ARCHIVE
Internet Free Speech and the Pound Puppies Letters
Readers: Pound Puppies, Inc. sent an apology for the "big misunderstanding" about trademark issues in letters sent from their company regarding the term "pound puppies" in our page's true story promoting adoption of real pound puppies. The letters are relegated here to archive and hopefully the matter is resolved, though they want me to remove all mention of this from the site? I feel it is my moral obligation to make this information available to netizens for educational and informational purposes.

The "Faux Paws" story below the letters is a parody of just how messy the whole issue of free speech and trademark can get on the Net as more people connect.  Hopefully you will find this information and links useful should you find yourself in a similar trademark or copyright dispute.  Thank you very much to everyone who has written in support!

The Letters
Free Speech "Faux Paws"
Reader/Internet Letters
Free Speech & Freedom Links

Dear readers:
I received email from Pound Puppies, Inc., the corporate toy maker, objecting to my using the words "pound puppies, lovable, and pound pups" and my animated heart! I quote, "we must protect our trademark" and "there are other words that you could use."

The Pound Puppies Webpage
One of my web pages is about real pound dogs, pound puppies, pound cats, and pound kittens, not toy ones, and, yes, they are lovable. My main story is about real pound puppies which is exactly what they are.

This page is not about toy animals, nor do we receive any kind of profit from these pages nor sell animals. These pages are a labor of love and compassion to try to alleviate some of the suffering in our society.

Unfortunately, the problem of real unwanted and suffering animals has existed and was part of the English language long before anybody made toy ones. The heart symbol and word "lovable" also existed in generic use for centuries.

By-the-way, the words "dog pound" are also trademarked. Imagine a world in which we could not use any of these words freely in discussing animal rescue or you could not draw a heart! (outrageous) Please join me in supporting free, responsible Internet speech. Read the Free Speech and the Pound Puppy Letters containing the real correspondence, plus fun and informative trademark satire.

Trading Free Speech for Toys, a Good Trade?
Pound Puppies, Inc.'s representative did make a kind offer to send their company's products for my dogs, but at the same time sent their lawyers email and told me not to use the above mentioned, generic words. As tempted as I was to take her up on the free toy offer (heaven knows, my dogs love toys and I don't have the money to get them all I'd like), I couldn't in good conscience trade away what I feel are our rights to free speech for some plush toys.

Internet Surfer Response
What do you think? A great thing about this country is that we can still talk about these issues (for now). In many countries, people would not dare talk about free speech. I welcome your email letters of support or disagreement on this subject. Letters may be posted on this page and edited for brevity. Please email me.

Hopefully if I can get enough support for free speech from the Internet community to strengthen my resolve and position should they pursue the matter further. Believe me, it's hard, because I am doing this out of my own pockets which are quite threadbare. I am however determined to fight for my principals. Imagine, if a corporation can stop me from using common, generic words in pages about real live animals, what they can do to you too.

Good news for lawyers!
You would have to consult a copyright and trademark attorney practically every time you posted anything to the internet or even sent a letter to a friend! This, my friends, amounts to silencing our rights to free speech. You see many people, myself included, can not afford to hire a cadre of attorneys to protect their free speech. What a world that would be! It would not be unlike former communist Germany and the Soviet Union. A friend from former East Germany said, "You were free to say anything you wanted as long as no one heard you." You see if someone heard you and it was not sanctioned by the state, it was their state duty to turn you in or the person who heard you could be arrested! I hope it does not come to that, but if many corporations have their way, they will own the Internet and the English language. I ask you how different is this from the state owning what we say? Then you can kiss whatever is left of your freedom good-bye.

My friends around the world and in the U.S.A. remind me exactly how precarious and precious free speech is. My brave friends at the Anti-"dog-meat" movement in Korea are risking their life for free speech in that country and to end butchery of dogs for human consumption. The U.S. brave patriots lost life and property to fight for freedom. We must uphold their memory and protect it.

