From brian@ristuccia.com Wed Feb 7 09:53:26 2007 Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2007 09:53:26 -0500 From: Brian Ristuccia To: lisau@trademarkmanagement.com Subject: dare.com defacement mirror / trademark demand letter Message-ID: <20070207145326.GW31638@osiris.978.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.28i Status: RO Content-Length: 1741 Lines: 32 Lisa, I must respectfully decline to meet the demands in your letter dated January 26, 2007. I have posted your demand letter, this reply, and other information related to the 1999 dare.com web site defacement on my site at http://osiris.978.org/~brianr/mirrors/dare-defacement-info/ Your demand letter accuses me of using the D.A.R.E. mark for promotional purposes. If you take a moment to review my site, you'll see that the D.A.R.E. mark appears only in a snapshot of the dare.com site taken when the site was defaced in November of 1999. This snapshot is my news report of the defacement event and represents my small contribution to the public's collective record of events leading to the arrest and imprisonment of Dennis Moran. Use of marks for this purpose does not require permission from the mark holder. Despite the organization's many shortcomings, including the D.A.R.E. program's poor efficacy, D.A.R.E. America is a recognized non-profit organization and their stated goal of helping kids avoid drug abuse, gangs, and violence is a noble one. Like any reasonable person, I would hate to see an organization with such a goal suffer unnecessary legal costs or endure an expensive legal confrontation. I'm sure you're a reasonable person too, so I hope you'll advise the folks at D.A.R.E. America to conclude this matter amicably. To do so, D.A.R.E. America must retract the demands made in your January 26, 2007 letter, issue an apology, and promise to refrain from any further action against me or my site related to this matter. If you are not currently donating your services to D.A.R.E. America, I hope you will also be kind enough to waive any charges related to this incident. -- Brian Ristuccia brian@ristuccia.com