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To: Tom C who wrote (3946)	4/13/1999 6:53:00 PM
From: Jeffrey S. Mitchell	Read Replies (4) of 4295

Tom, here's your first challenge as the new CEO of FBN... I got a call from Business Wire about the webnode.com web site. They are not happy with the change from "Business Wire" to "Bidness Wire" in our parody news release here: webnode.com. At first she wanted the entire news release removed but I explained that they don't own those words and that if we had to remove them then so does every company that also posts a Business Wire PR on their site. She then said it had the look and feel of a BW PR and I pointed out ours had two columns and a cut-away for a quote. At that point I suggested she go to the site and look at it. I also pointed out where we clearly pointed out on the home page that it was an April Fools joke and we provided links to stories that clearly identified who was behind it. That seemed to satisfy her on that issue. The discussion then moved on to the name "Bidness Wire". She said if we just removed that or changed it then there would be no problem. I explained to her that the site was a parody and as such is protected free speech. I gave the example of how there's a parody here in Westport of Martha Stewart's Living magazine called Is Martha Stewart Living and that the National Lampoon routinely parodies various publications. I also mentioned about how Leno, Letterman and Saturday Night Live routinely make fun of companies and don't even change their name-- all in the name of humor. She said her job was just to nicely tell me before the lawyers got involved and that they are charged with protecting their copyright so it doesn't become diluted (I think that's the term she used). She said I obviously didn't know the law and that this was not a case of threatening without actual action. We did have a long talk about other things so I don't want to make her out as "evil", just that, in her words, "her hands are tied" but she said I could talk it over with the group and let her know what we decided. So, what do we do? - Jeff

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