It seems that Carreon is now on a campaign to unmask the person who created a fake twitter account using his name. See Ars Technica. The person set up a twitter account with the handle “@Charles_Carreon” and then began tweeting “abrasively.” Now it seems that he is on a campaign to unmask that person, and presumably add them in to his lawsuit.
The lawsuit itself is still rotten to the core. His theory that the person was “incited by Inman” is absurd. But, if you’re going to satirize someone, you don’t have the right to do it while impersonating them or infringing on their trademark. Carreon’s name functions as a trademark, and he even has it registered. It isn’t trademark infringement to mention his name in a satirical post, nor is it trademark infringement to use his name to make fun of him. But, it seems like infringement to me if you register a twitter account in his name.
UPDATE: Similarly, one of Carreon’s critics has registered http://charles-carreon.com/. Not cool and not too smart. I think that is a violation of 15 U.S.C. 1125(d) and gives Chas a reasonable claim. If you integrate the entirety of someone’s trademark into a domain name, even for criticism or commentary, I think that just might (no cases resolve this issue yet in the USA) create some liability.
So it seems like some Carreon haters are being as dumb as Carreon.
Oh goody, a battle royale of dipshits throwing handfuls of feces at each other in a fucktard arena.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Humble pie, nom nom nom…. At least two commenters, so far, pointed out a flaw in my analysis — where I completely skipped over the “intent to profit” requirement in 15 USC 1125(d).
I still think it is wrong to use Chas’ name without modifiers in the domain name, and I think it was wrong to use his name without modifiers in the twitter account. But, the scales seem to tip against liability for that, absent additional factors.
