Saturday, August 19, 2006

Playboy, call your lawyers

This NYT story by Kurt Eichenwald is as disturbing as his first piece on child exploitation online. What struck the IP lawyer in me was the name and logo for one site he discussed, Playtoy Entertainment. With a one-letter difference in name and a disgusting business model, Playtoy has got to be a good candidate for at least a tarnishment claim. Perhaps the appalling nature of the services -- sexualized photos of very young, clothed children -- makes confusion unlikely, but I imagine there are a lot of judges out there who'd happily buy tarnishment. (I did not visit the Playtoy website because, frankly, I'm a little worried about the legal consequences of doing so. I don't know if there are disclaimers of affiliation with Playboy, or if the site's existed openly long enough to provide an equitable defense.)

As for the main topic of the article, Amy Adler has done very interesting work on the problem of child pornography law and the evasions it invites.

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