Typo Domain And Free Speech

kjmz said:

If the site had nothing to do with falwell then they shoudn't have a case but since it has his name I think it should be taken off.

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TGN_Merchant said:

He should be able to keep his site name and his site as he wants because of Freedom of Speach, there is nothing wrong with saying that on your website. Falwell is deffenatly wrong to say that and if people are going to see that on the internet, well then he has to realize that saying things have consciquences (gah! can't spell).

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TGN_Merchant said:

What if it was all the sudden against the law to be straight? What then? We would be in the same position.. So anyways that how I think of it.

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In a victory for free speech on the Internet, a New York man ordered to transfer the domain name www.fallwell.comto the Rev. Jerry Falwell will be allowed to keep the Web site, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has ruled.

Public Citizen attorney Paul Alan Levy represented the New York man, Christopher Lamparello. Lamparello runs a Web site that criticizes Falwell’s views on homosexuality. Falwell sought to transfer the domain name, and after a Uniform Domain-Name Dispute Resolution Policy panel ruled in Falwell’s favor, Lamparello sued in federal court in Virginia to keep his domain name. Noting that for a period of time, Lamparello’s Web site had praised a book and linked to Amazon.com where the book could be bought, a trial judge decided that the site was sufficiently commercial to be subject to the trademark laws and ruled in Falwell’s favor. Lamparello appealed the decision, and the case was argued in front of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in May.

Public Citizen, which has been a strong defender of First Amendment rights on the Internet, argued that Lamparello’s speech is indisputably protected and not applicable to trademark laws because the site features noncommercial speech. Levy also asserted that the District Court’s opinion should have been reversed because viewers of the Web site were unlikely to be confused about whether Falwell sponsors the Lamparello Web site.

“Lamparello’s website looks nothing like Reverend Falwell’s,” the court ruled today. “Lamparello clearly created his website intending only to provide a forum to criticize ideas, not to steal customers.”

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