Please support responsible Internet free speech and animal rescue!

-- Susan
email me

This is the top of the "offending" page...
LovablePound Puppies
& Kittens

Read about Mysti and our pound pup adventures below...

Pound Pup Profile
Mysti
polaroid taken at the pound

Download "I love pound pups" Animation
If you'd like to link to this page or the info., please do for noncommercial, informational use only. If reproducing original material, please give credit to http://www.crystalbay.net.

Feel free to download this animation and link to this page and website. Click on image with your right mouse key and save to your computer. Thanks!

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. 
      — The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

Important Internet Free Speech & Freedom Websites

International Free Speech Blue Ribbon Campaign
Opportunity for you to protest the imprisonment of Chinese democracy advocates Lin Hai and Wang Youcai and other world-wide info. China's record on human rights is atrocious, witness Tibet, etc., but the govt. wants to increase international trade. This is their Achilles heel. What was Lin Hai's crime? Sending email messages.

Institute for First Amendment Studies

People for the American Way
Defending the values this country was founded upon, pluralism, individuality, and freedom of thought, expression and religion.

Freedom Forum

Visit the Solar Village for solar energy and natural goods for sustainable, earth friendly living.

Send a FREE musical greeting card! Animals, nature, angels and more.

ADMH, Anti-Dogmeat Movement Headquaters
http://talk.to/ourdog

8/30/99 via email from Pound Puppies, Inc.

Dear Sirs;
Pound Puppies is a Registered Trade mark and is protected by Copyright and can not be used without prior permission.  Please contact me at your earliest 
convenience to discuss this matter.  We certainly admire your efforts with the pet rescue mission that you are carrying out at this time, but we need to protect the value of our product in the market place.  Perhaps some of your pups would like a soft lovable Pound Puppy to snuggle.
Thank you for your prompt attention.
Sincerely,
<name protected>
Marketing and Promotions Dept.

Pound Puppies, Inc. employee name protected,

I was quite surprised by your email. Let me explain that we promote
adoptions of real live dog pound animals: pound dogs, pound puppies, pound
cats, and pound kittens. I write about real live pound puppies that I have
adopted from the pound. I do not attempt to imitate your man-made toy dogs
nor sell them, as cute as they may be. Please give my readers credit for
knowing the difference between a real live dog and a toy one. None has ever
reported any confusion in this matter.

While I respect your desire to protect your product sales and trademarks, I
do not believe that my readers and most of the American public respect
threats to silence legitimate people who use generic words to promote animal
rescue. Would you believe even the words "dog pound" are trademarked? As are
Tommy, David, etc. Are you telling netizens that we can not say these words
without prior corporate permission? I think you can see the terrible
repercussions for free speech in America if people were not able to say
these generic words!!!

Please tell Mike that real, honest to goodness, live pound puppies were
around way before he made his first stuffed toy. Unfortunately your attempts
to silence animal rescuers could be seen as very bad p.r. for your company.
Your company itself makes several trademark blunders in its web pages!
However, I do not wish to cause animosity between us, but reach an amicable
agreement. It would be great p.r. for you if you donate your toys for us to
use in fund raising to help promote awareness, adoptions and care of the
thousands upon thousands of unwanted and suffering pound animals in America!
What do you say? I would like to write a happy ending to this story.

Susan

9/17/99 From Pound Puppies, Inc. Note: this email included three of their legal council

Dear Susan,
Received your e-mail dated 9/2/99 and have been dealing with Hurricane Floyd 
for the past week.  Frankly we were surprised with the tone of your response. 
Perhaps you should take a moment and reread the e-mail I sent to you on 
8/30/99.

I by all means give your readers credit for knowing the difference between 
'live' dogs and 'plush' dogs.  The Internet today is used by all ages and one 
of our concerns is the confusion children may have when exploring Search 
engines on the Internet and your web site comes up when searching for "Pound 
Puppies".  Your website references to : "I love pound puppies at 
crystalbay.net" and also the "heart logo" with the "I love pound pups" can be 
confused with our Registered Trademark.  These references are the ones of 
concern.

