By this point, I feel bad for the person at Wiley who wrote the letter protesting the use of ____ FOR DUMMIES in a blog post title. BuzzMachine is now organizing a protest encouraging bloggers to end their posts with a FOR DUMMIES. Details here.
Background here.
Without speaking to this specific case – many owners of trademarks send out letters motivated by a speculative theory that unattributed non-commercial use of their trademarks dilute the value of their trademarks. In the era of the blogosphere where lawyers letters get posted and linked to, some trademark owners may be trading the possibility of dilution for the reality of tarnishment.

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Steven Colbert either coined the term TRUTHINESS or is most responsible for its popularization. He introduced it as his ‘word of the day’ in the first episode of his show THE COLBERT REPORT in October and the concept of ‘feeling the truth’ caught on. By the end of the year, the American Linguists Society, which defined the word as:
‘the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true,’
to be the Word of the Year.
According to the latest polls, 44% of Americans don’t get this joke yet.
While Colbert has received general attribution for popularizing the term, when the AP didn’t, Colbert took them to task, announcing them to be the greatest threat to America, displacing bears from that position.
The commercialization has begun. TRUTHINESS t-shirts are available on Cafe Press. The domain name TRUTHINESS.COM has been registered. However, there’s nothing on TESS yet.
Colbert is right to protect his claim. For now, he has a plausible argument that the term is part of his ‘persona’, in the way in which HERE’S JOHNNY was a protectable part of Johnny Carson’s persona. And he should file an application.
Good introduction to Right of Publicity here.

One of Jason Calcanis’ blogs at Weblogs, Inc. Network, used the term SUPER BOWL GUIDE FOR DUMMIES as the title of a single blog post.
No, it did not receive a demand letter from the owners of the SUPER BOWL mark.
It got a demand letter from Wiley, owners of the FOR DUMMIES mark.
Wiley’s letter is not a demand letter in that it doesn’t allege an infringement of rights and doesn’t demand cessation of activity. When pressed by Calcanis (CEO of Weblogs (now an AOL company)), Wiley acknowledged that one-time use in a title was not trademark use, and that Wiley was merely asking for attribution. However, the original letter resembles a demand letter in that it starts out with a recitation of legal rights, and asks for written assurance that Weblogs is complying with the request.
On these facts, Weblogs does not have to provide attribution. If you write a letter asking someone to do something they do not have to do, then you are asking them for a favor. When asking for a favor, If you do not use magic words such as ‘please’, ‘thank you’ and ‘we respectfully request,’ then do not be surprised when your letter gets posted on a website.

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Perfect 10 takedown demand to Google here. A bizarre document. If you use some of the model’s names as Google search terms, (ALENA DRAZNA for example) then Google helpfully links to the DMCA complaint at the bottom of the search results. No, that is not how I learned of this, I learned of it from Boing Boing.
Perfect 10 wiki entry here.
Wiki list of Perfect 10 models here.

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PETA created a parody of the GIRLS GONE WILD video style to make a statement about milk. Girls dancing in bars raise their t-shirts to display udders. ABC refused to show it (as an aside, it’s interesting that PETA was prepared to spend $2.2 million).
The banned MILK GONE WILD commercial is available here. It’s work-safe, depednign on where you work.
This a great fact pattern, made greater by the fact that PETA is selling MILK GONE WILD merchandise (including the Cafe Press specialty, the thong).
Here’s an over-simplistic Cat Not In The Hat analysis: PETA borrows Girl Gone Wild’s style of expression to comment on a third party, the Milk Industry.
Here’s a quick ‘Priceless‘ analysis: PETA’s commercial comments on the ‘Girl Gone Wild’ ‘mind-set’ in addition to commenting on the Milk Industry.
Bonus issue: note the AIM running guy with udders used on the mikgonewild.com website.
Bonus bonus issue: Is the GIRLS GONE WILD mark famous and eligible for dilution protection?