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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: 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.