<nettime> eToys vs. etoy: NO SHOWDOWN TODAY.

[blocked@etoy.com]

27.12.99 eToys vs. etoy: STATUS CONFERENCE IN LA
*************************************************

the legendary court battle over the aggressive 
takeover of the famous and multi awarded net art 
brand "www.etoy.com" (since 1995) by the american 
toy retailer eToys.com (since 1997) goes on.

no settlement could be reached till now. the 
harassment and abuse of the law was even pushed 
further as eToys forced Network Solutions (by fax) 
to set the entire etoy.com domain on hold. as all 
experts have to confirm this is not part of the 
court decision and therefore a massive violation of 
the rights of the art group etoy (we still have no 
detailed comment from NSI). this move tried to avoid 
further information of the international press which 
reacted with more than 90 articles and reports on 
this topic (to see what all the experts and neutral 
journalist around the globe think about the decision 
made by a state court judge on november 29 check out
the press information page):

http://dmoz.org/Society/Activism/Media_Activism/Culture_Jamming/etoy/Media_Coverage/

since the state court in L.A. signed the decision 
(which says that etoy is not allowed to operate its 
legendary web site under the name www.etoy.com  till 
the court decides on a final base) more than 200
resistance web sites and protest pages popped up around 
the globe. during the last three weeks this battle 
became one of the biggest movements for freedom of 
expression and equal rights for art and commerce on the 
internet. many celebrities from the art world, music 
scene, university professors, even movie stars and 
politicians prepare for a huge campaign against the 
abuse of the law in this and many other cases. the 
movement is based on about 4000 users and net activists 
and every day many hundred people line up behind etoy
for the right to decide if we sell the digital territory 
to a corporate giant or not and if so to what conditions.

as mentioned in the world press, television and radio all 
over europe and america both parties are "invited" on 
december 27, 99 to participate on a "status conference" 
held at the state court in california.

the etoy.ART-CORPORATION is ready to talk about 
solutions to stop this insane media war as soon as our 
illegally removed DNS entries are re installed and an 
apology is made. etoy is not able and willing to accept 
this rude way of doing international business, and does 
not talk to the other side as long as we don't see the 
will for fair and violence free negotiations. internet 
expert lawyers will represent etoy in los angeles on the 
27th of this month.

etoy is an association which successfully works in the 
field of experimental entertainment and art since 1994 
and has a highly developed culture of doing business on 
the internet. companies like sun microsystems, the biggest 
supermarket chain MIGROS in switzerland, the ISP EUNET/
QWEST, the fashion company Turek WOKSHOP AUSTRIA / TWA, 
POLOPLAST, SWATCH, the governments of austria and 
switzerland, institutions in hungary (C3), the usa and 
japan, many universities and highly respected research
institutions and even the  legendary pop band YELLO are 
official partners of the www.etoy.com web site since 1995.

it would be a slap in the face of every etoy.SHAREHOLDER 
and etoy.SUPPORTER if we would accept this uncontrolled 
and barbarian behavior. the internet is a great place to 
offer ideas, culture, lifestyle and (YES!) even toys to a 
huge audience and millions of customers but if corporations 
don't find ways to coordinate and organize neighborhood in 
a civilized way and in harmony with the people who are the
net, the world wide community has to stop them from 
bulldozing and destruction of property. etoy and its fans 
protests with all legal tools a small but smart and 
successful media art group can mobilize!

at this point we like to thank our advisory board, all the 
involved people and the organizers of the successful press 
conference at the museum of modern art in ny. we look 
forward to hear that our dns entries are reinstalled.

our attorneys suggest that no etoy.AGENT should enter the 
united states of america till we have evidence that our 
basic rights are respected.

don't forget that eToys lawyers also filed a complaint 
which accuses etoy members for security fraud (art product 
etoy.SHARE / part of many official art collections in the 
world...even the chancellor of austria is etoy.SHAREHOLDER). 
if eToys can find a judge and / or police officers who doesn`t 
care about the fact that none EVER purchased etoy.SHARES 
without knowing that this is an art product (and not a NASDAQ 
investment) this can lead to jailing of the etoy.AGENTS in 
the us.

in the mean time the etoy.CREW is very busy with customer 
service and several millennium showdown productions. we 
apologize to the etoy.FANS in the us and promise to retrieve 
the U.S. tour later next year when the eToys guys removed the 
virtual guns from our necks !

in the end - the user is the judge.

kindly
the etoy.BOARD


[our attorneys suggested a one week interview stop to let the 
other side feel that etoy is not interested in destroying their 
company if they start to respect our trademark rights... the 
beginning of a new century could be a good moment to think about 
business, responsibility and society on a larger scale. we urge 
the press to respect this. we wish eToys a happy new year and 
that their share value may recover a bit]
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even their home paper L.A. weekly reported on the 
parody at the court! does mr. shook read the news?
he should! 

quote: 

"Sounds like a basic case of domain-squatting, in which 
some skeevy outfit tries to skim off fat-fingered visitors 
who mistype their way into a similar-sounding site. Right? 
Wrong. Etoy (no s) is an award-winning international arts 
collective that registered its site in October 1995; eToys
(with s), which sells mass-market plastic crap to spoiled 
children, didn't come online till October 1997. On the face 
of it, no overlap, no copyright infringement, no harm, no foul.

Not according to Judge John P. Shook, who is clearly not a 
man accustomed to looking people in the face. After demanding 
that etoy fly in from Europe to present its case, Shook 
whipped out a pre-written injunction forcing the arts folks 
to pull down their site until after the all-important holiday 
shopping season.

Etoy is on the side of the angels, according to most legal 
observers. However, it's not the observers but the paid lawyers 
who make the difference in these matters. According to etoy 
spokespeople, eToys.com offered approximately $500,000 in cash 
and stock to get etoy to simply walk away from the domain. What 
multiple of that do you suppose they'll spend on legal beagles?"


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