Don’t worry I’m going to keep fighting the good fight and won’t be backing down. I’ll try to keep everybody updated on whats going on. Thanks for all the support though it really helps keep me strong.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about check out these background posts from a while back.

Sorry I haven’t been writing here as much lately but I’m spending most of my time writing over at my new MRC blog The Blast which has been incredibly successful by the way. It’s reached more than 300,000 visitors in just the past three months or so. It’s also been linked across the blogosphere and the rest of the web.

So you can check me out there and also at Human Events where I get to write op eds from time to time.

For now (I’ll try to write more in the morning) here is his first post at his new roosting place. It’s classic Sean Medlock as I always say…

They replay this same argument several times and then “demand” that I, within 10 days, stop all use of the label “The College Politico”, literally give them control of my domain name “thecollegepolitico.com”, and write them a letter declaring I will permanently cease and refrain from all future use of “The College Politico” or anything similar to POLITICO.

Just to explain, in case anybody was wondering, when I created my blog I had no intention to draw any relation to POLITICO. I was simply trying to find a snappy way to describe myself, hence The College Politico. And apparently, at least according to POLITICO’s attorney’s, I was too dumb to realize that the noun politico (originating in 1630 according to Websters) wasn’t a word which describes somebody in politics but rather a piece of property owned by a news conglomerate.

I certainly didn’t create it with any odd intention of somehow tricking people into thinking I was affiliated with POLITICO… and I honestly cant see how anyone who visits my site could ever get the idea that I was in any way affiliated with POLITICO. I mean the sites aren’t remotely similar in lay out or content (or enjoyability for that matter). Other than the commonly used noun politico what do we have in common? It’s my understanding, at least, that POLITICO is now and always has been a news organization.

In fact, the trademark they hold for POLITICO and CAMPUS POLITICO is only applicable in newspaper reporting about capitol politics or “news and information via the internet” about, essentially, capitol politics. Is that what I do here at The College Politico? It’s really hard for me to say yes or no because that’s such an absurdly broad net… is my opinion on news considered news and information? I wouldn’t say so… would you?

Another, perhaps more interesting, question that arises from POLITICO’s trademarks is the specific nature of them. You see, they don’t just own POLITICO and CAMPUS POLITICO, they own WALL STREET POLITICO, HOLLYWOOD POLITICO, MOBILEPOLITICO, LA POLITICA, EL POLITICO, and POLITICO TV. Now if they really believe, as they argue, that use of the term politico is a violation of their trademark then why do they keep trademarking such specific phrases including the term? It’s also interesting that someone was able to claim the trademark for PR POLITICO.com well after POLITICO had been trademarked… how does that work in all of this?

Quite frankly though I question their ability to trademark a commonly used term like politico and if I have the resources I would like to challenge it. They most certainly didn’t create the term politico or define it so why in the world should they have specific right to it?

In my opinion this seems like an ugly attempt to intimidate me into handing over a brand which I’ve worked extremely hard to build. A simple google search shows that the term “Politico” is used in a myriad of other politically focused sites which makes me feel as though they are singling me out.

Unfortunately, I’m not a lawyer and I have next to no money to spend on one. That’s where I really need help… does anybody know a good lawyer that might want to help me out for little or no money? Or will I have to give up fighting before I’ve even started?

UPDATE: I want to make sure that I say thank you to everyone who has posted about this and is supporting me… here is the list so far (I’ll update it if more people jump in):
Patterico
Ace of Spades HQ
Instapundit
HotAir
Vermontaigne
Riehl World View
Instapundit (making a point about the word pundit)
Stop the ACLU
Freedom & Liberty
The Sundries Shack
NewsBusters (it should be noted that they are merely reporting the facts and that I write for them)
Daily Pundit
Doubleplusundead
Blogs For Victory
The Minority Report (cross posted at Seeking Liberty)
Yid With Lid
Submitted to a Candid World

I also want to thank everybody whose given me support on twitter, through email, and in comments. I can’t express how much gratitude I have for all the kind words. Thank you.

I am happy to say that it contributed to the retraction of the Politico story. Read up and enjoy!

Besides if you don’t read his post you won’t get the full story and you might not fully understand how I came to my conclusions.

The basic summary is that the History Channel in all likelihood didn’t commission or run these anti-American ads (click to enlarge):

And this anti-Christian/western ad (click to enlarge):

However, the ad agency which works for the History Channel (among many others), Ogilvy & Mather, did commission the ads then brand them with History Channel logos and even submit them to the prestigious CLIO awards. And what’s worse is that these absurd ads actually won a CLIO award.

Now, again, Caleb Howe has great insights into all the things wrong with this situation and these ads so go read his post. But, he doesn’t go quite far enough down the CLIO trail. There is definitely a lot more to this.

I mean, sure, I could buy that the award ceremony disregards political messages and judges the entries based off of their creativity and visual appeal… except that those ads are neither creative or visually appealing. They look like something a 6 year old made in paint on windows 95. For goodness sake if that’s all it takes to reach the pinnacle of print advertising then sign me the heck up!

I’ll be raking in the millions in no time and I can barely get by with my cheap rip off of photo shop. Seriously, look at those pictures. It’s just a quick and simple cut and past job. And a crappy one at that. Those stupid billboards couldn’t look less like they were a part of the picture. Over all this potential campaign is just a worthless piece of crap.

So that leads me to this question: HOW THE HECK DID THIS WIN A PRESTIGIOUS AWARD???

Despite the in depth analysis a screaming question like that might seem to require I can offer only this: It’s anti-American political message. Nothing else makes a lick of sense.

Make sure you check out my latest post at NewsBusters.

It’s about the death of old media gatekeeper snd the problems with the current new media gatekeepers.

Thanks,

CP