As a follow up to our recent news story about Premier Ed Stelmach threat to sue a blogger for the use of his name in the domain name www.edstelmach.ca , Jeremy Loome writes for the Edmontson Sun that “He’s one of Canada’s foremost experts and he says Premier Ed Stelmach is probably going to lose, big time, partly because he’s not well known.
No, he’s not talking about Stelmach’s prospects in an election; but Michael Geist does think Steady Eddie would be barking up the wrong blog if he takes on local writer David Cournoyer over the use of www.edstelmach.ca.
Stelmach’s lawyers recently sent a letter to Cournoyer, who blogs under the title Daveberta, threatening legal action if he doesn’t give up the domain name, which Cournoyer purchased last year for $14.
But according to Geist, a prominent writer and Carleton University’s Canada Research Chair on Internet and E-Commerce Law, Canada clearly defends critics who use the domain names of people they’re criticizing – and Daveberta is definitely a critic of Stelmach’s government.
“We’ve seen other cases at the federal level: Don Boudria, David McGuinty, both found their domains registered by the Defend Marriage Coalition, an opponent of same-sex marriage, when they were in favour of it. And I know they were very frustrated with those registrations.
“There’s a dispute-resolutions policy run by the Canadian Internet Registration Authority, the organization that administers the .ca registration in Canada. I have some doubt, though, that a Stelmach case would win. There’s questions as to whether or not Stelmach enjoys trademark rights on his name and further, there’s some doubt as to whether he could prove the registrant doesn’t have legitimate interest in the domain name,” said Geist. “CIRA’s policy features protection for good faith criticism, even when there are some deceptive qualities.”
The deceptive quality in Daveberta’s case is that the page is not standalone, and automatically loads his other blog page under a separate domain name. “The current registrant could mount the argument that he is using the name for good faith criticism even if someone is deceived when they go to it.”
Trying to enforce the name as a trademark might prove equally frustrating, Geist indicated.
“There are questions as to whether Stelmach is a sufficiently known quantity that he has trademark rights to his name.”
Source: January 10th, 2008 Article by Jeremy Loome from the Legislature Bureau at the Edmontson Sun
