As an act of "cyber-art," defendants 2600 Enterprises and Eric Corley registered the domain name www.fuckgeneralmotors.com and programmed the associated website so that it would automatically redirect to www.ford.com, Ford Motor Company's official website. Ford sued for trademark dilution, trademark infringement, and unfair competition under the Lanham Act. In its complaint, Ford claimed that the defendants' actions caused Ford to be "linked not only to the vulgar, strident criticism of a competitor, but also associated with the offensive, obscene word that is used in the domain name."

The federal district court in Michigan denied Ford's motion for a preliminary injunction, thus allowing 2600 and Corley to continue to link their website to Ford's. The court ruled, for purposes of the trademark dilution claim, that 2600 and Corley had not made a "commercial" use of the Ford trademark because it appeared only in the programming code that created the hyperlink to Ford's site. The court reasoned:

This court does not believe that Congress intended the FTDA to be used by trademark holders as a tool for eliminating Internet links that, in the trademark holder's subjective view, somehow disparage its trademark. Trademark law does not permit Plaintiff to enjoin persons from linking to its homepage simply because it does not like the domain name or other content of the linking webpage.

Based on similar reasoning, the court ruled that 2600 and Corley had not used Ford's mark "in connection with the sale, offering for sale, distribution, or advertising of any goods or services," as required for the trademark infringement and unfair competition claims.

Ford initially appealed the decision, but later withdrew the appeal.

Richard "Lowtax" Kyanka is the webmaster of SomethingAwful, an online community forum with the catch phrase: "The Internet Makes You Stupid." A member of the community posted a link on the forum to a comic that depicted Jade Raymond engaged in sexual activities. Raymond is a video game producer for Ubisoft.

Ubisoft sent Kyanka a cease-and-desist letter, demanding that the comic be taken down from the site and threatening legal action. The letter claims that the comic infringed upon Ms. Raymond's "personal rights," caused emotional distress, and constituted trademark infringement, among other things.

Mr. Kyanka posted the letter on SomethingAwful in his own forum posting. In the posting, Kyanka claimed that he had no connection to the comic except that a link to it was posted on the forum. He said that he does not know who drew the comic and does not know where the image is located. Kyanka also sent Ubisoft's legal counsel a reply email, indicating that perhaps he did not take the legal threat seriously:

Please let it be known that hereforth I have read the express mail and email sent thereforth by Famous Lawyer David Anderson of the Famous Lawyer Law Business of Nixon Peabody LLP, and furthermore a declaration shall be expressed on the part of Internet User Rich “Lowtax” Kyanka that that forth herethrough I have conducted rigorous tests implemented through a vigorous barrage of legal studies, and furthermore hitherthrough these rigorous tests have therefore proven Famous Lawyer David Anderson of the Famous Lawyer Law Business of Nixon Peabody LLP shall be recognized as a man of the fag persuasion.

Pursuant to the United Dairy Council

Rich “Lowtax” Kyanka
Internet

The link to the comic is no longer on SomethingAwful, and Ubisoft has not taken any legal action against Kyanka.

An attorney for Fred Goldman and his copyright management company, Ron Goldman, LLC, sent a cease and desist letter to Digg.com, a social linking site. In the letter, the attorney alleged that Digg was "encouraging and inducing users of [its] website to download portable document format ('PDF') copies" of the manuscrip for OJ Simpson's book "If I Did It." The letter demanded that Digg cease and desist from distributing the book.

It is unclear what action, if any, Digg took in response, but links to what purports to be the manuscript dating from June 2007 remain on the site. Since Digg does not itself host PDF files, the allegedly infringing activity was most likely a link posted by a Digg user to a PDF file hosted by another website.