As I previously stated in my e-mail of 8/30/99, we admire your efforts along 
with numerous other pet rescue operations around the world.  We have been 
involved with many of them and will continue to do our part in supporting 
such nonprofit organizations.  Not one but you mentioned anything about 
"threats" to "silence" legitimate people or any pet rescue operation.  We are 
merely trying to protect our Registered Trademark.  Perhaps you are confusing 
my e-mail with some other one of a threatening tone?!  The fact is, there are 
millions of names and references to choose from that relate to adopting and 
rescuing pets and there is really no reason for you to pick one that may 
cause confusion especially with children who may not know the difference.  It 
is truly unfortunate that you refer to "animosity" between us when it only 
exits with you.

The offer was made in my previous e-mail to send some of our plush Pound 
Puppies for your real live pups to snuggle and of course the offer is still 
open.  If you would kindly send a mailing address we will gladly send them 
right along!

Should you have any further questions about the use of the Pound Puppies 
Trademark name, please contact <their lawyer>.
With best regards,
<name protected>
Pound Puppies Inc.

name protected,

I've been busy working on the fight against the legalization of "dog meat"
in Korea, and, unfortunately, trying to help the authorities track down an
Internet child pornographer I'd discovered. My apologies for the delay in
responding to your mail about your corporation's plush toy trademark.

I'm not quite sure what words you want me to use rather than "I love pound
pups" or "pound puppies"? You see the story and web page in question is
precisely about real, live, lovable, generic "pound puppies" and promotes
their adoption. Have you considered that people may indeed be searching the
Net for information on adopting real, live pound puppies? What shall we call
them? Infant pound doggies just doesn't sound right...

I appreciate your generous offer to send your company's toy dogs for our
real ones. Heaven knows our puppies would love toys! But if we must give up
use of generic, common English language to write about animal rescue
stories, it would seem like a Faustian deal.

Susan

Dear Susan,

I wanted to take this opportunity to try and resolve what is apparently a misunderstanding.
We were shocked to log onto your Website and see a sectioned dedicated to "Free Speech Crystal Bay's Pound Puppies animal Rescue vs. Toy Corporation Pound Pupp", wherein, you portray us as an evil corporation out to stop both, free speech and the rescue of dogs and cats from the pound.  This was never our intention and is totally untrue.  We have at no time considered ourselves to be in an adversarial role with you.  So, I would like to share some information with you that, hopefully, clear up the issues.
1) We are not a "giant Corporate Toy Maker", but in fact, are a small office consisting of my wife and three employees.  My business is a privately owned entrepreneurial business, which I started while working in a factory in 1984. I actually got the idea for Pound Puppies based on my personal experiences of adopting several dogs from the pound while growing up.  We currently have a dog and two ferrel cats we rescued from the wild.
2) We were never trying to stop your efforts or "silence you" at helping homeless dogs and cats find a home.  Quite the contrary, we applaud and encourage your efforts.  As we advised you earlier, we have been involved extensively worldwide since 1984 with the rescue of dogs and cats.  Through the sales of Pound Puppies, Toy Companies around the world have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to various Humane Societies and Pet Rescue Organizations worldwide such as the Seeing Eye Dog foundation in England, where dogs were rescued from the pounds and then trained to be guide dogs for the blind.  From Germany to Canada to the United States, we have continued to 
support the rescue of our furry friends.  So be assured this is a cause we strongly support and always have supported.  The Pound Puppies toy concept itself promotes the adoption theme, and is a constant reminder to kids about our friends in the pounds and their need to be adopted.  We also donate toys and financial assistance to various children's organizations when called upon.
3) We never threatened you or ever tried to stifle your right to free speech, but were merely trying to avoid any confusion with the usage of "Pound Puppies" from our respective e-mail addresses.  All we are asking is that you drop the usage of "Pound Puppies" from your current e-mail address, and we would work with you in any way we could to make the transition easy.  Using Pound Puppies as a descriptive term in a sentence or story is not now nor has never been a problem with us.  Although your point is correct that Pound and Puppies are words from the English language just as the word Amazon is, I'm sure you recognize you couldn't use 'Crystal Bay's Amazon.com" because amazon.com is likewise, a registered trademark and a registered website just 
as Pound Puppies.

