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26 Dec, 14:06:49, Rippers 0
Seattle,Washington, United States
Perkins Coie, Llp (198.22.100.4)
Because my server only archives the last 500 page views and dumps anything older, I periodically review traffic to determine the origin of users. Well, imagine my surprise when Perkins Coie was found cruising the blog on Boxing Day. While the rest of us might be at home, recovering from the chaos of Christmas Day, fighting with relatives or playing with our new toys, this law firm spends their afternoon reading tidbits from a website with a rapidly-growing fan base.
Even more surprising is their use of Rippers 0. This could only mean one thing. They must be interested in copying the blog for some other purpose. Gee, what could it be? Could it be they are planning to publish the site in an alternate format? Maybe they plan to incorporate the blog into some training opportunities for other school districts. Perhaps they plan to have such a seminar outside, at Safeco Field, in bone-chilling weather. Send me an invitation and I would be happy to help with the presentation. Just let me know how many hats, jackets and scarves to pack.
I recall attending a few of those seminars and fighting the urge to fall asleep when their keynote speaker had me convinced I was developing a case of narcolepsy. Whenever a Perkins attorney opened their mouth, my eyelids would slam shut.
My records indicate they are most interested in the month of January 2008. Perhaps our readers would like to review the month and help the rest of us see what has them so captivated.
[Perkins Coie and Mark Zandberg discuss "cybersquatting" in PC-1, MZ-1, PC-2, MZ-2, PC-3.]
When is it OK to buy up an expired domain name?
By Christopher Beam
The George W. Bush Library Foundation has retrieved its domain name. A small Internet company had bought www.georgewbushlibrary.com for less than $10 after it expired and then sold it back it to the library for $35,000. Is that legal?
Probably not. Cybersquatting, the practice of buying up a domain in order to profit from a trademarked name, is prohibited under the 1999 Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act as well as a set of international guidelines called the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy. (Disputes are usually mediated by the National Arbitration Forum or the U.N.'s World Intellectual Property Organization.) Both systems were created to protect companies, celebrities, and even Joe Schmoes from having their names exploited online for commercial purposes. To sue someone for cybersquatting, you have to show that they acted in "bad faith," meaning they deliberately registered a certain domain in order to profit off your name. For example, if someone buys JenniferLopez.com and puts ads up to generate income from random visitors, that's considered bad faith. Same with trying to sell the site back to its rightful owner for a hefty profit, as in the case of the presidential library. (An example of "good faith," meanwhile, might be registering Georgewbushlibrary.com as a nonprofit repository for articles about the president.)
There may be added protection for domains that are named after celebrities. In most states, famous people have a right of publicity that prohibits anyone else from profiting off their names or personas. Celebrities can also argue that they have common law rights to the trademark of their own names. In 2000, Madonna won a lawsuit against a cybersquatter who had bought Madonna.com and set up a porn site. (The same guy registered, among other names, wallstreetjournal.com.) Likewise, Hillary Clinton won a case in 2005 against an Italian woman who had bought the domain name Hillaryclinton.com. (See a list of domain name disputes here.)
The First Amendment makes it legal to grab even a famous person's domain name in some situations: You might not get Hillaryclinton.com, but you could register Ilovehillaryclinton.com if you're planning to use it for nonprofit political speech. You may also be able to use an established name if you're setting up your own, unrelated company. If the domain name for Delta Airlines expired and you bought it up for your competing airline, that would be against the law. But if you were promoting a very different kind of company—Delta Plumbing, for example—then you'd be within your rights to use Delta.com. As long as you're not profiting off a person or company by misrepresenting them, you're probably OK.
Indeed, there's a whole industry of so-called domain "tasting," whereby companies buy up recently expired domain names, test their traffic ratings, and estimate their profitability. (Sites like SnapNames.com and Pool.com will tell you when certain domain names are about to expire.) If a site is deemed a moneymaker, the company will hold on to it. If it's not, the company will give it back within the five-day grace period. The practice is legally restricted to domain names that use words you can find in the dictionary. But some companies will buy up variations or misspellings of other well-known sites—like, say, Micorsoft.com. Those sites aren't legal, but they can still turn a profit before the trademarked party notices.
