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The Courts Government News Your Rights Online

LSU Law School Sues Student Over Website 203

Posted by timothy from the don't-mention-any-names dept.
hij writes: "The NY Times has an article that gives details about how the LSU Law School is suing one of its own students for a web site he maintains. The web site contains information about the Law School and also includes articles that are critical of the Law School."
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LSU Law School Sues Student Over Website More

LSU Law School Sues Student Over Website

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  • What the hell does that even mean? Check your grammer guys.

  • Link (Score:4, Funny)

    by Alien54 ( 180860 ) on Monday May 06, 2002 @08:29AM (#3468875) Journal
    The Site in Question is lsulaw.com [lsulaw.com].

    Now maybe we can do what the school wants to do and take down the site with a good slashdotting.

  • Soon.... (Score:4, Funny)

    by goneaway ( 224677 ) on Monday May 06, 2002 @08:29AM (#3468877) Homepage
    The Simpsons will be the only legal method of criticizing anything.

    • I think the actual quote is more like:

      "When I hear the word 'culture' I reach for the safety catch on my pistol"

      graspee

    • Re:Soon.... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by DNS-and-BIND ( 461968 )
      It's been well-known for centuries that only fools and comedians are allowed to tell the truth openly, without fear of retaliation.

      I think there's some Shakespeare about this situation, but as I can't stand Shakespeare, I don't remember it.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • So we just have to bribe the right people to make Bart write the DeCSS source code or another interesting message on the blackboard during the intro.
      • LOL that is a good idea, maybe he could write

        " the DMCA sucks the DMCA sucks the DMCA sucks"
        over and over and over :)

  • Looks like the student is gonna make a good lawyer (Score:5, Informative)

    by atari2600 ( 545988 ) on Monday May 06, 2002 @08:33AM (#3468885)

    From the article

    The site's home page bears a disclaimer saying it is not affiliated with the law school.

    Mr. Dorhauer has studied the law of domain names and said he was confident he would prevail. Legal experts who have inspected his Web site said he had a good case.

    Ms. Esman said the school had made a mistake in asserting that Mr. Dorhauer aims to make money from the site. "They do seem to be focusing their complaint incorrectly on commercial uses," she said. "He's not offering any services whatsoever



    Well it looks like the school should have talked more to the young man before suing him outright - after all he wasn't making pennies and he did have a disclaimer that his site has nothing to do with the law school

    • Had they talked to him before filing suit, they wouldn't have been setting an appropriate example for all of their students. Sue first. Ask questions later.

      Yes, I'm being facetious (mostly) but kneejerk internet domain lawsuits seem to be the rule, not the exception. Why talk about it when you can probably bully the domain owner into a settlement?

      That seems to be the rule for most corporate lawsuits anyway.

      • This Cease and Desist Letter [aol.com] was sent to him 30 November 2001. He responded within a few days, and seven weeks later he was threatened with a lawsuit on 11 February 2002. He responded to that on 04 March 2002, and they finally served him on 20 April 2002.

        The new york times article indicates he recieved the cease and desist letter and the trademark infringement suit "last month, two days before his second-year final exams." Poppycock. He's had six months to work this out.

        • The new york times article indicates he recieved the cease and desist letter and the trademark infringement suit "last month, two days before his second-year final exams." Poppycock. He's had six months to work this out.
          Hmmm... me thinks you have mis-parsed the sentence. Let's look at the quote in question:
          These days it also includes copies of cease-and-desist letters from the school's lawyers and the trademark infringement suit Mr. Dorhauer received last month, two days before his second-year final exams.
          In other words, "These days [his website] also includes copies of cease-and-desist letters from the school's lawyers and [his website also includes] the trademark infringement suit Mr. Dorhauer received last month, two days before his second-year final exams.

          The lawsuit was filed two days before his final exams. The quote indicates that his website contains both the cease-and-desist letters he received earlier and the lawsuit that was filed two days before final exams. It does NOT say the he received the cease-and-desist letters two days before final exams.

          His replies to this attempted legal exortion being perpetrated by LSU and its lawyers indicate that he has been trying to deal with this for the last six months, but the university's lawyers are not trying very hard to solve this without going to court.

