The Ankle Biter @ Quibbling.net

I really have no desire to rehash all this again, but there’s one thing left in this whole webhosting drama that still really chaps my ass about the situation.

I posted The Revolution Will Not Be Silenced Thursday evening, shortly after bringing my archives back online from the, er, unplanned migration. By 3 PM EST the afternoon of the 27th, I had received a cease-and-desist email from Quinn Whipple, accusing me, of all things, of trademark violation for using QWK.net’s name on my blog without permission.

I’ll repeat that, because it bears repeating.

Trademark violation. For talking about QWK.net by name.

Let me just list for you some of the other trademarks I’m violating, then: Apple, Microsoft, Diet Coke, Robeks, Wegmans, Giant, Safeway… you get the idea.

I knew that accusation was ridiculous on its face, but just to be safe, Tom and I forwarded the C&D (which I’ll post in the extended entry) around to a whole fleet of lawyers we happen to count among our friends.

Almost universally, they had to restrain their laughter upon reading it. (My favorite response? “Trademark law does not prohibit the use of company names or trademarks when discussing one’s experience with the company. See U.S. Const., Amd. I.”) And after an attorney had reviewed the blog post in question and determined that I probably wasn’t exposed to a defamation suit, I decided not to worry too much about being the subject of legal action.

Quinn had, however, CC’d this bogus C&D to Dreamhost’s owner and their abuse address, signaling a clear intention to have them shut me down, because apparently it wasn’t enough for him to kick me off his own systems- it appears that, at the time, he’d have liked to have me kicked off my new host, too.

It was at this point that I decided, “It’s on now, bitch,” and began going over my options for countersuit and injunctions for harrassment with my own attorney.

Why am I posting all this? Because if Dreamhost, in a reasonable effort to protect its own interests, decides to treat this email like a “notice and takedown” (it seems like that was the intent) and shut me down, I want you all to know why. It would be a misunderstanding of the legal issues involved to do so, but Dreamhost isn’t who I’ll be blaming for it.

Quinn apologized over on Tom’s blog for the abruptness of shutting off my service. He then made Brad apologize for posting bitchy comments on my blog and Dawn’s. But he refused to do anything to rescind this C&D he sent to my new host.

So basically, he completely missed the point.

I thought (and continue to think) that Quinn treated me poorly by overreacting to the anti-hotlinking image. If he had simply asked me to take it down, I would have. But the fact is, it’s his company and I was indeed in violation of the TOS, so I wasn’t especially looking for an apology for running his business as he sees fit. This is America, after all, and we can agree to disagree about the quality of his decision, but it was still his decision to make. In fact, at the time I posted about it, the person I thought was being most ridiculous in this situation was the person who whined about having to see pr0n while she was trying to steal from me.

I also wasn’t particularly looking for an apology from Brad/Nateguts for his comment (though perhaps Dawn was, because what he said to her was especially nasty). Remember, I’m the girl who uses gay pr0n to thwart thieves, so you know I’m not that sensitive. If I had really been that torqued about his comment, I could have deleted it. Meanwhile, his so-called “apology” implied that I was lying to you all about the situation and that you were only reacting out of some sense of loyalty to me personally. That’s silly, because I don’t even know all you guys, and those of you I do know are generally the first ones to call bullshit on me when it’s warranted.

What I did want, however, was him to acknowledge to Dreamhost that he had falsely accused me of a trademark violation. He has not done this. We’ve asked him to do this, and Quinn has refused. It bears noting at this point that falsely accusing someone of committing a crime is itself a crime, and I’m bearing that squarely in mind should I be forced to pursue legal action to put this issue to rest. Copying the C&D to Dreamhost and referencing their TOS implies, at least to me, that he was actively trying to have me shut down again with his accusation. (I welcome an alternate explanation if anyone’s got one.)

But for now, I’m sharing all this because all I wanted in all of this was it to be over and to be left alone to have my little website. It seems that Quinn has backed off from leaving comments and sending me frivolous legal notices, but as far as I know, this C&D copied to Dreamhost is still hanging out there, which means for the moment, I’m not sure I will be left alone to have my little website.

And for me, that’s what this is all about.

(UPDATE: Hey look! I force porn on an unsuspecting public!! And little children whose mothers teach them to steal! I’m a baaaaaad person.)

(email addresses have been deleted or truncated to thwart spambots)

From: Quinn Whipple quinn@technologycs

To: Tiffany Baxendell numberseven@mac
Cc: Karl Decker , abuse@dreamhost, jeff@dreamhost
Date: Fri Jan 27, 2006 01:59:58 AM EST
Subject: Use of QWK.net trademarked name

Tiffany,

Please accept this as formal written notice that on your  
quibbling.net (hosted by Dreamhost.com) you reference QWK.net which  
is a registered trademark of QWK.net Hosting LLC without expressed  
permission.   At this time QWK.net requires that you remove all  
references to this protected trademark from your website and cease  
and desist all references to the QWK.net name and QWK.net brand.

By using the QWK.net trademarked name on your website without express  
permission you are in violation of the terms and conditions of  
Dreamhost.  Dreamhost’s rules concerning this can be viewed under the  
trademarks and copyrights section of http://dreamhost.net/tos.html

I also believe that what is right is right.  There is enough junk on  
the internet with having my customers contribute to the problem.  As  
stated in our Terms and Conditions, QWK.net does not and will not  
host hard core adult content.   It doesn’t matter that you had been a  
customer for 4 years.  It was your choice to break the terms and  
conditions that you agreed to with your QWK.net service.   It is your  
choice to tell all your friends about how you feel wronged by our  
choice to terminate your service.  But it is not your choice to use  
the QWK.net trademarked name without written consent especially in  
untruthful context.

Sincerely,

———————————————-
   Quinn Whipple
   QWK.net
   Business Grade Internet Services
———————————————-

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 29th, 2006 at 3:21 am and is filed under Rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.