Goldman Sachs: No Criticism By Bloggers Allowed
WTF?!?
Goldman Sachs is attempting to shut down a dissident blogger who is extremely critical of the investment bank, its board members and its practices.
The bank has instructed Wall Street law firm Chadbourne & Parke to pursue blogger Mike Morgan, warning him in a recent cease-and-desist letter that he may face legal action if he does not close down his website.
Florida-based Mr Morgan began a blog entitled “Facts about Goldman Sachs” – the web address for which is goldmansachs666.com – just a few weeks ago.In that time Mr Morgan, a registered investment adviser, has added a number of posts to the site, including one entitled “Does Goldman Sachs run the world?”. However, many of the posts relate to other Wall Street firms and issues.
According to Chadbourne & Parke’s letter, dated April 8, the bank is rattled because the site “violates several of Goldman Sachs’ intellectual property rights” and also “implies a relationship” with the bank itself.”
Why do I suspect this one will bite GS in the arse . . . ?
>
Sources:
Facts About Goldman Sachs
http://www.goldmansachs666.com/
Goldman Sachs hires law firm to shut blogger’s site
James Quinn,
Telegraph.co.uk, 2:16PM BST 11 Apr 2009
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/5137489/Goldman-Sachs-hires-law-firm-to-shut-bloggers-site.html
De.li.cious
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April 13th, 2009 at 7:17 am
What childish and short-sighted behaviour by Goldie. I would expect that Blog traffic will increase by a factor of thousands and GS will end up looking totally stupid. Having taken over the US Government, do they now want to own the internet as well? The timing is not brilliant either. Do they not have any understanding of the attitudes of the public towars Wall St just now? So Goldie Vs a small guy from Florida will play out just beautifully. The correct way to handle this? Stay above it and ignore it.
Incidentally Barry, I’m pleased to note that you Americans are finally learning how to spell “Arse”!
April 13th, 2009 at 7:26 am
Does Goldman actually hold the intellectual property rights on 666?
Damn… they are more nefarious than I though.
April 13th, 2009 at 7:30 am
Although goldmansachs69 might have been a more appropriate moniker?
April 13th, 2009 at 7:51 am
It’s almost as if someone at GS *wants* to see the proverbial (or maybe not so proverbial) pitchforks turned in their direction. This is a huge huge blunder on their part. Even the supergeniuses at GS can only taunt Fate for so long before she kicks their arses, hard, and this might be the last bit of encouragement she needs to start lacing up her steel-toed boots….
April 13th, 2009 at 8:26 am
I suppose blowback is a new term for them as well.
April 13th, 2009 at 9:43 am
These things never end up working out well for the companies doing the suing… it’s been well documented that there’s no confusion. Foolishness!
April 13th, 2009 at 9:45 am
Clearly, Morgan’s site could create confusion in the minds of potential customers seeking to learn more about Goldman’s Satanix(TM) line of investment products.
April 13th, 2009 at 10:22 am
I’m pretty sure it was Michael Moore that set the precedent. If I remember right, he sued michaelmooresucks.com for similar reasons and the suit was tossed. GS’s lawyers aren’t serving them well here. The precedent is clear that you can use a trademarked name in criticism of said name, even in the title of the work.
April 13th, 2009 at 10:29 am
GS is the greatest danger to American democracy since Joseph McCarthy.
April 13th, 2009 at 10:29 am
Times are tough, their lawyers need billable hours to help make the payments on the vacay house. Don’t hate.
April 13th, 2009 at 10:46 am
GS claimed, indirectly:
According to Chadbourne & Parke’s letter, dated April 8, the bank is rattled because the site “violates several of Goldman Sachs’ intellectual property rights” and also “implies a relationship” with the bank itself.”
comment:
—————–
They won’t claim the accusations aren’t true because they would be exposed to proctological level discovery. Bend over and take it, GS.
April 13th, 2009 at 11:37 am
We live in the Goldman States of America. Get used to it. It’s 1984 and Blankfein is Big Brother.
April 13th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
@Eric Davis Says: April 13th, 2009 at 7:26 am
Does Goldman actually hold the intellectual property rights on 666?
HA! Funny one Eric!
April 13th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
“It’s 1984 and Blankfein is Big Brother.”
And his other brothers run central banks around the world.
I have to think some of those wild conspiracies are bunk, but then the Bank of Canada ‘selects’ a GS alum to be its CEO. WTF is going on here?
If personal security stocks haven’t run up it may be time to buy.
On a similar note, I thought it was all those nuts in the communes of Idaho and MOntana buying guns that caused Smith and Wesson to soar. Turns out its all the i-bankers looking to protect themselves!
April 13th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Who needs pitchforks when cyber mobbing is much more dangerous. That’s right, you heard it here first–”cyber mobbing”. Who cares about life or limb when geeks or angry middle aged men begin attacking GS and its attorneys’ via the modem. look out, the first broken window, may be the reformatting of computer servers.
April 13th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
@natoK – gun nuts live in family units or as the press describes it “compounds.” Hippies live in communes.
Let’s keep our terminology straight or we’ll end up insulting nuts of both the left and the right!
More distinctions to show how different these folks are: Gun nuts drink beer and wear camo. Hippies smoke dope and wear flowers in their hair.
April 13th, 2009 at 9:18 pm
Actually, having read the complaint by Goldman Sachs, it alleges that the blog is using their trademark, not that the site name violates the trademark. All the guy needs to do is remove the trademark (if indeed he is linking to it) and send them a letter. Case closed.
April 13th, 2009 at 9:19 pm
I love it maybe the resident can help them out they paid plenty for his services…
Let’s start with the numbers. Why is a first term Senator pulling down almost $300,000 a year from Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, Countrywide Financial, and Washington Mutual? He has not even completed his fourth year in the Senate and received a total of $1,093,329.00 from these eight companies and their employees. (all data from OpenSecrets.org). John McCain’s numbers, according to OpenSecrets.org for the period 1990-2008 (i.e., 18 years worth of data) only collected $549,584.00. In other words, Barack is receiving $273,582.25 (and 2008 is not over) per year while McCain raised a paltry $30,532.44.
Want another shocker? Barack Obama has received more from one source–Goldman Sachs $542,252.00–than McCain has from all of the companies combined. Who the hell is more beholden to lobbyists? And why does a junior Senator from Illinois rate this kind of dough?
http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/09/21/baracks-wall-street-problem-is-now-americas/
April 13th, 2009 at 9:33 pm
@FromLori: WOW. And why is this just coming out now?
April 13th, 2009 at 10:20 pm
Very funny, Eric!
Let the record show that this story was broken by a British publication. My only question is are American “journalists” too lazy or too scared to write something bad about Goldman.
I mean, who really cares about the first amendment anyway.
April 13th, 2009 at 10:30 pm
Lori,
I’ve got Barack getting $945K from God-man
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=N00009638
April 14th, 2009 at 10:25 am
The individuals at Goldman Sachs have apparently never heard of the Barbara Streisand effect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect