You have no right to use the word ‘Voice’
It took a ‘Village’ to try to stop The Cape Cod Voice
The cover of The Cape Cod Voice, November, 2002, created by Jill Maraghy, photos by Barry A. Donahue
PART ONE:
“Is this Seth Rolbein, editor and publisher of something called The Cape Cod Voice?”
“That’d be me.”
“This is Greg Goff, Executive Vice President of Village Voice Media.”
The year was 2002, and The Cape Cod Voice had been in existence since May, 2001. We were a feisty little band, committed to a style of journalism that was as Cape-centric as we could get but also as big and high as we could imagine.
We had a staff of a dozen full-time people – reporters, graphic designers, photographer, ad staff -- with another dozen or so regular contributors for columns, features and cartoons. Readers and advertisers had rallied around us, sometimes inspired and sometimes outraged but reading, commenting, feeding back. It was exhilarating and exhausting, an attempt to walk the idealistic, journalistic high wire in a small place.
I had enough hubris to take on both editor and publisher roles, one of many mistakes I made along the way. I prided myself on a jazz improvisation at work, picking up an anonymous ringing telephone (long before caller ID), available for whatever spontaneous riff, question or confrontation might be awaiting.
This one turned out to be among the most challenging.
“Mr. Goff is it?” I asked. It crossed my mind to ask if he was related to the Goff family in our area, one of whom was named Jack Goff, but instinct suggested I play it straight until I could find out the nature of the call.
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“To what do I owe the pleasure of your call from the Big Apple?”
“Well Mr. Rolbein, I’m letting you know that you must cease and desist publication, or change your name.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“I’m serious. You have no right to use the word ‘Voice.’ It violates important trademarks associated with Village Voice Media, owner and publisher of The Village Voice in New York City, and could lead to confusion among readers both in print and online. You’re muddying the waters and tarnishing our brand. This call is intended to inform you of that fact. We expect you to change the name of your publication.”
“This is some kind of joke, right?”
“Far from it.”
“OK, lemme sum things up: You call me out of the blue on a Tuesday morning, purport to be an executive from The Village Voice in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, and inform me that either I’m changing the name of The Cape Cod Voice or you’ll sue me and drive me out of business, do I have that right?”
“I’m not saying what we will or will not do if you continue to break copyright law, but the other elements are correct.”
“Hey Greg, have you ever heard of something called the First Amendment?”
“Hey Seth, I have.”
“Well then Greg, you’d be aware that using the word ‘Voice’ falls under its protection.”
“Well then Seth, you may or may not be a good journalist but clearly you’re not a competent trademark attorney.”
“Tell you what, Greg. First, provide me with verification you are who you say you are. Second, put this outrageous demand in writing, because I don’t think continuing this phone conversation is productive.”
I didn’t hear if what he said next began with “Tell you what, Seth …” because I hung up.
A registered letter showed up a few days later, sent from a law office in Charlotte, North Carolina; I hoped that meant none of the big-time New York City firms wanted to go near this. There was a bunch of legalese and threatening language invoking the Lanham Act, which covers trademark, letting me know that if I didn’t change the name their “remedies” included “injunctive relief, treble damages, an accounting for profits, punitive damages, attorneys’ fees and costs…
“Our previous experience with the Bloomington Voice, Dayton Voice and Tacoma Voice newspapers – each of which successfully changed its name after our client raised trademark infringement concerns with them --- indicates that we can accomplish our goal.”
That was interesting, because even Luddite me knew enough to do a Google search that in 0.16 seconds produced 1,150,000 hits where the words “voice” and “newspaper” appeared together. Narrowing that down to “Voice Newspaper” produced 8150 hits, including The Grenadian Voice, City Voice, Warsaw Voice, American Voice, Southern Voice, Student Voice, as well as Voice of America and even a Voice newspaper published by the Jewish community in Camden New Jersey that trademarked its name 17 years before the Village Voice.
When I dropped a dime to a wonderful First Amendment attorney in Boston, Carol Rose, who later became head of Boston’s branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, she took us on – and that was the only dime I ever spent with her. She soon returned their legal salvo with one of her own:
“Is it your position that no other publication may use the word ‘voice’ in its title? This would seem to be quite a reach … Even if The Village Voice intends to try to silence all other voices (itself an irony for a publication with a long and esteemed record as a defender of free speech), the multitude of Voices being used in the title of various publications suggests that your client’s ‘Voice’ trademark suffers from a profound lack of distinctiveness.”
But my new buddy Greg Goff was not deterred, and called again:
“We do feel compelled to continue,” he announced, but wanted to offer me one last chance to reconsider by mentioning that in another case, the Village Voice helped pay costs involved in changing a publication’s name.
“Like what?” I wondered, imagining all payroll for a year or two, trips to the Bahamas ...
“Like printing new business cards,” he explained.
I tried not to guffaw, and resorted to my “put it in writing” fallback.
Within a few days, I arrived at the far East End of Provincetown and rapped on the whitewashed wooden door of the only red-brick home in town. The man who answered knew in a cursory way why I was there and was expecting me, which was good because hey, who the hell barges in on Norman Mailer?
NEXT: MAILER’S HELP, AND OTHER PRESSURE, KEPT A CAPE VOICE VISIBLE
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