          In fact, the university's lawyers will probably make more money if this goes to trial, so it seems like they are not making a good faith effort to solve this without going to court...
          • The sentence is poorly written nonetheless, and it confused at least the person to whom I was replying.

            The general notion here is that LSU all of a sudden dropped this lawsuit on Mr. Dorhauer all of a sudden, without warning, during his last week of finals. While I think the timing of that was bad, usually the court date won't be less than a few months from the filing date. Justice may not be blind anymore, but it's definetely very slow.

            I'm not defending LSU here, they're convinced they're in the right, which if you look at the trademark law that Dorhauer quotes in his response , whereas their accusations are totally offbased. I do think, tho, that there request he makes a more prominent disclaimer is within reason, but Mr. Dorhauer seems a bit arrogant. According to the advocate article: "'I own the name,' Dorhauer said. 'I can say what I want there.'"

            While I did say he's had six months to work this out, that doesn't mean I said he was going to succeed in arbitrating the situation and preventing the lawsuit. LSU needs to use their own law school if they think they're going to win.

            --sean
    • According to the cease and desist letter--yes--one was actually sent, the actual LSU law school "has already reported certain instances of confusion caused to students who did not realise that [the] LSULAW.com site was not an official or affiliated website of the LSU Law Center." A two-point disclaimer at the bottom is obviously not pointing out to some students that the site is unofficial.

      Moreover, the CAD letter indicates he has recently identified his website as "the official site of LSULAW.com." An "official" designation of his site seems to further misrepresent his site.

      Maybe if he changed his domain to lsulaw.org (which would still not satisfy LSU according to the CAD letter) ... if his site is truly non-commercial, he should use .org anyway.

      If you disagree, reply.

  • I think he should change his site. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by PD ( 9577 ) <slashdotlinux@pdrap.org> on Monday May 06, 2002 @08:33AM (#3468886) Homepage Journal
    The site doesn't pop right out as a criticism site. If he named the site lsulawsucks.com and put his criticisms on the front page, I'd say that LSU was being a bully. But, the front page of his site has all sorts of helpful links to admissions, grading scale conversions, etc. that one would EXPECT to find on an official university page. He doesn't even have a disclaimer on the front page. Based on that, I'd say that his site could definitely be confused with an official LSU site.

    He should change his site to make it completely obvious that it's not an LSU site. If it's a criticism site, then he should drop the helpful links to various university departments.
    • There is a small disclaimer at the bottom.

      I have no opinion on the legal issue, but from a curtesy point of view, I believe there should have been a large visible link to the official site near the top of the page. It really does look like an official site.
    • The disclaimer is on the bottom.

    • I agree with you - though he does have this at the bottom of the front page: "Not affiliated with the Paul M. Hebert School of Law" I don't think that's enough.

      The design of the site isn't amatuer at all (a hell of a lot better than some University sites I've seen) it doesn't have a tag line that would help a random reader understand at first glance. Something like, "An actual student's helpful guide to LSU Law" near the top or something like that would go a long way to avoiding confusion.

      Whether it's illegal or not, I don't know, but it doesn't seem like a horrible claim to me.

      -Russ

      • Re:I think he should change his site. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Saib0t ( 204692 ) <.gro.dum-airepseh. .ta. .tobias.> on Monday May 06, 2002 @09:27AM (#3469057)
        The design of the site isn't amatuer at all (a hell of a lot better than some University sites I've seen) it doesn't have a tag line that would help a random reader understand at first glance.

        So, by your standards, a person making a web site about his school or about any "official" organisation should make his website look crap for the viewers to easily make the difference?

        And about the tag line, there's a line on the bottom of the site [lsulaw.com] stating "Not affiliated with the Paul M. Hebert School of Law" just like the one present on the official site [lsu.edu] that states (on the bottom too) "Official website of Louisiana State University Paul M. Hebert Law Center." I think that's enough to make a difference. Why would a "non official" website need to make its "not being official" clearer than the official one?

        Why is there a need to say that you're not the official website anyway? Not to mislead people? AFAIK, that applies only if the website is (intentionaly?) misleading, which doesn't seem to be the case here...


        • ...should make his website look crap for the viewers to easily make the difference?

          Of course not... I'm saying that because his site is good looking, it doesn't give the reader immediate visual feedback that maybe this site isn't created by a professional organization like the school itself.

