Apparently the corporate media feels it not only owns the Internet,
but that it can control opinions and expression as well.
Late Wednesday, we received the following letter via email. It
concerned one of many "freedom of expression" sites that 2600
is involved with.
----- Forwarded message -----
From: "Lusins, Gillian (NBC)" Gillian.Lusins@nbc.com
To: "'emmanuel@2600.com'" emmanuel@2600.com
Subject: Website
Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 17:43:47 -0500
X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2448.0)
Dear Mr. Goldstein,
I am counsel to National Broadcasting Company, Inc. You are listed as the
technical contact for the following site: www.fucknbc.com. The site is
currently listed as belonging to "CORE - THE INTERNET COUNCIL OF REGISTRARS,
and the site is currently pointing to NBC.com. The use of NBC's name in
this domain name constitutes trademark infringment, and is also a violation
of our copyright interest in the NBC.com site. Please be aware that a
letter is being sent to the listed owners of this site, and that if the site
is not taken down immediately, and arrangements made to cease and
discontinue all use of this name, we will pursue all necessary legal
remedies including instituting litigation in the appropriate venues.
Please contact me to discuss this matter upon receipt of this letter at
gillian.lusins@nbc.com. Thank you.
Gillian Lusins
Because e-mail can be altered electronically, the integrity of this communication cannot be guaranteed.
----- End forwarded message -----
It's clear to us that the people at NBC have become separated from some
key bits of logic so we will try and help them out.
Free speech is at the heart of the net. While companies and other
entities are entitled to protect their trademarks, it is entirely
acceptable for sites like www.aolsucks.com, www.fuckfrance.com, and
even www.fuckgeorgewbush.com to exist without fear of harassment.
We invite NBC (or anyone else, but let's give them first crack at it)
to register fuck2600.com or 2600sucks.com. And if we feel like registering
www.nbcsucksbecausetheyhavelawyerswithtoomuch- timeontheirhands.com, no
legal threat is going to convince us not to fight for this very
fundamental freedom.
We think NBC may have been confused because we were pointing www.fucknbc.com
to www.nbc.com. Perhaps they thought we had STOLEN their web site. We've
seen bigger leaps in corporate logic so this conclusion is entirely possible.
Let us be clear - we were merely POINTING one site to another, something
that is perfectly acceptable in the world of the Internet. If your mortal
enemy decides to point his/her site at your site, there's not a damn
thing you can do about it, nor should you want to. It's how the net works.
But, since NBC has brought it up, we would like to have this site do
something more than what it's doing now. As a first step towards this,
we have pointed the site to this new material they so graciously provided
us with. We would like to see a more comprehensive fucknbc site become
established. Please email us if you'd like to put together such a site.
And if NBC has the guts to apologize, we'll post that too.
