From Mike Masnick on Techdirt:

Brazil’s Largest Newspaper Sues Parody Blog For Making Fun Of It

from the thin-skin dept

Marcos alerts us to a story coming out of Brazil, where the country’s largest newspaper publisher, Folha de S. Paulo is apparently suing a parody blog that was set up to mock the publisher. The parody blog is called Falha de S. Paulo. Obviously, the names are similar, but it’s a parody and it’s apparently somewhat clever in Portuguese. “Folha” is apparently somewhat akin to “Journal” in English, while “Falha” means “failure.” See? Clever. Apparently the Folha folks didn’t think so. They got a court order demanding the site be shut down and then filed suit, demanding monetary damages. The claim, of course, is trademark infringement. Not being too familiar with Brazilian law, I don’t know if there are parody exceptions, though obviously I think there should be. However, the claim is that it probably doesn’t much matter either way, as many expect Folha to win simply due to its political clout. That would be unfortunate if true. Either way, it’s a pretty sad statement when the largest newspaper in a country can’t handle a little parody.