          ...only if the website is (intentionaly?) misleading, which doesn't seem to be the case here...

          I disagree. I think the guy intentially places the disclaimer so small at the bottom of the page to encourage confusion.

          -Russ

          • ...only if the website is (intentionaly?) misleading, which doesn't seem to be the case here...
            I disagree. I think the guy intentially places the disclaimer so small at the bottom of the page to encourage confusion.
            It's the same size as that on the official page...
            Professional looking website don't put disclaimers on top of their page in large fonts, they distract you from the real content...

            Of course, there's the exception of extremely important disclaimers and even then, look at the page you're currently looking, right at the bottom, in small prints, there goes the disclaimer: " All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2002 OSDN." and IMHO, that's a much more important one that stating whether you're an official website or not.


          • I disagree. I think the guy intentially places the disclaimer so small at the bottom of the page to encourage confusion


            Oh just like the stuff on just about ANY contract drawn up by a lawyer. I don't have much sympathy about this aspect of the site for a bunch of lawyers who do this kind of stuff on a regular basis. Small print was something invented for lawyers so companies could legally disclaim or put clauses into a contract that would be less than appealing to the consumer with the hopes that they wouldn't read it. Case of their own medicine I'd say.

          • This is a LAW school. If the students are subject to confusion as to whether or not this is the genuine school site, they should be booted out as unsuitable to become lawyers. Fine print and disclaimers are standard tools used by lawyers to protect them (or the company they are representing) from litigation. If the students aren't reading the disclaimer, that's their problem - they need are obviously in need of a lesson in disclaimers and fine print.

          • Official institutions put practically all of their disclaimers in small print at the bottom of the page. Why should private citizens be held to a higher standard?

    • The site doesn't pop right out as a criticism site.

      That's because it's not a `criticism site.' It's just this student's personal website about various lsu law-school related stuff, which happened to contain some criticism (and presumably a bit more now that they're suing him!).

      From the article, it sounds like he thought that the original `criticism' was not very major, and was surprised that they cared at all.

    • But, the front page of his site has all sorts of helpful links to admissions, grading scale conversions, etc. that one would EXPECT to find on an official university page.

      God Forbid! Someone helping LSU students without permission of the school! We certainly can't have that!

      • God Forbid! Someone helping LSU students without permission of the school! We certainly can't have that!

        You know as well as I that is not an issue. The issue is that the site looks very much like an official site, and the links add to that effect in the way they are used. So save your sarchasm.
    • The site looks like an official site ofthe law school to me. The "quick links" are entirely to specific areas in the law school web site. Even the banner, "LSULAW.com SUED" doesn't indicate it's not the LSU site, it just indicates that the site is being sued. I think LSU has a reasonable case. The webmaster could make it more clear that the site is an unnofficial portal for LSU students and other stakeholders. Instead it acts like the official site.
  • This is a chance for LSU to craft legal definitions for what is and what is not allowed in regards to doamin names. As it stands now, the only clear rules are for domain names that are trademarked or the official name of a company. Everything else is based on how much money you have.

  • School values First amendment - laughable??? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mcwop ( 31034 ) on Monday May 06, 2002 @08:33AM (#3468888) Homepage
    The article states: "Mr. Costonis did say that Mr. Dorhauer remained a student in good standing. "We are a law school, for goodness' sake, and understand and teach the values of the First Amendment," he said."

    They value the first amendment so long as what you say does not confuse anybody. Lawyers and lawyers to be are easily confused.

    • Re:School values First amendment - laughable??? (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I always wondered what end-year projects were at law schools. In engineering schools, it is something like 'write a filesystem', or 'implement a scheme interpreter'.

      In law school it is 'sue your co-worker' and 'defend agains frivolous lawsuit'.

      Make sense. The guy will have a top resume if he succeed.
    • While you might have inferred that the LSU lawsuit is aimed at quieting Mr. Dorhauer, you would not necessarily be correct. The lawsuit merely claims that by using a domain name that is "misleadingly" similar to the law school's, Mr. Dorhauer's site is diluting/tarnishing their trademarks. I agree that the law school is at least trying to lower Mr. Dorhauer's profile (and yet, as usual, their efforts only serve to raise his profile), but nothing in this lawsuit suggests that they are going to stop him from publishing his views in another forum that is less "confusingly similar" to the LSU marks.