Got a question about today's news? Ask the Explainer.
Explainer thanks Enrico Schaefer of Traverse Legal and Hank Burgoyne of Kronenberger Burgoyne.
Christopher Beam is a Slate political reporter.
Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2206596/
On the 20th of November, at 8:21 AM, using Internet Explorer 7.0 and Windows 2003 with an unspecified monitor resolution and an IP address of 168.99.166.227, a user named Edmonds School District logged on to the blog.
Eight minutes and 30 seconds later, this user visited another page on the blog.
At 8:53 AM, using Internet Explorer 6.0 and Windows XP with a monitor resolution of 1024x768 and an IP address of 198.22.100.4, a user named Perkins Coie logged on to the blog. They visited the entry found by clicking here.
At 8:55 AM, this same user at Perkins Coie then visited another entry found by clicking here.The total time spent on the blog by Perkins Coie was less than two minutes and involved visits to no more than two entries. At a rate of $360 an hour, the bill for this legal review will be - if they bill by the minute - no less than $12.00. That is 17 frozen cheese sandwiches.
Points to review by legal:
"seems to expose a rather disturbing trend"
The author's impression or opinion.
"seem[s] that no one at the District is capable of seeing a legal argument"
The author's impression or opinion.
"no one on staff...apparently knows when a legal threshold has been crossed"
The author's impression or opinion.
"the habit of channeling business to friends"
Demonstrated fact of past conduct. [See: Piano Scam]
"What are the rest of us supposed to believe about the intelligence of district management?"
Asking a question. The answer could be rather flattering to district management.
"The District has developed an itchy trigger finger because they never paid for the gun or ammo and have no stake in the bloodshed the bullets may cause."
If this statement suggests a veiled threat of some kind, keep in mind that the District is the one depicted as holding a gun.
"The Board continues to deny the fact that Gary Noble is a squatter and needs to be ejected from his illegitimately acquired seat."
Statement of fact. [See: Gary Noble]
"The issue will no doubt end up in a court room and will result in one simple conclusion."
If this is interpreted as a threat of some kind, that cannot be helped. The public has the choice to file for corrective action and will likely do so. I have faith in my community.
"Are members of the public so simple that lawyers can easily convince them to focus on a single dot rather than a line or a pattern?"
This seems to be either a criticism of unknown members of the public or a compliment to the legal profession.
"The District will continue to bleed cash on lawyers when people that lack legal training or legal sense engage the services of lawyers to defend incredibly stupid choices."
I am not aware of any member of district staff having passed the Washington State Bar or management actually using the opinions of such district exceptions during the course of discussions regarding facilities or operations.
"The lawyers defending the District are reminiscent of the worst sort of defense attorneys - those doing whatever is necessary to get their client off, even if their client committed the crime."
A direct comparison between the District's lawyers and criminal defense attorneys working hard to serve their client. Again, a compliment to lawyers or perhaps a direct comparison with the fashion sense they may have in common.
Note to Legal: I normally work from 6:45 AM until 3:45 PM. Today would be a normal day.
There was a time, not long ago, when the moderator of this blog was the only one reading board policies. It was September 26, 2007 when we first drew attention to the fact that Board Policy 1260 posed a problem for Gary Noble. It was September 27, 2007 when we described just how much influence Kay Noble had on important decisions like building a new Lynnwood High School.
On October 4, 2007 the District's legal team drafted a rebuttal to the claims this blog was making. In fact, it was Duncan Fobes who specifically stated "the relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Noble falls squarely within an exception under Washington State law".
On October 7, 2007 the blog raised the question regarding Board Policy 6810 that states, "No person shall be employed by the district who is the spouse or dependent child of any member of the Board of Directors or of the superintendent."
On April 23, 2008 State Auditor completed their evaluation of the blog's assertions and agreed with our position, specifically recommending that "the most stringent policy be followed or policies be revised".
My question now is, if the District's legal team clearly demonstrated that the relationship between the Nobles fell "squarely within an exception under Washington State law", why would there be a need to revise board policies?
Blog: For themselves. By themselves.
For nearly a year, many of my faithful readers have emailed me directly, expressing a concern that the District will take every opportunity to find free-thinking employees accessing my blog site. While their concerns are real, the District's abilities are limited.
