An internet entrepreneur who registered peta.org in 1995 and set
up a web site to poke fun at the animal rights activists People for
the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), is threatening to take a
five year dispute over the domain name as far as the Supreme Court.
It is thought to be the longest-running domain name dispute.
Michael Doughney’s site at peta.org was entitled “People Eating
Tasty Animals” and it linked to mink and leather merchants,
taxidermists, a poultry information service and cattle
breeders.
PETA succeeded in winning the name from Doughney in June this
year in a US federal court on the grounds of trade mark
infringement and cybersquatting (which is recognised as a wrongful
act under US federal law); Doughney has now begun an appeal,
arguing that his People Eating Tasty Animals site, which is
presently being hosted at an alternative address, is protected by
the US constitutional right to free speech.
In the case in June, PETA argued that a visitor to peta.org had
no way of knowing that Doughney’s site was a joke site before
entering it. For parody sites to be protected by free speech,
argued PETA, they must be immediately recognisable as such.
Doughney, who co-founded and subsequently sold his stake in the ISP
Digex Inc. for several million dollars, is taking this argument to
the US Appeals Court. His lawyer has indicated that he is prepared
to take the case to the Supreme Court, if necessary.