I hope these points will clarify who we are and what are intentions are.  Your current Web page really portrays us in an unfair negative light, so I would appreciate you correcting this mischaracterization, up to and including, posting my response.  I would also appreciate your contacting me personally at your earliest convenience so we may speak directly about any further issues or concerns that you may have at this time.

With kindest regards,

Mike Bowling

Mike,

It is very important for free speech on the Internet that all sides and opinions are able to be heard. I have thus added your email letter to my page. In this letter it appears that your company's assertions are based on what you believe to be my using pound puppies in my email addresses. You are mistaken, I do not use pound puppies as my email address nor domain name. There is a lot of confusion about how the Internet works, names, search engine indexing, etc. As I explained before one of my stories is about the adoption of three pound puppies and experiences at the pound. I use pound puppies as a descriptive term and am glad to see that may no longer be an issue with you.

In your example about Amazon.com, if someone were to write about their travel to the Amazon, that would be their right as the real Amazon is a different context than the bookstore and they are not claiming to be the bookstore. Pound Puppies, Inc. and a real story about pound puppies adoption experience are two different contexts. Many very common words and names are trademarked (many of the same words -- David, for instance -- by several different companies, but in different context, sunflowers, maintenance, etc.). This potentially could cause a lot of strife especially as the Internet makes documents available to other parties that traditionally would not have even crossed paths.

Now I am very busy and must end this letter. Happy Holidays to you and yours.

Susan

Our Little Doggies Faux Paws
Find the trademark 'faux paws'
(This story is fiction and satire though the trademark facts are true!)

I took little Debbie, David, George, and Tommy to the dog pound to adopt a sweet little puppy. There were two doors, a blue door, and a red door. We entered the red door and saw the cutest dogs of all sizes and colors -- a black dog, a white dog, a red dog, and many mixed colors. It was so hard to pick just one as they were all so bright eyed and wagging their furry tails. It took us an eternity, but we picked two little ones, filled out the adoption papers and brought our little pound puppies home. We knew our other pound dog, a big dog named Rex would be very happy to have not one playmate, but two! 

We made an appointment with a vet to have the pups spayed and neutered so they would not have unwanted puppies and we promised to take good care of them, play with them and give them plenty of clean water and fresh food. It was such a shame that so many animals end up at the dog pound and most pound puppies and pound kitties will never find a good home. But our two were so happy to be home with us. We called one Lucky because we found him just before the dog pound was going to put him "to sleep." The other, we named Princess. They ran around in the meadow amongst the sunflowers and splashed in the stream's cool water. Even my little kitty, Tiger, seemed to enjoy their company. It was a very good day!

How many trademark 'faux paws' did you find?

Here are the trademark 'faux paws' from my "Our Little Doggies Faux Paws" story that I know of:

1) Pound Puppies is a registered trademark of Pound Puppies, Inc.
2) Faux Paws (trademark/wordmark APPLICANT) Two Sisters Creations, Inc 
3) LITTLE DEBBIE Owner Name (REGISTRANT) McKEE FOODS CORPORATION
4) DAVID Owner Name (REGISTRANT) Dominion Communications, L.L.C. DBA Dominion
                      Technologies, Inc.
5) Watch what you dare name your kids. A real man named George called his website George Jr. which caused the magazine that has his name trademarked to have a legal hissy. Guess who won?
6) TOMMY Owner Name (REGISTRANT) Carpenter, Thomas Joseph
7) DOG POUND Owner Name (REGISTRANT) Marcy, Inc.
8) THE POKY LITTLE PUPPY Owner Name (REGISTRANT) WESTERN PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC.
This is only from the first sentence! Other 'faux paws' are red door, red dog, eternity, big dog, rex, sunflowers, cool water, lucky, little kitty, etc. all trademarked.

