Loren Feldman is at it again.  He recently got involved in a dispute with a guy named Noah David Simon and has now registered noahdavidsimon.com to use as a parody site.  Mr Simon, like Shel Israel before him, began making legal threats and (unlike Shel Israel) claims his Dad knows a high priced intellectual property lawyer that will take the case pro-bono. 

And hilarity has ensued. 

I know a lot of you don't "get" Loren Feldman but I encourage you to watch a little of this.  It's fascinating...

and the followup...

and the Finale...

http://puppetdebaser.blogspot.com/http://puppetdebaser.blogspot.com/

Let me explain why I think this is so interesting.

When you look at Reality TV you realize very quickly that it's all fake.  Producers have decided what "character" each person is playing and they are behind the camera editing the footage to make that person into the stereotype they need.

It is, in just about every way, as scripted as regular TV (up to and including producers going to cast members and asking them to stage events to propel the story)

But the beauty of what's being done in these Seesmic clips is that IT IS real life.  No TV producer would dream of creating a 33 year old character who records late night videos taunting "I might sue you but I have to wait until my Dad wakes up to see what he wants to do."  It seems too unrealistic to be true.

But there he is.  In real life he actually exists.

For the record I do feel a little bad for Mr. Simon.  He doesn't seem like a bad guy.  But in saying that I realize he's making himself part of the drama.  If he'd sent a private e-mail saying "Loren, I don't really want to get into a public thing with you, could I please have my name" I'm almost sure this would have been over.  But his pride made him take it to the public forum and that's exactly why the whole thing is so fascinating. 

In the end it's half character study, half train wreck and you just can't look away.

P.S. On the Legal Issue...

You don't, by default, own the trademark to anything.  Certainly not your name (which is shared by thousands of other people who also have the same name).  Mr. Simon claims to know a lot about this because he tried to take the domain of his former employer who in turn sued and won.  What Mr. Simon misses is that his former employer, which was a magazine, had a trademark for their name where as he doesn't.

As far as cybersquatting (the law under which Mr. Simon plans to claim the domain) there are laws protecting parody.  How do I know this?  Because I did a Google search for "Anticybersquatting Act Parody" and clicked on the very first link that came up.  Beyond that Mr. Simon tries to make the argument that the parody exception only applies to parody on someone's own site.  The problem with that logic is, if it were true, it wouldn't be an exception to the cybersquatting law (since doing things on your own site couldn't be considered cybersquatting). 

Bottom line: Mr. Simon has no legal recourse and had he spent...a second or so thinking this through he'd know that.