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Frank Barnako in his Internet Daily discusses “Why Wikipedia Can Be An Advertiser’s Problem,” noting that Wiki entries on branded products are placing highly on search engine results, exposing users to potentially critical information about the products. Barnako quotes PR guru Steve Rubel (different one) to the effect that brand owners should resist the temptation to run to the ‘self-editable’ Wikipedia and edit. Rubel, in an extensive report on the Wiki/brand relationship , notes that the Wiki community can ‘sniff out corporate manipulation.’
Discussion of Wikipedia sock puppetry here
Discussion of ‘Being John Malkovich,’ a film featuring a puppeteer, here.

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Thorstein Veblen, social philospher (who coined the term ‘Conspicuous Consumption’), believed that fashion cycles succeeded as they were a relief from the specific ugliness of the previous season. Cf. Oscar Wilde: “fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable we have to alter it every six months.”
On the other hand, law professors Kal Raustiala and Christopher Sprigman, suggest that the fashion cycle, or atl least the shrotness of it, is caused by copying — trends saturate the market quickly, ‘driving the fashion cognoscenti to search out newer looks.’
The Wall Street Journal, in its imprecisely titled “Can Fashion Be Copyrighted?”, p. B1 today, no free online version, discusses a proposal to grant fashion designs a three-year sui generis form of protection. Various designers, among them the knocked-off and the knockers-off, discuss copying. The article quotes Profs. Raustiala and Sprigman, as well as blog fave Susan Scafidi of Counterfeit Chic, who continues the discussion of the proposed legislation on her site.

I apologize for not reporting on this case earlier.
Defendants were a not for profit organization (“NFP”) helping restaurant workers, and a restaurant owned by a workers’ cooperative, in which the NFP had a 40% interest. The NFP protested Plaintiff’s policies relating to its workers. The NFP created a hand-out that reproduced the Plaintiff’s logo on the cover (the hand-out was folded). When opened, the text of the hand-out contained information about the organization’s criticism of Plaintiff (the brochure identifies the NFP as the source and promoted the NFP’s primary mission of helping restaurant workers – and makes no mention of the co-op restaurant).
A reproduction of the leaflet is here.
The hand-out was distributed near Plaintiff’s establishment. Defendant acknowledged that the appearance was intended to induce passers-by to accept the leaflet and read it.
Plaintiff sued on trademark infringement and dilution. The Court denied the motion for preliminary injunction because plaintiff was unable to show irreparable harm; however the Court found that the plaintiff WAS likely to prevail on infringement, having shown a likelihood of confusion, basing its decision that defendant’s use of the tradeamark initially confused passers-by and diverted them to use defendant’s services, namely educating them in its viewpoint.
Prof. Goldman, in discussing this case, refers to it as a travesty and one of the five all time worst initial interest confusion cases of all time (I will be emailing him to obtain the complete list).
Read the case.
SMJ Group. et. al. v. 417 Lafayette Restaurant LLP, 06 CIV 1774 (SDNY July 6, 2006).