  • NYT registration (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    As always, use this handy page to view the NYT article without registering (yourself) :

    NYT random login generator [majcher.com]

    • Maybe it's because I'm using Netscape, but the NYT random login generator doesn't work for me. Takes me to a blank NYT registration page, with none of the fields filled in.

      Or is it because I've disabled cookies?

  • this is what working in "acedemia"... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by globaljustin ( 574257 ) on Monday May 06, 2002 @08:36AM (#3468898) Journal
    does to good people.

    The school does not have a case using copyright infringement for commercial gain. As someone who has studied copyright law and the internet, I can say that they have no case. They are trying to contend that his site was confusing partially b/c it used school colors...ridiculous. Most judges would throw this out.

    The professors at the school are taking themselves and their "academic reputation" way to seriously. The only thing this lawsuit will do is get alot of good press for the student.

    Anyone (myself included) who has been blackballed by faculty in a University setting knows that some professors really do buy into the "Ivory Tower" idea. It's sad but true.

    [off topic...the nytimes article mentions a suit against pensacolachristianschool.com. You should check it out if you want to know more about schools suing regarding web content.]
    • "The professors at the school are taking themselves and their "academic reputation" way to seriously. The only thing this lawsuit will do is get alot of good press for the student."

      I'd bet that the professors probably do not care or are supportive in general. I suspect it is the administrative folks and the various deans who have the bug up their collective butt. The deans are almost always more sensitive to criticism of the school in general.

      Guac-foo.

    • The school does not have a case using copyright infringement for commercial gain.

      Then it's a good thing for them that they're not suing based on copyright infringement.

      As someone who has studied copyright law and the internet

      I find that very hard to believe. Any who has studied copyright law for more than half an hour should have picked up the difference between copyright and trademark, something you apparently have failed to understand.

  • Other students should sue..... The school! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Papa Legba ( 192550 ) on Monday May 06, 2002 @08:36AM (#3468899)

    Claiming that they are not getting the same value for their tuition dollars.

    This guy , due only to the fact that he has put up a website, is getting a free crash course in internet domain disputes and copywrite law. If the opinions in the article are correct, then he is also getting an easy one tossed across the plate so that he can win. The school is basically handing him free on hands training in how a real case works coupled with a high profile case he can win before he graduates. This means he is getting more value from his time at LSU. If I was a student at LSU I would be demanding that the school sue me also!

    • I'm not sure it's gonna be free for him- he had to hire a lawyer, which costs $$, and courts do not always award legal costs. I would certainly hope they would, but dunno if they will.

      If anything, he aught to use it as a thesis: "I've already beaten the school's best, doesn't that entitle me to something indicating a high level of success?" :)

      .
    • When he wins this case, especially with the publicity, its gonna do a hell of a lot more for his career than his degree will.

  • Large institutions need someone to critize, cajoule and annoy them... here's hoping he wins...

    If all you can see is a pretty picture painted by their public relations department... what does that tell you? Nothing... they should be thanking him!

    Or maybe it's a cunning ploy on the school's part to generate publicity...

  • Saves me time and application fees (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 06, 2002 @08:36AM (#3468901)
    I'm actually planning on going to law school next year, and this was one of the places that my radar picked up. I'm really glad they did this now, so I, and everyone else who ever thought of applying here, won't have to waste time, money, and energy figuring out that this is not the kind of legal education I want.

    I wish more institutes of higher learning would identify themselves as being on the "never go here under any circumstances ever" list by attacking their own students like this.

  • Lawyers are the biggest abusers... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Futurepower(R) ( 558542 ) on Monday May 06, 2002 @08:38AM (#3468904) Homepage

    Lawyers are the biggest abusers of the law, I've noticed.

  • And when he wins.... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by trifster ( 307673 )
    They will probably offer him a position to teach constitutional law since its clear the current professors do not know it.
  • If your site is *totally* non-commercial, almost none of the trademark laws in the US apply to you. The major exception is "tarnishment," which these days means associating the mark with kiddie pr0n or the like. With that exception, trademark laws protect marks from **COMMERCIAL** confusion, not from criticism or parody.

