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Anti-Piracy Copyright Lawyer Decides To Abuse Trademarks To Shut Down Pirates:
Kerry Culpepper, Hawaiian IP attorney, [decided] to register a bunch of trademarks for piracy related terms and [is] then going around and shutting down accounts for "pirate" services on social media sites.
[...] The idea I suppose is to try to claim that 42 Ventures is suddenly and recently using these marks in commerce, the only way it would have a valid trademark. That, however, is bullshit. The terms and actual content creators were already long using those marks, as were the holders of the social media accounts 42 Ventures is busy taking down. In other words, Culpepper appears to be perfectly willing to abuse trademark law in his efforts to enforce copyright law. That isn't exactly a consistent respect for intellectual property now, is it?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by leon_the_cat on Thursday April 09 2020, @11:41PM (6 children)
The article attributes ethics to lawyers. Lawyers are not intereted in ethics only winning and any technicality that will allow such. This particular one had gotten angry and has decided to troll.
(Score: 4, Informative) by BsAtHome on Friday April 10 2020, @01:00AM (1 child)
I'd argue that "winning on the basis of a technicality" would not be a violation of ethics at all. The rules and procedures are there for a reason, which all must adhere to. Ethics are essential to the process, but that should not be misconstrued into meaning only to use, or restrict to, a limited subset of available statutes.
This case would not fall in the "ethical" range at all. Not because of using a different statute, but by abusing the different statute in bad faith. Knowingly registering invalid marks and using those for a different purpose is not only a violation of ethics. It would run afoul on the presumption of acting in good faith. And, acting in bad faith can (and should) result in removal from the bar.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 10 2020, @11:27AM
I very much enjoy your argument, because you look at it from a different set of ethics (lawyer/gamerule/radical logical ethics), whereas the ethics norm would more likely align with the intent of trademark law and view this as abuse of it. I suspect the job of a judge is often to interpret intent of law and actions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 10 2020, @01:32AM
I wonder if he knows that he is violating the trademarks of any number of "42 Ventures" that are on the internet?
(Score: 1) by fourpartee on Friday April 10 2020, @02:36AM (1 child)
#1 reason testing labs need to use lawyers over rats in medical studies.
There are some things a rat won't do.
Are all loopholes moral?
If lawyers leave the loopholes in laws, are all loopholes moral?
I know, old punch line, but it felt soooo good to write it.
(Score: 3, Touché) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Friday April 10 2020, @11:11PM
Not really feasible, because rats are much closer to humans than lawyers.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by FatPhil on Friday April 10 2020, @07:27AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves