Glenn Beck Loses Trademark Claim Over Domain Name
Glenn Beck has lost a trademark claim over a domain name that is part of a parody of his interviewing style.
An arbitrator with the World Intellectual Property Organization rejected Beck’s claim against glennbeckrapedandmurderedayounggirlin1990.com, Online Media Daily reports. The arbitrator said the site’s creator, Isaac Eiland-Hall, was making a political statement that was a legitimate noncommercial use of Beck’s name.
The site was created after a commenter on Fark.com asked, with no basis in fact, “Why haven’t we had an official response to the rumor that Glenn Beck raped and murdered a girl in 1990?”
Eiland-Hall had argued the website was a parody using the same rhetorical techniques that Beck uses on air. Eiland-Hall’s lawyer, Marc Randazza, also claimed there was no possibility of confusion. “Only an abject imbecile could believe that the domain name would have any connection to the complainant,” Randazza wrote in legal papers.
The story said a contrary decision would have encouraged subjects of online parodies to take their complaints to WIPO rather than U.S. courts, where First Amendment protections apply.
