Above the Law v. CNN: The Reader Contest
Who wants to write the ATL cease-and-desist letter to CNN?
Last week, Mike Sacks of the National Law Journal Tweeted this picture to Above the Law:
My immediate reaction, preserved in an email to Breaking Media CEO John Lerner, was “What the s**t is this?” It turns out that the programing heads at CNN Money decided it would be good to run a whole series called “Above the Law” about — wait for it — debt and your legal options to protect yourself.
If I’m not mistaken, there’s already a well-established brand that covers law and debt and is named ABOVE THE LAW. As Steven Seagal might say: CNN thinks it’s above the law… but it ain’t above mine. CNN is using our name, our color scheme, the #abovethelaw hashtag, and pretty much our kind of storylines. Talk about likelihood of consumer confusion — I wondered if we had entered into some kind of partnership with CNN that nobody around here told me about.
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We’ve got a case. A live one. Our mark has been registered since 2006, though we hardly need to register given the robust New York laws protecting us from this kind of infringement. We could farm this out to outside counsel, but that would be the kind of slow, old-media response that seems more out of the CNN playbook. The series went live on February 17th, 2015. I don’t want to still be waiting on our response when the snow melts.
Can’t one of you write this? Can’t all of you write this? We want some free lawyer work from a lawyer who wants the publicity of defending us from CNN. We’ll make you famous (around these parts anyway). Hell, CNN will probably have you on to talk about suing CNN because CNN doesn’t know what each of its 19 hands are doing. We’re looking for a special lawyer to write a cease-and-desist letter for us. They’ll tell you I’m insane. But I got a blank space, baby, and I’ll write your name.
Who wants to help us? Interested readers should submit the following three or four things, we’ll post the best and funniest finalist, and then pick a winner:
Email for submissions: tips at abovethelaw dot com
Subject Line: ATL C&D
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1. A one-paragraph summary of our best arguments. Remember, we’re paying you in fame, and you’re not going to get there if you’re boring. We want the Above the Law C&D to be dripping with Above the Law-ness. Show us you can do that.
2. A paragraph about yourself and why you are the person to help us. Some of us here care about “prestige,” others care about “tacos.” Tell us a little about yourself so we can judge you.
3. An estimation of how many hours (or, you know, six-minute increments) this will take you. We’d feel bad if this took too much of your time.
4. (Optional) Can you describe our case in a single meme or gif? Because that would be awesome. I’ve already tried to inform CNN of their infringement over Twitter.
Sound like fun? Great. Let’s do this.
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And CNN, next time you want to run a special “Above the Law” series, GIVE ME A CALL. I’m available, I clean up good on television, and I won’t piss off every black viewer in America like Don Lemon.
