Last week, Goldman Sachs (GS) sent an Cease and Desist letter, demanding that blogger Mike Morgan take down his gripe site GoldmanSachs666.com, saying that the site violated Goldman’s intellectual property rights and that the domain constituted trademark infringement.
The “666” in the domain’s refers to address of Goldman’s headquarters in New York.
So instead of waiting for GS’s UDRP to arrive in the mail, Mr. Morgan, filed a preemptive lawsuit against the investment bank in the in federal district court, for the southern district of Florida, alledging that Mr. Morgan GoldmanSachs666.com, is used “to display news and commentary” regarding the bank and does not violate GS trademark as it is a legitimate use.
Morgan also asks the court to declare that his use of the name is lawful and doesn’t infringe on Goldman Sachs’ trademark or violate other laws.
“He wants nothing more than to be able to have the opportunity to publish news and commentary about matters of interest to him on the Internet,” said his attorney, Joseph Beckman.
A spokesperson for Goldman Sachs said the company sent Morgan the cease and desist letter to protect itself. “This is not about Mr. Morgan’s right to express his views. It’s about his infringement of our trademark,” the spokesperson said.
Morgan’s site went live at the end of March, and is devoted to criticizing the bank, with posts like, “Breakup Goldman Sachs — Too Big To Fail Means Too Much Power.”
Morgan’s site has a disclaimer at the top stating it isn’t affiliated with Goldman Sachs.
Courts have generally supported the rights of people to use domains incorporating trademarks as gripe sites. For example, last year a court rejected Wal-Mart’s attempt to shut down the sites walocaust.com and walqaeda.com.
Other cases have supports sites which include a trademark and the word “sucks” at the end.
However, UDRP as well all know, have a tenancy to blindly support a trademark holders. Federal courts actually try to apply the law to its cases.
We wish Mr. Morgan the best of luck in this case.
Mike,
Won’t GS attempt to do all of the typical tricks like demand “change of venue”, discredit the domain owner, out spend him, bury them in paper, etc. , etc.
Domainer
No doubt its going to be expensive.
GS certainly could try to change venue to NY but GS probably has an office in Florida so that wouldn’t work.
The domain owner may not own any other domains and remember this is an actual grip site not a parked page.
No doubt its going to be expensive and GS will run the fees up on the guy.
But sometimes you got to spend the money and defend what’s right
Mike,
Good job hand reg’ing BecomeLegendary.com. 🙂
It’s time to update Elysium’s symbol again…
Mike I have just noticed that you changed the design of your blog. I had to do a double take before realising I was at the right place. It’s looking very good.
It will be very interesting to see how this case turns out. I personally don’t like gripe sites or domains, such as “company name + sucks.com”. I believe that if people want to be taken seriously, they should respect the trademark of others. If someone wants to express their opinion about a company, they can do so in a more dignified manner. Morgan could have used a more generic domain name.
Kevin
We have been working on the change all day. Thanks for the kind words.
Regarding this case the question is fair use and Morgan should be entitled to use the domain in the fashion he is using it for.
Hi Mike,
Nice clean new website! Sweet ride for us all. Just don’t park it under trees where crows gather… or seagulls! They are poop monsters! 😉
Nice article, bro.