    The NYT article is in error, I believe, when it quotes a lawyer as saying the use of the school's colors is relevant to the outcome of this case. It is not. What is relevant is whether the use is commercial or non-commercial. The test for "commercial" is perhaps more hair-trigger than it ought to be: some cases have found asking for donations, selling a t-shirt, or running banner ads to be 'commercial' although it's unlikely we'd treat at least the donations as 'commercial' activity in any other context.

    • You have it backward. Trademark infringement focuses on likelihood of confusion, and has nothing to do with whether or not the infringement is commercial. It does exempt certain non-commercial fair use situations, but that's merely a single factor.

      Trademark dilution law on the other hand is much nastier, because it does not require likelihood of confusion, but it does specifically exempt fair use, noncommercial use, and all forms of news reporting and news commentary. Trademark dilution is the law which covers "blurring" and "tarnishment". It requires the mark to be "famous".

      Good ol' Douglass is being sued for violating both.

      • Amazing analysis. Have you looked at the trademark infringement statute? No? I didn't think so. Here's a link [cornell.edu] for you. Note, in the definition of infringement (not just dilution), the commercial activities requirement in section (1)(a):
        Any person who shall, without the consent of the registrant -
        (a) use
        in commerce any reproduction, counterfeit, copy, or colorable imitation of a registered mark in connection with the sale, offering for sale, distribution, or advertising of any goods or services on or in connection with which such use is likely to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive; or
        (b) reproduce, counterfeit, copy, or colorably imitate a registered mark and apply such reproduction, counterfeit, copy, or colorable imitation to labels, signs, prints, packages, wrappers, receptacles or advertisements intended to be used in commerce upon or in connection with the sale, offering for sale, distribution, or advertising of goods or services on or in connection with which such use is likely to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive,
        shall be liable in a civil action by the registrant for the remedies hereinafter provided.

        For extra credit, explain how Congress could have passed the rule you allege it passed without running into serious First Amendment problems (TM law, after all, comes from the Commerce Clause, and not from the Copyright clause).

        • "Used in commerce" hardly means the same thing as "commercial".

          For extra credit, explain why Californians can't have non-profit medical marijuana cooperatives.

          • It's true that "Used in commerce" may not mean the same as "commercial". Here, however, you need to read all the way to the end of the sentence. On your way there, you will find phrases like "in connection with the sale, offering for sale, distribution, or advertising of any goods or services" which surely do mean "commercial" in the context of prohibited uses. Not to mention the pile of case law reading it that way.

            None of this has anything else to do with other statutes, or the relationship between federal and state drug laws ... or anything else you may be smoking, drinking, or ingesting while posting.

            P.S. I teach this stuff. But you can have the last word - I'm done with this thread.

            --Michael Froomkin
            Professor of Law
            University of Miami School of Law

  • Hmmm (Score:5, Funny)

    by NiftyNews ( 537829 ) on Monday May 06, 2002 @08:45AM (#3468926) Homepage
    When lawyers sue lawyers, no one wins.

    No, wait. That makes them too busy to sue any of us. So I guess all of us win!
  • If he is hosting the site on the school's computer network, well he's probably breaking some of the rules the school puts down for using their computer systems. If he isn't then free speech. I mean it's a LAW school, they should know better than to file stupid lawsuits. I mean it's what they do for a living.

    I mean we at RIT used to have ritsucks.com. RIT didn't try to sue the student running it, because he didn't host it on grace.rit.edu (digital unix cluster all students have access to and can host pages on). The only reason it's not there anymore is because he forgot to re-register the domain.

    I generally tend to believe that if you attack your critics with lawsuits or threats of some sort then 1 of two things is most definitely true.

    1) All the bad things the critics are saying are very true and you don't have confidence that your organization will continue to profit if people find out.
    2) All the bad things th critics are saying are horrible horrible lies, but not beyond belief to the point of parody. And you think that people are going to believe them and ruin your organization.