Someone has been feverishly searching for incriminating evidence against me. They routinely scour the portions of my server that allow public access. It isn't much, but it does offer a few meaningless pictures. The extent of their access is limited to sites like this and this. They cannot see much else, though they are trying.
Every day a script peruses my server looking for new and exciting images or websites that I might be developing. They also seem very interested in "keywordspy", thinking that it might lead to information they could use against me at some future date.
Oh well, it comes with the territory.
Our webmaster recently revealed that a new participant has joined our little community of readers. The law firm of Thompson and Delay appears to be looking for a case. Unfortunately, no one is drinking and driving here. We do have someone that occasionally drinks and blogs, but in this state, that is not yet illegal.
The entry of greatest interest appears to be this article and I can see why. While I don't know the author, I would imagine the connectivity they display has rattled a nerve or two. Perhaps someone feels threatened, endangered or defamed by the opinions expressed in the entry. Perhaps the statement that certain people have "no brains" has been taken literally, as if someone actually peered through an ear hole or two.
They also appear to be interested in district salaries. But then, who wouldn't be. With all of the cash being handed out to friends of management, it warrants an objective evaluation by a Seattle law firm.
Whatever the case, we welcome readers from all walks of life and warmly embrace the opportunity for a lively debate. After all, we are just trying to get to the bottom of these scandals and so far, we haven't hit bottom.
A journalism teacher fired for helping students publish an underground newspaper can return to the classroom under an agreement reached Friday with the Everett School District.
Kay Powers will receive full back pay for her time away and take an assignment at Henry M. Jackson High School later this month.
And the school district is no longer seeking to have her teaching credentials revoked.
"It should never have happened in the first place," said Kim Mead, president of the Everett Education Association. "I am overjoyed and thrilled that Kay is back where she should have been the whole time."
Under the deal, the 65-year-old Powers will resign effective Aug. 31, 2009, and will not teach journalism. She could not be reached for comment.
The district issued a one-sentence statement late Friday afternoon. It said: "The Everett School District and Kay Powers are pleased to announce that they have resolved their dispute to their mutual satisfaction."
The settlement will save money and staff time during what was expected to be a three-day hearing next week, said Valerie Hughes, an attorney representing the school district. The district was confident in the strength of its case against Powers, she said.
"It seemed like the prudent thing to do was to put the focus back on students and their academic achievement," Hughes said. "WASL week is next week and budget issues are always foremost in the minds of any school district."
Powers in June was placed on administrative leave from Cascade High School. The English and journalism teacher was accused of helping students produce an underground paper, The Free Stehekin, during school hours and on school computers despite being warned not to do so. She was fired in November.
In the firing letter, Superintendent Carol Whitehead outlined several reasons for Powers' dismissal, saying the teacher violated district policies and Whitehead's directives.
Powers has been teaching for 34 years, including 22 years in the Everett district. She appealed the firing and asked for an open hearing, which was scheduled to begin next Wednesday.
Her colleagues and former students said they said were glad to learn Powers will be returning to the classroom.
"I'm ecstatic," said Mike Therrill, a Cascade history teacher. "The students at Jackson have a real opportunity. I really do think (the district) thought she would blink and she didn't, but they did."
"I'm really happy that she will be teaching in the schools again," said Brynn Eden, a Cascade senior who worked with Powers as an editor of Tyro, a student-run literary magazine at Cascade.
"This is a complete victory and total vindication of Kay Powers," said Mike Wartelle, a teachers' union representative.
After firing Powers, the school district filed a report with the state's Office of Professional Practices, which could have led to the revocation of her teaching credentials. District officials said they were following legal requirements in filing the report.
As part of the deal reached Friday, the district agreed to notify the state agency that the matter has been resolved.
The problem at Cascade came at a time when the district was fighting for the administration's pre-publication review of student newspapers at its high schools.
The district earlier this year settled a lawsuit with two former Everett High School student editors, filed in 2005 after administrators demanded to review each issue of that school's student newspaper, The Kodak, before publication.
After that, students at Everett and Cascade high schools published newspapers off school grounds. Cascade High's student arts and literary magazine, Tyro, also went underground. Powers was adviser of the school-sanctioned Stehekin and Tyro before the lawsuit.
