Теория и практика перевода. Терехова Г.В. - 44 стр.

      1.6.6 Практический анализ перевода текста

                               Текст «Trademarking the Net»
        Net-based shopping is becoming commonplace, and the value of Internet
real estate has become obvious both to established companies and to new Net-
based companies. Name recognition is synonymous with an easy-to-remember
domain name (2). Because there is only one dot-com top-level domain name,
names in the dot-com domain have become a scarce resource (3). The irony is
the current set (4) of domain names is an artificial construct, created before the
rush to cash in on the Internet and e-commerce. In theory, the number of
domain names that can be created is unbounded, but the practical realities
might force us to continue living under the current regimen, even though it is
obviously flawed (5). The question is: Will the Net survive efforts to apply
trademark law to domain names, and, if so, how will it look in the future?
        Trademark law has become intertwined with doing business – or just hanging
out – on the Internet. The kind of trademark law that some envision for the Net is
much more restricted than that which exists in “real life”. In the U.S. there are at least
two dimensions (6) for trademarks: area of business and physical location. Thus,
there is no problem with United Van Lines and United Airlines coexisting. Few
people who want to fly from San Francisco to New York are likely to contract United
Van Lines, and people with a household of furniture to move (7) are unlikely to
purchase tickets on United Airlines (8). But there can be at most one
www.united.com. (It belongs to an Internet messaging company.) Similarly, there
could be a Simon’s Shoe Store in Reno and another Simon’s Shoes in Miami.
        It’s bad enough the current system of domain names collapses a two
dimensional space (9) into a small set of points. Worse yet is the effort to restrict
look-likes (10) on the Net. A dramatic example is the situation that pits eТoys.com
against etoy.com (11). In October 1995, etoy, a group of European artists, started an
etoy.com Web site. Roughly two years later eToys Inc., an Internet toy retailer (12)
(eToys.com) started its Web site; it also filed for a U.S. trademark. When the owners
of the etoy.com Web site learned of the eToys.com trademark filing, they filed for a
trademark (13). A trademark was granted to eToys.com, but the etoy.com trademark
request is still pending. Meanwhile, eToys (14) attempted to purchase the etoy.com
Web site for about $400.000 in stock and cash. When the offer was rejected, eToys
sued etoy. The lawsuit claims that “antisocial, obscene, and offensive images
associated with defendants’ use of the mark etoy, both on the Internet and elsewhere,
have tarnished the eToys mark and the eToys brand name…” In November 1999 a
federal judge in California issued an injunction against etoy.com. Because of
potential fines of up to $10.000 per day, the etoy.com Web site was shut down (15).
Etoy appealed the decision, and in December eToys announced it had offered to drop
its lawsuit against etoy. However, eToys also either requested, or stating as a
precondition (16) (depending on which release you read), that etoy “give good faith
consideration (17) … to concentrating the profanity, nudity, and violence that is
sometimes part (18) of the etoy corporation’s other Web sites.” An etoy lawyer,
quoted in the New York Times, rejected the eToys request, saying “etoy cannot give