Last fall, activists and journalists associated with Occupy Chicago founded Occupied Chicago Tribune, a newspaper to share stories and commentary about the Occupy movement and social issues addressed by the movement. The name of the paper was clearly a reference to the Chicago Tribune and chosen to distinguish itself from the Chicago Tribune and other corporate-owned media.
Occupied Chicago Tribune publishes a printed newspaper and also maintains a website: occupiedchicagotribune.org. Shortly after their first issue was published, a representative of the Tribune company contacted the activist paper. People’s Law Office began representing Occupied Chicago Tribune and responded to the Tribune Company by asserting the First Amendment right to parody or comment on the Chicago Tribune.
Months later, the Tribune Company has now filed a complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), which is a United Nations agency in Switzerland. The complaint claims that the website occupiedchicagotribune.org is a website registered in “bad faith” and the Tribune Company is seeking to have the site taken down.
Attorneys from People’s Law Office are currently representing Occupied Chicago Tribune in this complaint as part of a commitment to defending the First Amendment rights of progressive activists and as part of our work supporting the Occupy movement’s work of fighting for economic justice.
For more information, read the following articles:
Tribune Company Moves to Seize Occupied Chicago Tribune’s website Article on firedoglake.com by Kevin Gosztola
Masters of their Domain Article in Chicago Reader, written by Michael Miner
