by Sean McManus
Staff Writer
The way Brian Wick sees it, there’s little difference between the physical world and the virtual world that millions of people visit every day on the Internet.
In the real world, there are addresses that designate people’s homes. And in the online world, there are addresses that designate people’s home pages. Either way, according to Wick, the same rules of free speech and general troublemaking apply.
That’s why when the Jacksonville office of the nationwide law firm Foley & Lardner filed a complaint with the National Arbitration Board last week to get its virtual address, www.foleyandlardner.com, back from Wick, he shrugged it off. Although he’s used to losing these kinds of arbitration battles because of the fact that “lawyers whose names I own are doing the arbitrating,” he has bigger goals. Wick owns over 6,000 Internet addresses ranging from generalmill.com to winndixiestores.com, countless law firms and one that could signal the demise of Wick, one of America’s most prolific cyber-squatters, pinehurstresorts.com.
“Say you want to walk down to — name a hotel — OK, the Adam’s Mark. Say you want to walk down to the Adam’s Mark and I’m standing out in the middle of the street protesting. Sure, it makes it hard for you to exercise your constitutional right to walk down the street. But what’s more important, my right to protest or a little extra trouble on your part to get where you’re going?”
That’s how Wick views his behavior on the websites in question. He considers it peaceful protest in front of someone’s address.
If you go to foleyandlardner.com, you find some rather muddled prose about the First Amendment and two cartoon figures in diving gear who appear to be saying, “Every swimming pool is the same. . . come have a swim.” Foley & Lardner currently uses the site foleylardner.com.
“The way the policy is written you can’t take other people’s websites in bad faith,” said Chanley Howell, a technology and intellectual property lawyer at Foley & Lardner who is the lead attorney on the case. “In addition, you get into some tricky arguments with regard to trademark law.”
Howell, referring to the policies outlined by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, (ICANN), where Wick registered the site, cited situations where disgruntled employees have purchased websites like www.ibmsucks.com, to voice anger at management or company policy.
And while Howell said he’s not completely convinced that those sites should always be allowed to exist, they have been upheld in the courts — so far.
“But this guy has no legitimate beef with Foley & Lardner,” said Howell. “He’s just confusing people for no good reason.”
But Wick sees upholding the First Amendment — virtually — as a very good reason.
A computer programmer who operates his cyber-squatting empire out of Denver, the 43-year-old Wick made some money by selling domain names of Fortune 500 companies and other, more fun sites, before the courts began to rule in favor of businesses.
And his “sport” isn’t cheap. Wick spent about $30,000 going head-to-head with the California-based law firm Morrison & Foerster and new calls from places such as Foley & Lardner come in every day. And that doesn’t even mention the thousands of dollars in fees Wick spends annually to renew his addresses.
Most of these cyber-squatting cases are resolved through arbitration. It’s a platform that suits the firms and ICANN because usually no one is seeking damages, they just want to transfer ownership of the website.
But that is not the case with Pinehurst Resorts, which sued Wick last year. According to Wick, this will be the first case of its kind to go before a jury.
“This is a civil case where they are alleging libel,” said Wick. “If they win, I’m buried. But I believe in the Constitution.”
Howell said free speech also can be limited by language that is fictitious, slanderous, defamatory or untrue. In the situation with the upscale golf resort, there are pictures of a fake putting green, a mobile home and a pond with Wick’s ubiquitous suggestion to “take a swim.”
But in Wick’s world, big business with the willing help of their accomplices in the legal community, are “taking over the Internet.” Whereas its original intent was for the free-flow of ideas, it has become a hyper-regulated tool of business.
“These guys don’t even want these sites, they just don’t want anybody else to have them,” said Wick. “Firms will get their addresses and two months later I’ll check — and nothing.”
Howell said he is confident that when they gain control of foleyandlardner.com, that visitors will be routed there.
And according to Howell, trademark law states that individuals can’t deliberately cause confusion that may lead to a loss of the company’s business.
“What if I put a sign on the road that said Chanley’s Holiday Inn in front of a Holiday Inn sign and everybody pulled off the road and checked in. That would confuse people and hurt Holiday Inn’s business. That’s illegal,” said Howell.
Steve Greenberg, who works in the intellectual property group at Akerman Senterfitt, another firm that filed a complaint against Wick last week, said that the biggest problem he has with the situation is that it isn’t rational.
“For someone to spend his own money just to fight with law firms is pretty strange,” said Greenberg from Akerman’s West Palm Beach office. “I believe in the First Amendment, too, but there are other, better ways to approach this.”
Greenberg also drew real world analogies to make his argument.
“The burden lies on people who protest to get people to hear their side in an objective way,” he said. “If you have a message then purchase your own site and try to get people to read your content.”
Greenberg referred to countless websites which do just that — provide a place for people to rant about free speech abuses — or really anything they want.
“You can’t take someone else’s name for this platform, there are plenty of other places to go,” said Greenberg.
Wick, of course, owns brainwick.com as well as hobbits.com, where he makes fun of a Coors beer executive, and countless other random names.
According to Howell and Greenberg, these matters usually take about 50 days from the date of issue to be resolved by arbitration Both attorneys are confident that their firms will win.
And Wick is confident they will win, too. He always loses in arbitration. That’s why he wants to take the Pinehurst case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“Of course I own supremecourtjudges.com,” said Wick. “So you never know.”