  • Oh No! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Monday May 06, 2002 @08:48AM (#3468933) Homepage Journal
    He hurt our feelings! Hit a little too close to the truth these days and people get all bent out of shape. Apparently these folks have yet to realize that the negative publicity generated by taking action against their guy gives them 10 times more of a black eye than if they'd just ignored him. Most of the people considering the school would never have heard of this guy's site, but now the whole thing's been plastered all over the New York Times. And who wouldn't look at that and think twice, really?
  • he'll probably get some extra credits for defending himself.
  • While the law school should have at least tried to reach a solution outside of court, like they said they would in their C&D letters, looking at the site in question, it looks like a university website.

    Ugly colors, the pretty stand university links (what U doesn't use administration,admissions,academics, career, alumni or something close to it?). He even has a big link to their U's email system (PAWS). Yes, he has a disclaimer, but it's small, secondary, and it's conveniently just off the screen for those browsing at 1152x864 of less.

    Quite honestly, a lot of people could be confused by, and I don't see why the student wants his site to be confusely similiar.

  • I wonder why LSU did not use a dispute resolution provider instead of a district court. Would have been the right thing to do in the academic world.

    Anyway, I wish Mr. Dorhauer the best for his exam.

  • 50/50 chance (Score:2, Insightful)

    by RoC MasterMind ( 576689 )
    I'd say this site didn't make itself obviously clear that it was a student site, and not the official site. There is the link at the bottom, however it could be more obvious.

    It isn't a commerical site, so he's probably safe from the claims depending on that, however if the school invokes the DMCA, then he's dead in the water I suppose?

    Kill that stupid law!
    • Please tell me how the Digital Millineum Copyright Act is going to cause him problems when all he is doing is (questionably) vioalting their trademark. There are absolutely no copyright violations on his site that I could see. I think it just denegrates your own position to complain about the DMCA when it was never claimed to apply, and it obviously doesn't apply. Go whine somewhere else.
      • There are absolutely no copyright violations on his site that I could see.

        But then, there's no trademark violations either so who's to know what they'll throw at him next. Facts and applicability have no bearing on this.

        TWW

    • He's got at least two disclaimers now (since he was sued, the "news" page has basically become a disclaimer too.) What more do you need? A big, 800x600 GIF splash page that says "HEY, LOOK, DUMBASS, WE HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH LSU!"? It's fairly easy for even a poorly-trained monkey to figure out it's not an affiliated site, so it shouldn't be much harder for the faculty.

      I still have to wonder, however, about that one dumb girl who, according to the NYT article, thought it was a school site. She fancies herself a lawyer? Good God.

      - A.P.

  • They're not bullies (Score:3, Funny)

    by teslatug ( 543527 ) on Monday May 06, 2002 @09:06AM (#3468982)
    It's part of their educational programs

  • Outrage! (Score:4, Funny)

    by johnos ( 109351 ) on Monday May 06, 2002 @09:06AM (#3468984)
    This is an outrage!
    You have posted a link to a NYT article without saying (free registration blah, blah, blah). This is near criminal negligence. How many will suffer this morning, hungering for their daily dose of corporate/institutional war on our rights, when they click on the link innocently, thinking they will soon be in righteous indignation heaven, only to be confronted by, by, by...... a LOGIN?
    Oh the humanity! For shame.

  • Before it gets slashdotted.. what it's about... (Score:5, Informative)

    by linuxrunner ( 225041 ) on Monday May 06, 2002 @09:36AM (#3469111)
    Copy and Pasted from the "Their Sueing Me" Page:

    ----------

    They Did It.
    The Law School filed its lawsuit against me, their student, conveniently making sure I received notice thereof less than 48 hours before exams started. I barely had time to scan in the lawsuit and post it, but I did, and you can find a link to it below.

    Many thanks to my wife, Jennifer, for putting up with me. Also, thanks to all my friends and acquaintances at the Law Center who have offered their support to me in this battle. Thanks also to all hundreds of visitors to this site who have written me in the last few weeks. It's great to have so many people--including many former LSU Law School grads--offer their assistance to me in this battle.

    Now it's official: Louisiana State University HAS sued me....

    My name is Douglas Dorhauer, and I am a student at the LSU Law Center. This site is my personal creation, built by me for my own use. In the event you find its contents of use, then consider it my gift to you.

