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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Pacifica - Public Citizen press release |
Current rating: 0 |
by Public Citizen/Angela Bradbery
Email: ABRADBERY (nospam) citizen.org (unverified!) |
21 Feb 2001
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Pacifica to Critics: Take Down Your Web Sites or We'll Sue
Two Web Sites Critical of Pacifica Foundation are Subject of Lawsuit
Threats; First Amendment Protects Critics, Public Citizen Says |
WASHINGTON, D.C. - In a move that is widely viewed as an attack
on First Amendment rights on the Internet, Pacifica Foundation has said
it will sue to force two groups embroiled in a controversy over the
radio network to dismantle Web sites critical of Pacifica.
A lawyer representing Pacifica sent letters last week to Friends
of Free Speech Radio in California and WBAI Listener Network in New
York, demanding that the two groups abandon the use of their domain
names and relinquish all rights to those names by today, Feb. 19, or
face legal action. Pacifica is claiming that the groups, which operate
www.savepacifica.net and www.WBAI.net, are violating trademark laws.
Representatives of the two groups have said they will not
dismantle the sites. Public Citizen, which champions First Amendment
rights on the Internet, will represent the groups if Pacifica sues, as
expected. A Pacifica attorney has told Public Citizen that it will
indeed go to court.
\"We cannot sit by idly while corporations try to silence people
using illegal intimidation tactics,\" Public Citizen President Joan
Claybrook said. \"The law is quite clear about First Amendment rights,
which apply on the Internet as much as in traditional forms of print.\"
The controversy stems from a conflict between Pacifica\'s
management and station employees and members over the network\'s future.
Management is viewed as seeking to sacrifice programming for profits,
while employees and many community activists say they don\'t want to give
up the progressive programming for which Pacifica is noted.
In its Feb. 14 letters, Pacifica Foundation attorney Tanya
Vanderbilt, of Epstein Becker & Green, P.C. in Washington, D.C., claims
that the use of the Web site domain names is a trademark infringement,
could confuse people who go to the Web to look for Pacifica\'s site and
restricts Pacifica from conducting business on the Internet under its
own name.
But Paul Alan Levy, an attorney with Public Citizen Litigation
Group who has represented people in several similar cases, said
Pacifica\'s threats would not hold up in court. Trademark infringement
occurs when a company\'s name is used in a misleading way to profit from
consumer confusion about whether the company has sponsored the message,
he said. This clearly didn\'t apply in this case, because both sites are
clearly non-commercial, he said.
\"The First Amendment fully supports the kind of speech that is
posted on these Web sites,\" Levy said. \"It\'s unbelievable that Pacifica
has to resort to bullying tactics, rather than addressing the internal
problems that have led to this dissension.\"
Said Friends of Free Speech Radio member Robbie Osman,
\"Savepacifica.net and wbai.net are legal and valuable Web sites. They
offer information about the actions of the present Pacifica board. They
make no pretense to being anything else.\" He added that \"Pacifica
historically has defended free expression and encouraged fair and open
debate. We must not allow it to descend into thuggishness and
censorship.\"
Patty Heffley of WBAI Listener network said, \"Pacifica is trying
to stifle free speech on their own broadcast network and now in some
Orwellian fashion they are trying to silence those who listen as well.\"
In a similar recent case, Public Citizen represented an airline
passenger who was so upset about how Alitalia handled his lost luggage
complaint that he launched a Web site entitled www.alitaliasucks.com.
The airline sued for trademark infringement, among other things, but
dropped the suit shortly after a judge demanded that a top company
official, such as the president, come to court to explain why the
company brought the case.
###
Public Citizen has been involved in a number of other Internet privacy
suits, including several in which companies have gone to court to learn
the identities of people who anonymously post messages critical of
companies on message boards.
For more information about those suits, please visit:
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See also:
http://www.citizen.org/litigation/briefs/internet.htm
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