Flame ON!
xadm
UPDATE: At 7:07 PM Eastern, the Fighting Gravity troupe posted the following on thier Facebook Page:
Tipping my hat to the folks over at FG for doing the right thing and overruling thier lawyers.
Look.
I know here in the United States we are a very litigious society these days. Back when I was a kid, if I slipped and fell in front of the neighbor’s house, my dad would pick me up and say “Watch where you’re going!”
Today, people sue for stupid crap all the time.
“I put hot coffee between my legs while driving and burned my nether region!”
Sue.
“He stood me up for the prom!”
Sue.
Pictured: Attorneys
Where am I going with this? Recently, my dear friend Leah Petersen received a “Cease and Desist” order from lawyers representing a modern performance art troupe called “Fighting Gravity.”
Yes. Fighting Gravity is the title of Leah’s first book.
Apparently, the legal whiz-kids representing the dance group feel that a small press published Science Fiction novel about a brilliant young physicist and the Emperor whom he loves infringes on their trademark.
The interesting thing of course is that there have been past books (and a rock group from the 90’s) with the same title. Since they pre-date the dance troupe, I wonder who is suing who in the background? And by the way, Leah’s book title was announced in 2009, which also pre-dates the Dance Troupe– who’s own website states their copyrite is 2010.
Now, I’m no attorney…so I’m not an expert or anything, but I would think that logically, a ‘book’ and an ‘entertainment service’ would be different classes entirely (BTW, They are. Entertainment is service class 41 and Printed Matter is 16. But that’s beside the point).
In my very humble opinion, this is a bullying tactic by attorneys of a group that were made famous in part due to the internet. This situation has already begun to go viral as Cory Doctorow has already posted about it on BoingBoing and is an article over at The Passive Voice.
Methinks they are about to find out that the Internet is a double-edged sword.
Peace
Pick up FIGHTING GRAVITY (The “book” not the “dance company”) at AMAZON