While still with the district, Powers last May filed a sworn statement in the federal court case supporting The Kodak students. Shortly afterward, the district met with an investigator on Powers' alleged misconduct, according to one of her attorneys, Mitch Cogdill.
Read the rest of the story by clicking here.
By Eric Stevick
Herald Writer
[Duncan]
On Wednesday, November 28, 2007, your client, Mark Zandberg, posted an entry on his blog entitled "Why miss your weekly dose of intelligent humor?" In that entry he inserts a copy of an e-mail sent to him and a man named "Steve" from Marla Miller, Assistant Superintendent at Edmonds School District, dated March 24, 2006.
All documents created by District employees and maintained on District computer servers, including e-mail communications, are property of the District. Accordingly, we are now requesting that any and all such electronic documents that were obtained by Mr. Zandberg while he was employed by the Edmonds School District, or any time thereafter, and now in his custody and control, be returned to the District, through us. In addition, please instruct him to retain any documents that remain in his custody and control until the issues related to his claim have been resolved.
We trust that you will advise Mr. Zandberg accordingly.
This is a blog-related issue, not a constructive termination issue. Therefore, contacting my legal counsel is contrary to my earlier request that all blog-related issues should be directed to me, personally. I retained the services of legal counsel for the sole purpose of resolving the manner in which I was constructively terminated.
You are directing me to return documents now in my possession, except the documents in my possession. I suppose I could return everything once my "claim" has been resolved. But what happens if I choose not to resolve any claim? Do I retain such documents forever?
Your request is not specific enough. In order to return documents, I will need to know exactly which documents are being requested. Also, I am not a public agency, so the fee will be $.15 a page. I do not have staff assigned to such a task, so the response may take more than 45 days.
It is clear that the District seeks to reclaim letters of praise and commendation. The letter included in the blog entry mentioned above, was retained for the purpose of demonstrating that I was once appreciated by my employer for the work that I performed every day - particularly the work that I was juggling for many months. Will the District be applying a uniform standard to all current and former employees? Will all letters of appreciation have to be returned? Will all thoughtfully written documents expressing appreciation have to be returned to the District?
The District has every e-mail message I ever sent from my District email account, as well as every message I ever received. Why not just have your hard drive dissecting contractors or the District's network administrator print out every e-mail that ever made contact with me?
Editorial: There are a great many companies in the world that offer free server space for the storing of e-mail and data. Imagine if everyone in the District were to automatically send every piece of email ever received or sent to a G-mail account through Google. It takes only a few minutes to set up a new rule in Outlook where this can happen without any on-going effort on the user's part. Then, if you are ever constructively terminated, you can just draw upon the wealth of information at your fingertips - and not in your home.
[Sarah Mack]
Dear Mr. Zandberg:
I've had the pleasure of reading your recent blog entries pertaining to the use of the Beverly Elementary School Parking lot for your "employer's" holiday party overflow parking. To avoid any confusion in the future, please direct any facility use requests you may have, for yourself or any of your employers, with the exception of [your primary public sector employer], through our office. We will be happy to then forward any such requests to the appropriate person at the School District.
[Mark Zandberg]
So, you are retracting Duncan's earlier direction? It is a good thing I spoke up and asked [deleted] the meaningful question, otherwise one of my employers would have gotten a free ride.
So, if I seek to rent a parking lot in the District, I write an email to a law firm and inquire as to availability, they then forward the inquiry to the District, with their bill attached. The District receives the inquiry, checks the status of the lot and reports back to a law firm so I can eventually discover if the lot is available. If the lot I select is not available, the process repeats until a vacancy is identified.
Once a lot has been identified, I submit a check for $15 ($5.00/day and a $10 scheduling fee) and a certificate of insurance with endorsement to the law firm and they forward it to the District, with their bill attached.
If changes to the booking are needed, because in all fairness it has happened many times in the last seven years, I would report my change to the law firm and they would return to step one to broker the discovery of an available time slot. Fortunately, the certificate and check would already be with the District.
What happens if my check bounces? The District could potentially incur hours and hours of legal bills for a $15 revenue "drip" (as opposed to a stream). Where is the logic in that?
