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News Flash (April 10, 2001):
Baja Marine Corporation has apparently retained the law firm of Pettishly, McAuliffe,Newbury,Hilliard & Geraldson (Chicago,Il)
in another attempt to snatch domain name bajaboats.com from Baja Boat owner Steve Wheeler.
According to Wheeler: "After Baja Marine's earlier attempts to intimidate me under threat of litigation into shutting down my www.bajaboats.com web site
and turning over the bajaboats.com domain name to them failed, they (Baja Marine) seem to be taking a new tack: requesting ICANN arbitration."
"Baja Marine Corporations's actions seem to be a classic case of Reverse Domain Name Piracy, in which a large corporation attempts to
silence an individual's ability to freely express his or her opinion to the broad audience afforded via the web. Reverse Domain
Name Piracy is almost always shrouded under the thin veil of trademark infringement. US law reconises the potential
for such abuse of trademark law and protects the individuals' right to freely express his or her opinions, even when it is not
in the commercial intrest of a major corporation. This has always been true, but now, with the web, it is possible for
someone such as myself to reach a very broad audience; this affords the individual a greatly amplified voice in which he or she
can express dissatisfaction. Obviously this is a very frightening reality to those commercial organizations which produce
products of marginal quality, and often protracted legal battles ensue in the belief that
a commercial enities' significant financial resources can overcome and subdue the disenting voice."
Of course, if the individual is to enjoy this sort of amplified Freedom Of Speech, we must
exercise restraint and responsibility. Just as yelling "FIRE" in a crowded theater is not protected speech, we must
exercise responsibility and ethical judgement in using the web as a forum for our viewpoint. In the case of
BajaBoats.com, I have exercised great patience and restraint with the manufacture of my boat. Rather than blasting
them from day 1, I choose to give them time to rectify, what for me has been an ongoing frustration, impacting an
activity I truly love, namely: boating. And yet, over time, it has become my opinion that Baja Marine had no intention
of equitably resolving the chronic problems on my boat - it is true they fixed a number of problems, but many
longstanding problems still have not been addressed. Baja Marine could have prevented this site from ever
existing by simply addresssing the problems they created in the first place! They are truely their own worst enemy.
Now, several years later, they seem to have discovered the commercial viability of my bajaboats.com soapbox,
and would also seek to silence my annoyingly loud voice - my less than complementary opinion of their product!
Is this Baja Marine an American company ?? I wonder: do they simply covet the commerical value of an intutitive
name like bajaboats.com, or are they more concerened that if consumers hear of my experiences, it may hurt sales ?
Most likely, they hope to "kill two birds with one stone!" I can understand their frustration at the intutive
nature of bajaboats.com when compaired to bajamarine.com but, their lack of market savy is not my issue. After
all, I registered bajaboats.com almost a year and a half AFTER they registered bajamarine.com! Is that to say
any orginazition that dislikes anothers' opinions could register a trademark and claim infringement to silence
the naysayers? Not in America, we hope.
I have choosen to create and maintain www.bajaboats.com out of frustration and anger over my Baja Boat. I
have used my own funds to build and maintain this site and I have personally paid legal fees to prevent
Baja Marine Corporation from subverting my right to express my opinion via this powerful medium. This site
brings me no joy, it takes of my valuable time, and I make no money for my effort. It is done only as a
matter of principle; I wish there was someone like me before I bought my boat.
Realize that bajaboats.com was registered more than a year after Baja Marine had registered bajamarine.com and
more than a year after I purchased my Baja! Of course I want my voice to have the broadest possible reach, and
so I registered a name that I believed would reach the broadest audience, but the fact that I chose a name which
Baja now covets, does not give them the right to quiet my loud voice as expressed via this site!
It appears that they respect freedom of speech, as long as you don't say anything bad about them! Seems they would
rather attack my right to express my frustration regarding the boat I purchased from them new, rather than address
the root issues which lead to the creation of this site in the first place!
I suspect Baja is making decisions based on the advice of self-serving, strong-arm attorneys, but I would suggest
that the record is clear: companies that attempt to use litigation in a clandestine attempt to thwart freedom of Speech
often loose, and loose big! SO BEWARE reverse domain name priates...
This site was created for two reasons: First, I wanted to make others aware of the serious problems I experienced with
my boat, and the frustration resulting, not from the problems themselves, but rather Baja's lack of responsiveness and
refusal to satisfactorily resolving these problems. And secondly, to provide a forum in which Baja Boat owners, including
myself, could express and share their boating experiences, both good and bad. Here, owners can share ideas, experiences,
problems, and problem fixes in a venue unbiased by the commercial interest of the boat manufacturer.
Everything you read herein is my protected opinion; the
problems mentioned herein regarding my baja boat are all factual and documented.
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