It seems Facebook has amended their Statement of Rights and Responsibilities to forbid use of the term “book” in pretty much any form. That’s not to say that they have trademarked the term, and even lawsuits they’ve already filed against businesses, Web sites, and individuals supposedly violating their IP rights, are not proving very successful.

In a way, this presupposes that every person on the planet who might use the word “book” in a way that might conjure images or ideas of Facebook must have an account and therefore – at some time – agreed passively to the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.

So, the question need be asked whether Facebook is enduring any sort of loss through others using “book” in some way redolent of Facebook. This is not something that FB’s lawyers will care to ask; they just want to bill some hours. But it’s not just a valid question, it’s really the ONLY question.

Let’s take a similar example. The “Got Milk?” campaign encouraging consumers that hormone-laden cow’s milk is better than oxygen, quickly seeped into our cultural literacy. Despite the campaign beginning in 1993, it’s still going, and since its inception, there have come a plethora of “Got Milk?” semi-clever spinoffs. “Got Weed?” stickers grace head shops. “Got Christ?” adorn the bumpers of conspicuous Christians. “Got Democracy?” became a political slogan during the Iraq War.

Did any of these harm the “Got Milk?” campaign? Of course not. Will “Teachbook” – the bulletin board site for teachers – have any harm on Facebook? How about reposts of silly FB posts of “Lamebook”? Not bloody likely. But, point of fact, are such sites cashing in on FB’s fame? Sure. But there has to be a point when we accept that something has become a part of our culture, and is larger than just a slogan or business or social networking site.

We are steeped in pop-culture references – all day, every day. And yet apparently so long as rights-holders can conjure hordes of blood-sucking lawyers at whim, the only entities capable of referring to our pop-culture are those that license. IE – other rights-holders and mainstream entertainment outlets. Not individuals. Not small business. Not just some guy trying to launch a Web site that people will like.

This is – as you may have noticed – not far from the recent BS surrounding the take down of all things Hobbit-related, despite having such references for decades. It’s only when The Hobbit is about to make a billion dollars at the box office that anyone cares. That anyone suddenly claims harm, as if a pub named “The Hobbit” might – what? – spend money on Hobbit Ale they might have otherwise spent on movie tickets or action figures? Get real.

At some point, we have to claim culture as a part of the commons, and I ain’t talkin’ about after 100 years.

Every once in a while, it’s a great day in the copyfight. And now that pay-up-or-else law firm Righthaven, LLC is going belly up, this is one such day.

You might remember Righthaven as the scheming ne’er-do-wells I wrote about before. They’re the ones who scour the Web for reposts of news stories, and then they would contact the news organization, buy the content, and then sue for infringement. What’s a daily pub care if someone pirates their week-old content? Not much, so they naturally were keen on selling content to Righthaven.

Righthaven had no intention of fighting the supposed good fight: that is, STOPPING copyright infringement. They wanted sites to infringe so they could sue them. Nowadays that means sending a pay-up-or-else notice rife with legalese and crossing their fingers that the suit never made it to court.

Well, some did, and it seems that there are still some judges out there with sense enough to not only laugh at such antics, but also to hold Righthaven to their threats. As it turned out, Righthaven often DIDN’T EVEN OWN THE COPYRIGHT, but simply claimed they did to extort a settlement. This happened enough times to result in a few losses, and build up quite a bill for Righthaven. Here’s where it gets fun.

A Las Vegas judge ordered that Righthaven surrender its interest in the more than 200 copyrights they owed. The irony is that Righthaven insisted they had no assets to cover the almost $200,000 in court costs they racked up over four losses in court, and yet this assertion flies in the face of the supposed value of intellectual property. How indeed can vampires like Righthaven file million-dollar lawsuits for infringement when the practical value of their own copyright holdings can’t even cover their court fees?

In a lovely twist, Righthaven doesn’t even have its trademark anymore, so I suppose I should more accurately refer to them as “the lichen formerly known as Righthaven” though that’s not terribly catchy.

The important take-away here is that it is worthwhile and vital that more people stand up to these predatory legal practices, because it’s obvious that few indeed have a legal leg to stand on. They buckle under the slightest scrutiny, and while it may seem easier and cheaper to acquiesce and simply pay the few thousand dollars to make such filth go away (regardless of guilt or innocence, harm or complete lack of harm), the more people and businesses stand up to these schemes, the less effective they become.

Tiffany & Co have had a longtime lawsuit against online auction site eBay for facilitating trademark infringement. According to Tiffany, many of the ostensibly Tiffany brand products on eBay are indeed counterfeits, and they assert that eBay is paving the way for a violation of their trademark.

However, I think it’s a good thing that Tiffany was shot down in the US Supreme Court on Monday, for a couple of reasons:

1. As evinced in the case, eBay bends over backwards to pull illegal wares from their site. This goes for trademark, copyright, and – I’m assuming – patent infringement. According to evidence presented in the case, eBay employs hundreds of people to find and remove infringing auctions. They also have a quick and decisive tattletale method that’s complaint-driven. While possibly a little shady (since competing sellers are more than willing to point a finger at a supposedly infringing auction if there’s no backlash) apparently the system works. You can’t sell a piece of OEM software without the hardware it came with, let alone a bootleg copy of Avatar. With trademark goods, there’s another check at work…

2. eBay allows refunds. Since most online auction transactions are handled by PayPal, it’s fairly easy for buyers to report bootleg material (if they thought they were buying the real McCoy) and either get their money back or – at the very least – blackball a seller pushing pirated goods. The last thing we need is for the courts to enforce more rules against eBay, so that no one can sell a damn thing on their without clearing it with the manufacturer, any involved trade organizations, and the president. In other words, the market will effectively handle the success or failure of bootleg sellers; we don’t need more lawsuits.

That’s not to say eBay is an agent of either copyright holders or bootleg sellers: they are just a middleman in the digital age. But they have created a system through which watchdogs, tattlers, and a caveat emptor review system effectively handles what might otherwise be a virtual black market for counterfeit goods. Them paying some inordinate fine wouldn’t have made that system any better, and the costs would have been past on to the consumers in the form of higher fees.

Perhaps what Tiffany & Co should think about doing is patenting some process of authentication for their products. Sure, bootleggers would mimic the process is short order, but surely there are myriad tactics more clever than another lawsuit.