Critical Question: Where is Ross Perot when you need him? I hear a giant sucking sound and it needs a pie chart. Why not start up a business and have all of the public requests for parking processed through esd15.org? Of course, the gap between each step above will be the mandatory 30 days.
Dear Mark:
We note your acknowledgment of the District's ownership of the content that was formerly posted at the esd15.org web site.
We disagree, however, with your assessment regarding ownership of the esd15.org URL. In fact your statements continue to support that you clearly registered the esd15.org URL as an agent to the District and in your capacity as its employee (regardless of your "reasoning" behind the registration). It is unfortunate that you remain unwilling to transfer property that belongs to the District in return for reimbursement for your out-of-pocket costs, which you have to date failed to disclose to the District.
We will continue to monitor the situation and your use of the esd15.org URL. In the meanwhile, the District fully reserves its rights and this correspondence is being made without limitation on the rights or remedies of Edmonds School District No. 15.
Sincerely,
Grace Han Stanton
Perkins Coie LLP
1201 Third Avenue, Suite 4000
Seattle, WA 98101
ph: (206) 359-6483 fax: (206) 359-7483
www.perkinscoie.com
Grace J. Han Stanton, esq.
July 8, 2007
Dear Grace,
Thank you for your letter dated July 6, 2007. My response follows.
It is my understanding that all District-related imagery and documentation, created or coordinated while employed by the Edmonds School District, has been deleted from my server.
Regarding your second issue, I am more than a little disturbed by your choice of words to quote from my previous letter. The portion you selected ("reduce the amount of time") appears to suggest that I was interested in saving my supervisor's breath and not the real purpose for registering the domain. I was interested in protecting my ears, and the ears of my co-workers. "With all of the calls being received, it made personal sense to shorten the address and reduce the amount of time spent filling our work environment with background noise." If the District decided to expend funds in keeping the administration building a chilly 62 degrees, I would have worn a sweater to work, or perhaps wool socks. Such a measure would have been taken to protect myself from being cold or getting sick.
Your argument opens another topic worthy of being mentioned at this time. During my first several years of employment with the District, I seldom submitted mileage reimbursements for the District's use of my truck. I frequently moved cubicle panels, boxes, parts and pieces from one District site to another. One could naturally conclude that the absence of mileage reimbursements would suggest that my vehicle actually belongs to the District. Am I to expect the District will be making a claim for its title? Perhaps the mistake in all of this was in not charging the District for use of my domain in advertising the properties they had available, because somehow the absence of a bill encouraged the beneficiary to assume ownership.
"Ms. Miller believed the District was listed as the owner of the domain name" reveals that she is either totally detached from web development at the District or choosing to abandon the memory of unfavorable conversations. I notified the District Web Content Specialist prior to registering the domain and then immediately after doing so. District staff was aware that I registered the domain and that I controlled its use. I was reminded frequently that the registration and use of esd15.org was nothing the District wanted at the time or was interested in obtaining at some date in the future. My registration of the domain was viewed as a nuisance. If I registered the domain on behalf of the District, why would anyone oppose its existence or consider the act of doing so to be something unacceptable?
Believing something to be true does not actually make it true. If that was the case, the world would be an entirely different place and we wouldn't be exchanging these letters.
I look forward to your response.
Mark Zandberg
Mark,
Please correspond directly with me on this matter and refrain from directly copying anyone at the Edmonds School District going forward. I will pass along any communications you have to them. I will be discussing your response with my client and will advise of next steps. Please advise if you are represented by an attorney in connection with this matter, so that I can correspond directly with him or her. I will assume you are not represented by an attorney in this matter until you or your attorney specifically advises me. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Grace Han Stanton
Perkins Coie LLP
1201 Third Avenue, Suite 4000
Seattle, WA 98101
ph: (206) 359-6483
fax: (206) 359-7483
www.perkinscoie.com
Grace,
I await your response and shall not communicate directly with your client regarding this topic. I cannot guarantee they will not read the blog.
Thank you.
