Not content with taking stories that Hispanic journalists have already published and passing them off as exclusive, and THEN sending emails to Hispanic journalists asking to be credited with stories that EVEN this blog had already published… It seems that The Politico now also claims they own the Spanish language…
(Not to be confused with Latin)
So here is the latest round…
The Politico has forced La Política, an online newsletter dedicated to Hispanic political topics, to change its name because with all their millions they apparently can’t handle the existence of an online magazine that covers topics they completely ignore… even if their name is in Spanish…
The exchange in PDF form
And in copy-paste form…
A Letter From The Publisher
Dear Reader:
Faced with a trademark legal challenge and protracted litigation by the publishers of the newspaper and website ¨Politico,¨we have reluctantly chosen to change the name of our publication, from“La Política” to “CandidatoUSA.”
The publishers of Politico - launched in January by Washington D.C.-based Allbritton Communications, also owners of seven ABC television affiliates and three other news channel outlets - claim La Politica infringes on their trademark.
The name change odyssey began,without our knowledge, on July 11when Jim VanderHei, Politico’s co-founder and editor, called me.
He had heard of our plans to launch La Política and wanted to know more. I gave him details of
our preparations to launch an electronic trade newsletter on the business of reaching Hispanic voters.
At his suggestion, we agreed to talk again after the launch of La Política on November 5 to explore avenues of collaboration between Politico and our publication.
We did launch on November 5. But next day, instead of a call from VanderHei, we received a two-page aggressive and threatening letter from Politico’s attorney demanding that we “cease and desist” from the use of the La Política name because they hold a registered trade mark in the term “The Politico.”
I, of course, rapidly called VanderHei and sent him the following e-mail message:
From: Arturo Villar [mailto:avillar@hispanicmarketweekly.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2007 9:54 AM
To: ‘jim@politico.com’
Subject: Urgent; Please call me
Jim: I left you a phone message yesterday wanting to talk about La Politica.
When you called me on July 11 to inquire about La Politica, I shared our plans for the mewsletter, and we talked about exploring ways to work together after our launch in the fall.
We did launch this past Monday, and instead I have received a letter from your attorney
We are studying the matter and we need more time to consider the business implication of your attorney’s demand Please call me at ..; to discuss this and our cooperation plans.
Saludos, Arturo
No response from VanderHei.
I later offered, to no avail, to travel to D.C. to find an amicable solution to Politico’s complaint and our resulting predicament.
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