How valuable is an ``s'' on the Internet?
Two combatants, separated in cyberspace by that single letter, are about
to find out. One is a fiercely independent Web ensemble looking to use the
new medium to stir up the status quo and reshape the boundaries of artistic
expression. The other is an e-commerce upstart seeking to build a business
and establish its brand while reshaping the marketplace.
Already, a legal dispute between the two has forced the arts group to
give up its Web address, even though it was online a year before the
business venture was formed. And as word of its situation has spread,
supporters have mounted a vigorous Internet-based protest claiming that
commercial considerations are stifling creative expression on the Internet.
Now business is trying to find a way to coexist peacefully with art.
On Wednesday, eToys Inc., the Web's leading toy retailer, said it had
offered to drop its trademark-infringement lawsuit against Etoy, a European
group of online conceptual artists. Etoys, which has already won a court
order evicting the artists from their home at www.etoy.com, also said it was
willing to let the group resume using that address.
But the company said it was asking the group to relocate graphic images
and language to other Internet sites, where children and parents shopping
for Pokemon cards and Harry Potter books are less likely to stumble upon
them by mistake.
A lawyer for Etoy said the group would not agree to limit the content on
its Web site.
``These are artists, and this is just not acceptable to them,'' Chris
Truax, Etoy's lawyer, said in a telephone interview from San Diego. ``Etoy
cannot give eToys veto power over the content on its site.''
Last month, Etoy was forced to stop using www.etoy.com, its Web address
since 1995. EToys was founded in 1996 and put up its Web site,
www.etoys.com, in 1997. Unlike Etoy, though, eToys holds a U.S. trademark
for its name.
Ken Ross, a spokesman for the Santa Monica (Los Angeles County) company,
said: ``We are initiating an end to the legal actions against Etoy. The
reason is simple: Over the last several weeks, we've received lots and lots
of communications that urged us to find a way to coexist with Etoy.''
Ross added that eToys was asking Etoy to find a way to move its ``more
graphic pages'' -- one recently incorporated a picture of the bombed federal
building in Oklahoma City, with a satirical caption -- but that it was not a
condition for putting an end to the lawsuit. ``It is only a request,'' he
said. (Truax said Etoy was still studying the company's offer.)
EToys had sued Etoy after hearing from customers who went to the art site
by mistake, including some who complained about its profane language. A Los
Angeles Superior Court judge issued a preliminary injunction against Etoy on
November 29, threatening the artists with fines of as much as $10,000 a day
unless they stopped using the www.etoy.com address.
The group, which mimics corporate behavior, went into Internet exile at a
numeric Web address (146.228.204.72:8080/). But Etoy is well known in
Internet art circles, and as word of its situation spread, defenders started
protest sites and began blanketing the Internet with e-mail messages. The
case has become a cause celebre among those who resent the growing influence
of commercial interests on the Internet because they fear it will limit
artistic expression.
Ross said the offer from eToys was prompted because ``we received a lot
of heartfelt, well-reasoned e-
mails,'' adding, ``It was never our intention to silence artistic
expression.''
But Etoy's supporters had reacted with alarm to the shutdown of the site.
Supporters who believe the artists were being muzzled put up several sites
urging visitors to boycott eToys and send disapproving e-mail messages to
the company's executives. A few parody sites have also appeared.
An Etoy spokesman who gave his name as ``Zai'' (the group's dozen or so
members do not divulge their real names) said the domain name and the Web
site that accompanied it were in themselves the group's and that giving up
the domain name ``will be the end of this art piece.''
As for the origins of the group's name, it was one of several choices
generated by a computer program, he said, and was latched onto because it
sounded like something electronic, playfully ironic and possibly Japanese.)
RTMark, another group of anonymous online provocateurs, has successfully
tweaked the election campaigns of Texas Gov. George W. Bush and New York
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani this year by creating parody sites with addresses
confusingly similar to those of the campaigns' official sites. The group has
been selected to exhibit in the Whitney Museum's biennial survey of American
art next year.
Since Etoy was formed before eToys existed, no one could accuse the
artists of pulling a similar prank or of being cybersquatters -- people who
register company and product names and then demand payment for them. But if
the two parties cannot reach an agreement, it will be up to the courts to
decide if the dispute is an example of reverse domain-name hijacking, in
which someone who covets a domain name but has no legal right to it tries to
coerce the owner into surrendering it. Etoy is appealing the preliminary
injunction.
Lauren Cooks Levitan, an analyst at Robertson, Stephens who follows
eToys, said that the retailer was not likely to experience anything more
than limited damage from potential customers who visit the arts site in
error, but that bad publicity from the lawsuit might have a different
effect.
Before filing suit, eToys officials indicated they were willing to buy
Etoy, and the most recent offer was somewhere over $400,000, in a mix of
cash and eToys stock. If accepted, the price would probably set a record for
a work of Internet art -- and for the letter ``s.''
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