
[53:07.180 --> 53:16.780]  I will say consultant attorney, but, uh, uh, in general, uh, I would, I would say, yourself, don't mention any, any number.
[53:17.060 --> 53:21.580]  That's, you know, if, if it'll ever happen to me again, that's what I'll do.
[53:22.120 --> 53:22.640]  Right.
[53:22.860 --> 53:32.680]  There, there are several lawyers in this field, and I do this too, who have been using, uh, agreements before there are any discussions about settlements.
[53:33.140 --> 53:42.840]  Uh, basically a non-disclosure thing that says that any discussion that we have just absolutely cannot be used as evidence in any proceeding, whether it's an arbitral forum or whether it's in court.
[53:44.300 --> 53:48.800]  Um, I, I don't know if, if any of those agreements have ever been litigated.
[53:49.020 --> 54:00.580]  Uh, it would not surprise me if, uh, somebody on the other side of one of these cases tries to breach that kind of agreement at some point and use the negotiations as evidence anyway.
[54:00.840 --> 54:02.500]  It hasn't happened to me yet.
[54:02.500 --> 54:04.020]  It happened to me.
[54:04.320 --> 54:04.600]  Yeah.
[54:05.240 --> 54:07.480]  But, I mean, did you have a written agreement?
[54:07.480 --> 54:14.560]  No, we, all, all, all our, all our, uh, uh, uh, settlement meetings are under protective order.
[54:15.140 --> 54:18.420]  And they use it in front of the judge, and the judge welcomed it.
[54:19.120 --> 54:19.400]  Right.
[54:19.860 --> 54:21.700]  Uh, that, that's, that is not uncommon.
[54:22.020 --> 54:29.720]  And, and there have been a number of judges that have taken the point of view that the Cyber Squatting Act creates an exception to a rule of evidence.
[54:29.720 --> 54:33.720]  Ordinarily, the federal rules of evidence say that, that you can't use settlement discussions.
[54:34.160 --> 54:44.140]  There are a number of judges that have taken the position that the Cyber Squatting Act changes everything in just this one circumstance, and you can use the settlement discussions as evidence against people.
[54:44.960 --> 54:47.900]  Um, it, it, it's, it's a very difficult situation to be in.
[54:48.560 --> 54:55.660]  Um, like I said, knock on wood, uh, I haven't had anybody yet, uh, breach one of those agreements.
[54:55.660 --> 55:10.020]  But, uh, it's, it's often, uh, helpful for the lawyers to have something on paper saying you're not going to use it, and to, to make it clear what the penalties are if somebody tries using the negotiations as evidence later on.
[55:10.480 --> 55:18.600]  Uh, just to close out, um, I wanted to ask Uzi how people can help as far as what they can do to get involved, or help out in the legal case in any way.
[55:19.580 --> 55:32.920]  The best, the best way to help is to go to the, to ncchelp.org, click on how can you help, and send, send, you can send an email, the first option, send an email to the parties, which goes to Nissan Motors and to me.
[55:33.400 --> 55:37.500]  And the second option is, uh, to send an email to the media.
[55:37.920 --> 55:40.000]  Uh, you, uh, put the message in there.
[55:40.120 --> 55:47.300]  Our server will address it to over 40 of the biggest names that, uh, I'm hoping they may do something.
[55:47.300 --> 55:49.940]  But, uh, we'll, we'll, we'll see.
[55:50.160 --> 55:57.560]  And, uh, the third thing, if you have anyone who have a website, can download a banner to help us with the public awareness.
[55:58.180 --> 55:58.460]  Thank you.
[55:58.740 --> 56:05.580]  And you can help us, uh, with the Ford case to help us pay for, uh, for legal advice and all that kind of thing just by making a donation on our internet store.
[56:06.060 --> 56:07.480]  And, uh, every little bit counts.
[56:09.440 --> 56:10.120]  Thanks, guys.
[56:17.650 --> 56:19.010]  I just want to mention...