Randazza, establishing his "Glosta cred" by standing in front of the Gloucester Fisherman's Memorial.
We've been following Randazza's defense of Florida resident Isaac Eiland-Hall against claims filed by the conservative crackpot in World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) arbitration court. Eiland-Hall runs the parodical website glennbeckrapedandmurderedayounggirlin1990.com, and Beck has argued that the domain name violates international rules, if not the First Amendment. We're always glad to get a hold of new pleadings in this case because they are hilarious. Today's filing, a surreply from Randazza, does not disappoint.
Beck's lawyers argued in a supplementary filing that because the joke behind Eiland-Hall's website is so complex as to require an explanation, that the domain name is particularly misleading. Randazza's response:
Whoooosh!That is the sound of the point sailing over the Complainant’s head. An average Internet user might not “get the joke.” In fact, the average Internet user does not understand any internet memes. That’s the fun of a meme - it is an esoteric inside joke that will leave most people scratching their heads. To this day, nobody understands “Mr. Spock ate my balls,” but nobody thinks that a single
statement in that sentence is true, and even if they did, nobody would think that it was an infringement upon Gene Roddenberry’s intellectual property rights.
Later in the pleading, Randazza defends a disclaimer that Eiland Hall has added to his website that reads, in part, "anyone who believes that we're trying to actually get people to believe Glenn Beck raped and/or murdered is *whoosh* missing the entire point." (There's a lot of whooshing going on in this case.) Beck's attorneys had argued that the disclaimer itself was evidence of Eiland-Hall's liability in the case. Randazza responds:
In any event, the disclaimer does not indicate that the domain name and alleged mark are “confusingly similar” - just that the humor embodied in the parody may be too sophisticated for some readers - mostly the kind of readers who frequent the Free Republic. The disclaimer accordingly explains the thrust of the website’s joke in terms that should be understandable, even by morons in a hurry.
But Randazza delivers the coup de grâce with his closing paragraph, which we will reproduce here in its entirety:
Glenn Beck is the butt of a viral joke. He may not get the joke, but this does not make the joke likely to confuse or subject the domain name to transfer under the UDRP. Glenn Beck’s failure to understand these basic principles of law does not make the joke any less humorous, and does not make him any less of the butt. The First Amendment protects Respondent’s right to make Glenn Beck the butt, and his hypocritical attempts to squelch legitimate free speech criticism do nothing to portray himself in a more flattering light. Because his arguments do not satisfy Section 4(a) of the Policy, his request should be denied. Because he has attempted to silence a critic by circumventing (and thereby devaluing) the First Amendment -- which he publically (and in this proceeding) claims to love -- he should be deeply ashamed.
Glenn Beck is, indeed, the butt. More filings can be found here. Randazza blogs at The Legal Satyricon.
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