Tasty Animals: Intellectual property rules.

• Author: Rimensnyder, Sara
• Position: Citings - Brief Article

DON'T MOCK ANIMAL rights activists--they might take you to court. Michael Doughney found that out when he borrowed the acronym of the world's most prominent animal rights group to create www.peta.org, the People Eating Tasty Animals site--"a resource for those who enjoy eating meat, wearing fur and leather, hunting, and the fruits of scientific research."

Late last summer, a U.S. appeals court ordered Doughney to give up the PETA domain name, agreeing with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals that it was an infringement on its trademark. The judges also found that Doughney had violated the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, a law passed several years after the obviously fake PETA site went online.

The act permits judges to apply it retroactively, if they find that a defendant acted in "bad faith" with intent to profit. Doughney dug his own grave on that point by remarking to a reporter that PETA should buy the domain name if they weren't happy with how he was using it. But Doughney's lawyer, G...