Mark
Grace Han Stanton
Perkins Coie, LLC
1201 Third Avenue, Suite 4800
Seattle, WA 98101-3099
June 29, 2007
Dear Grace,
This letter is to confirm receipt of your letter dated June 26, 2007. I would have responded earlier but, as you know, email addresses at domain registries are notorious farming ground for spammers. I don't normally check that email account and found your email and attachment by chance late last night. To ensure timely delivery of future email messages and attachments, please use mark@esd15.org, as this line of communication is directly related to matters concerning community interest in the performance and financial stamina of the Edmonds School District.
I will attempt to address your apparent concerns one-at-a-time and in the order they appear in your letter. For clarification's sake, I am assuming that you are referring to the Edmonds School District when you use the acronym ESD15. My response assumes this to be the case, even though during my six years with the District, I have never heard them use ESD15 in that manner.
You mention in paragraph one that "in light of my resignation", Marla requested control of esd15.org. While I did not resign, I can appreciate you have a client to protect and making mention of this inaccuracy may bolster future defenses by your client. I did not resign but was constructively terminated.
While it is true I was the Planning and Property Management Specialist for the Edmonds School District, I was not directed to register esd15.org nor was I ever compensated for time spent working on esd15.org. My web development responsibilities with the District were confined to the creation and maintenance of http://www.edmonds.wednet.edu/propertymgt. The registration of esd15.org was done on my own time, at my own direction and while using my own equipment. I was interested in reducing the noise in and around my cubicle. Every time a prospective developer would call Bret Carlstad and ask for more information about the District's available property, he would recite the entire domain address numerous times and always end up spelling portions rather slowly. With all of the calls being received, it made personal sense to shorten the address and reduce the amount of time spent filling our work environment with background noise. I would recommend that you or your client contact Bret Carlstad to confirm that he never provided such direction and that all of his web concerns were restricted to the official web site at http://www.edmonds.wednet.edu and its associated sub-domains.
All information that was once contained at esd15.org can also be found at http://www.edmonds.wednet.edu/propertymgt. All of the original web pages are hosted on the District's server. Of course, on June 7, 2007, when my access to voicemail, email and my assigned hard drive were terminated unexpectedly, I could no longer verify if any of these documents still exist. I am optimistic that District staff can easily recover them with the new password assigned to my user account. As a dedicated community servant, I would be happy to meet with the District's network support staff and show them precisely where all of those web pages reside.
While it is true that the District's logo was used to promote the District's available properties, all such websites located at esd15.org have been deleted. Of course, anyone with web development experience can tell you, deletions may not always occur until the site is updated. That update occurred recently and it is my understanding that all logos and District-related documents at esd15.org no longer exist.
For the record, I have had a number of meetings with Marla Miller to discuss the creation of an Operations website at esd15.org and would have released the domain in the process. She repeatedly expressed no interest in doing so. I have all such email communications and would be happy to share them with you when this matter goes to court. Let the record also show that at no time did the District ever pay for the registration of the domain, the hosting of the site, or the maintenance of the many web pages. The use of esd15.org was provided as an extension of the many attributes that I brought to the District.
Your assertion that esd15.org is being used to promote my personal real estate business is preposterous. It is and shall remain a conduit whereby staff and community members can have an open and honest conversation about matters of importance to them. The index page for esd15.org provides a direct link to staff email, as a convenience, and a domain-specific search engine driven by Google to expedite the manner in which District-specific information is found. The index page also clearly states that the Edmonds School District does not maintain the site and is not responsible for its content. If users cannot read the disclaimer, the rest of the website would be illegible as well. Quite frankly, the suggestion that this website would confuse the end user is nonsensical and rather insulting to the intelligence of esd15.org's visitors.
The Edmonds School District is an educational organization and uses the edu suffix. Esd15.org is not an educational organization but rather a not-for-profit, community forum promoting and discussing issues related to a public resource, namely the Edmonds School District. When time allows for the processing of the countless comments and responses, more not-for-profit views and comments will appear shortly.
I appreciate your deadline of July 6, 2007, and have given you an additional week to develop your legal case by responding as promptly as possible. I apologize if this letter is not the response you were expecting. My attorney is out of the country and my response is provided to expedite the conclusion of this issue.
Sincerely,
Mark Zandberg
26 Dec, 14:06:49, Rippers 0