Heard enough? As you can see almost half the words are trademarked! Imagine if you were to post something to the Internet and you faced harassment from everyone of these companies or had to hire a copyright and trademark attorney to review even generic words and your family's names.

Instead of saying, "My son Tommy and I adopted our cute little pound puppy from the local dog pound," maybe to be politically correct we need to say, "My son Tommy (Tommy is a registered trademark of Tommy, Inc. To prevent any confusion on the part of our readers and loss of branding for Tommy, Inc., our son Tommy is a biological being and not manufactured nor for sale) and I adopted our cute, vertically and aged challenged canine biological creature from the local place where they keep unwanted dogs (Not to be confused with toy, cloth and plastic animals manufactured under possibly questionable working conditions, sewn by humans, which are a registered trademark of PP Pups, Inc. Our puppy -- if I may be so bold to use that word without my lawyer present -- is a biological being made from two canine parents)."

Real, live unwanted pound dogs, pound cats, pound puppies, and pound kittens were around way before anybody's manufactured ones. It's just incredible that corporations think they can buy the English language (by throwing money to the Trademark Office) -- especially generic words as pound puppies -- and censor, harass and sue anyone who dares say those words!

Remember: Free Speech -- When it's gone, you'll have nothing to say about it! Arm yourself with your nimble fingers and pens. Send email and letters to your governmental representatives and corporations that seek to deny us free speech on the Internet. Please send me a copy too so I can see how many are for and against and post to the website. If you like my Faux Paws story, feel free to forward this URL to your friends to help raise awareness for free speech on the Internet and the plight of unwanted pound animals.  Thank your very much for reading and your input! - Susan

If they don't stop harassing you, I'd start an Internet boycott. - Mike

As the Web internationalizes, there will be more and
more pressure from lands that do not enjoy our particular brand of freedom to "control" the speech of Webizens.  As you have discovered, this will
include attempts to control particular words.  So the sooner we all stand up and "just say no," the quicker we reign in these CEBBTOs. - Willy

How DARE they torment you with
this nonsense when you have IMPORTANT things to do,
and how DARE they seek to own the English language!!!!
...This is completely crazy!! -Catherine
 

Note: The opinions expressed in these pages are those of the authors only, and do not necessarily reflect the views of CrystalBay.net or affiliates. 

Thank you for the enlightening site!  We need you.  Keep up the good work. - Carol

(to Pound Puppies, Inc.)
Stop annoying CrystalBay! She is the best friend of our animal loving people. ...It is obvious that you raised
money on our pounds and puppies. You have a little money and 2 laywers, but we have morals and ardent supporters. Also we have 100 news groups, 1,000
skillful webmasters, 10,000 surport sites, 100,000 ardent members, 100,000 supporters, and 1,000,000 kids. ...We live all over the world. Do you want to war against us? - ADMH, Anti-Dogmeat Movement Headquarters
http://talk.to/ourdog

Free Speech in America and Throughout the World
If you are interested in learning more about free speech in America and throughout the world, please visit Freedom Forum online at http://www.freedomforum.org/

The White Rose
Also, please visit my Internet Soapbox issues page to learn about the White Rose and other important peace, environment, human rights, and animal rights issues. The White Rose distributed pamphlets in the Third Reich, and for this, to us, simple act of defiant free speech, they risked all.

As a university student I made friends from many countries that do not enjoy our first amendment rights. The White Rose and my friends taught me not to take our free speech rights for granted nor the brave women and men who sacrificed so much to secure our rights.

Warning: Swim at your own risk at the CrystalBay Virtual Beach. Snorkel, scuba. We provide the gear! Save the gray whale nursery. Hear a whale song. Just watch out for the waves and marine life!