You can thank Dan Nuzzi, Esq., the Brann & Isaacson lawyer who represents MSAD 75, that you have this blog to read again, and that you will hear all about our experiences with SAD 75 and its staff.
We had planned to let this blog quietly fade away. Our children are, after all, out of SAD 75 schools. And although we still have one lawsuit for access to public information pending against the District, we started that in the fall of 2019 and don’t expect any new disputes between us and SAD 75. We were going to let that lawsuit conclude and then move on with our lives without worrying about SAD 75.
We were not going to worry about the District because we thought that the District never really worried about this blog. We thought that the District had forgotten about the blog and didn’t care what we did with it. But then we got an email from Mr. Nuzzi:
Now would be a good time to cancel the domain names that you . . . have improperly registered in violation of federal antipiracy laws. 15 U.S.C. sec. 1831. Please cancel or transfer the domain names you have registered involving Jessica Fournier, as well as the District at your earliest convenience and provide proof thereof to my attention.
Actually Seattle City Attorney
Samuel H. Piles, ca. 1910.
We didn’t use Mr. Nuzzi’s picture because he would probably sue us. But you can see his firm’s picture of him.
Credit: Seattle Municipal Archives. Licensed under CC BY 2.0.
Several questions immediately popped into my head: Why is now a “good time” to cancel our domain names? Would other times be bad times? Or would other times be just as good? What does “involving” Jessica Fournier mean? And are we really pirates?
Although we didn’t expect to ever have an answer to the first four questions, we could look at the “federal antipiracy laws” that Mr. Nuzzi had cited to see if he had gotten the law right this time (we’ll post more in the future about Mr. Nuzzi getting the law wrong) and we were, in fact, pirates. Title 15, section 1831 of the U.S. Code (the “15 U.S.C. sec. 1831” that Mr. Nuzzi had cited) is a 1976 law that sets aside money to help protect horses from mistreatment. That didn’t convince me that we had illegally registered internet domain names.
By the time I responded to Mr. Nuzzi and told him that the statute he cited had to do with horses and not domain names, Mr. Nuzzi had realized his mistake and had sent another email that said, in its entirely, “Clarification. 15 USC 8131.” Poetic, isn’t it?
So I looked at Title 15, section 8131 of the U.S. Code. Mr. Nuzzi was off to a bad start just from the title. The title is “Cyberpiracy protections for individuals.” “Individual” means a living, breathing human being. The MSAD 75 is not an “individual.” (Jessica Fournier is, however.)
The text of the statute didn’t help Mr. Nuzzi, either. Here’s what the first paragraph of it says:
Any person who registers a domain name that consists of the name of another living person, or a name substantially and confusingly similar thereto, without that person’s consent, with the specific intent to profit from such name by selling the domain name for financial gain to that person or any third party, shall be liable in a civil action by such person.
Under this statute, there are two things that are necessary for a domain name registration to constitute “piracy.” First, the domain name must “consist[] of the name of another living person.” Second, the registration must be made “with the specific intent to profit from [the] name.”
Again, SAD 75 is not a “living person.” Therefore, Mr. Nuzzi’s claim that our registration of domain names that consist of SAD 75’s name (msad75.org, sad75.org, and rsu75.org) was an “improper” “violation of federal antipiracy laws” (is there a proper way to violate federal law?) is nonsense.
Mr. Nuzzi was in slightly better shape with his claim as to the domain names consisting of Jessica Fournier’s name. At least she is a “living person.” But, as was the case with the District’s names, we didn’t register the domain names with the “specific intent to profit” from them. Although we did, over a year after we first registered the domain names, offer to sell them to the District , that was in response to the District’s demand for money from us, and was intended as a way to settle things with the District.
Had Mr. Nuzzi started off with a pleasant email and reasonable request or offer for us, he might have gotten somewhere. But his condescending “Now would be a good time” email did not result in us seeing things his way.
Mr. Nuzzi’s email didn’t succeed in convincing us that this was a good time to transfer the domain names to MSAD 75, but it did convince us that MSAD 75 would pay attention to our blog and that the blog would be a good way to try to convince the District that some things need changing.
And one of the things that need changing is SAD 75’s legal representation. After we post a few more things that we have planned to post from the beginning, we will introduce our special series on why SAD 75 should replace Dan Nuzzi and Brann & Isaacson with new attorneys to advise and represent it.
Stay tuned!