    Because of the similarity between this site's name and that of a local law school (of which I am a student), this site has recently been under attack. Specifically, in a letter dated November 30, 2001, Marc S. Whitfield of Taylor, Porter, Brooks & Phillips, L.L.P., legal counsel to Louisiana State University asked me to give up the domain name "lsulaw.com."

    After researching the points in Mr. Whitfield's letter, I responded with a point-by-point rebuttal of each issue he raised. That response went unacknowledged for nearly two months before I requested Mr. Whitfield update me on his client's position concerning this matter.

    Immediately, Mr. Whitfield responded with a threat of a lawsuit. I replied with a request to attempt an amicable resolution.

    Mr. Whitfield's response to my request to amicably resolve the matter came in the form of a lawsuit naming me as defendant. Currently, I have just finished final exams. After regaining consciousness early next week, I will respond to the lawsuit, file cross-claims, etc. As always, I will post all correspondence here.

    The premise of my argument is simple: all the laws Mr. Whitfield cites in his initial letter require a showing of "commerciality." I earnestly contend that this site is emphatically noncommercial, and, therefore, not susceptible of the trademark violations alleged by Mr. Whitfield.

  • ... where the students already know more than the faculty? I mean, really, if the school loses this suit, what does it really say about the quality of the instructors at the school? Time to shop elsewhere, I guess.
  • He's a law student, in the middle of exams-- surely LSU have just set him a practical? :-)
  • They are suing over the use of TradeMark. In the lawsuit it references 'LSU' as the trademark. I find this interesting because using 'lsu' in a url could stand for anything. The combination of LSU and Law ('LSU Law') in and of itself does not appear to be a trademarked name.
  • His assertion that his site is "emphatically noncommercial" would resonate better with me if he used an address that didn't end in .com... a .org or .info address would better express the site's nature.

  • Dilbert joke: (-1 Troll) (Score:3, Funny)

    by An Onerous Coward ( 222037 ) on Monday May 06, 2002 @10:55AM (#3469597) Homepage
    Dilbert: Why does your simulation only count law students as half a person?

    Dogbert: They don't drop to zero until they pass the bar.

    Sorry, couldn't pass this one up.

  • Quote from the LSU Law School's own site - funny! (Score:3, Funny)

    by mcwop ( 31034 ) on Monday May 06, 2002 @11:20AM (#3469772) Homepage
    Quote:

    "...a law school is not an island unto itself but the hub of a network of relationships with an array of audiences beyond its walls."

    Just don't deep link deep link to their hub of a network.

  • It may be legal (Score:2, Insightful)

    by lymond01 ( 314120 )
    ...but it doesn't mean it's not obnoxious. If you have something to say about someone else, you have every right to do so, I feel, as long as what you say isn't stated as fact, but merely opinion.

    But he took the school colors, made a site with a name that could be confused with the school's main site, and even put links to the main site for further confusion (deliberate or not).

    People forget that, while you might have something to say, whether you think it's "helpful" to get the word out about this terrible school (which is utter B.S. - but that's my opinion), it doesn't mean you can be an ass about it...that doesn't help anyone. Look beyond the first amendment to something more basic - like fairness, honesty, compassion. If you've got something to say, say it, don't confuse people. Of course, he IS a law student...
  • I go to LSU as an undergrad csc major. LSU Law is always bitchslapping people around here. Even had an annoying little brother, met one, or been one. Remember how they always are pissed off and want to be heard... They're like that. SHort guy complex or something...

    Here's a funny url though http://www.lsulaw.com/lsu_law_school_is_suing_me/ [lsulaw.com]
  • IS.. if he will receive extra credit if he wins the law suit?
    Does he get OJT (on the job training) credit for this?
    Or will the verdict count towards his final exam?

    If he loses, will the school use him as an example in lessons they teach?

    Well?
  • Look, I'm as much for free speech and stuff as the next guy, but this is a pretty clear case of trademark infringement, and the disclaimer at the top is tiny.

    Simply calling people who actually get confused 'stupid' is not a very good reason for keeping the domain.

    Getting a site like "aboutlsulaw.com" or something, with a bigger disclaimer would be better.

    Hopping on this dude's side just because his site more compatible (but less attractive IMO) is not really that legitimate.

    I realize that copyright, patent, and trademark law are taken to far a lot, but this is a perfectly legitimate use, IMO.

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