If “permission-based” linking was a requirement - blogging and much other Internet activity as we know it (even mainstream media news sites) would cease to exist.
Well, if the lawsuit of one major law firm against an Internet news publication succeeds, that “permission-based” linking may become the law…and effectively kill the Internet.
The upcoming edition of National Law Journal reports (subscription only):
Attorneys at major law firms, including Bryan Cave, Jones Day and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, are finding themselves and their recent home purchases or sales in an Internet spotlight — and some of them aren’t too happy about it.
Blockshopper.com, a Web site that posts information about residential sales in Chicago, St. Louis, Las Vegas and south Florida, highlights lawyers, among other professionals, who recently bought or sold property by naming them, posting their photos and linking to their law firm Web site biographies.
Jones Day, which had two of associates show up on the site, found the coverage so objectionable that it recently sued the Chicago-based Internet company for trademark infringement in the U.S. District Courtfor the Northern District of Illinois.
The unauthorized use is likely “to deceive and cause confusion and mistake among customers as to the source or origin of the service provided or offered for sale by the defendants and the affiliation of Jones Day with those services,” the firm said in the Aug. 12 lawsuit. (Jones Day v. Blockshopper.com, No. 08-4572.)
Trademark infringement? For simply linking to the firm’s Web site? Are you kidding me? But it gets better:
Jones Day offered to take $10,000 to drop the lawsuit if the Web site stopped reporting on the firm, but the company isn’t caving, said Brian Timpone, president of two-year-old Blockshopper LLC.
Bending to the law firm’s demands to stop coverage of the firm’s lawyers would strangle the company’s business model of using public records and publicly available Internet information, he said.
Blockshopper, founded by former newspaper industry professionals, considers itself a next generation media outlet entitled to First Amendment protections just like any other news organization, he said.
“If we don’t fight it, Jones Day could do this to any news organization or any blog,” Timpone said. “You would completely throttle the Internet if you required online journalists and bloggersto get permission before linking.”
If a company doesn’t want people to link its site - then it shouldn’t have a Web site.
We’ll keep you updated on this important lawsuit - but make sure to forward and repost this far and wide.
I wish I had faith this will be thrown out.
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