'Cyber squitter' appeals against Falwell

The site, www.fallwell.com, is owned by Christopher Lamparello of New York City, who took his case to the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals after a federal judge backed the preacher's claim he violated federal trademark law.

However, Falwell's brief told the appeals court that the site only existed because it is a common misspelling for the conservative evangelist and was designed to cash in on his good name.

According to Associated Press, Falwell's brief, John Midlen, said that Lamparello's use of a variation of the preacher's name bordered on theft and "it's been wrong to steal since Moses came down from the mountain”.

Actually it has been wrong for a lot longer than that, thou shalt not steal was written into the Babylonian laws of Hammurabi see here, but we assume it was out of copyright by the time Moses rewrote it.

The Babylonians had a really really good idea that if a house fell down and killed any of its occupants, the architect should get it in the neck as well. They also made use of base 60 and computed the path of the moon and the planets to a degree not attained until the late 19th century. Not that they were paragons of virtue. But I do digress.

Falwell has had a good time of hitting cyber-squitters who attack his views. In 2003, Gary Cohn was forced to surrender the domain names jerryfalwell.com and jerryfallwell.com after Falwell threatened to sue him over trademark infringement. Falwell is famous for claiming feminists, homosexuals, wiccans and abortion rights advocates provoked God to "lift the curtain" of divine protection on America and caused the September 11. Later he said sorry.

More here. µ