Alberta premier vs Alberta blogger
p2pnet news | Freedom:- Alberta premier Ed Stelmach is now trying to wipe the egg off his face after realising he made a big mistake when he instructed his lawyers to go after an Edmonton blogger for “misappropriating Ed Stelmach’s personality“.
As the blogger, Dave Cournoyer, a political science student at the University of Alberta, says:
“I’m really not sure where Ed Stelmach’s personality is, but I certainly didn’t take it.”
Cournoyer, not Stelmach , owns edstelmach.ca. And that’s the problem.
But Cournoyer isn’t, and wasn’t, doing anything nasty with it. In fact, edstelmach.ca takes you to a Wikipedia posting for Harry Edwin Strom, the province’s first political leader.
Is the current Alberta political leader going after the young blogger because the latter’s ownership of the site means Stelmach can’t use it for his own purposes?
Maybe. But he already has a site paid for by the citizens of Alberta and which even includes a news section.
Guess what isn’t on it? 
Says Cournoyer on daveberta.ca:
“Right before Christmas, I received a letter in the mail from Tyler Shandro, a lawyer from the Calgary-based law firm Walsh Wilkins Creighton LLP, representing Alberta Premier Edward Stelmach regarding my ownership of the domain name edstelmach.ca, which I purchased for approximately $14.00 on April 4, 2007 (four months after Mr. Stelmach became Premier of Alberta).”
For most of the time he’s owned edstelmach.ca, it forwarded to his blog and, “A week before I received the letter from Premier Stelmach’s lawyer, I changed the forwarding to the wikipedia biography of another Alberta Premier (who also probably would have not thought to register his domain name).”
But the legal missive is demanding he hand the domain name over to Stelmach —- and give him a cut from the Google NonSense ads which were on the site.
Says the Calgary Herald:
“Stelmach had chief of staff Ron Glen call blogger Dave Cournoyer in an attempt to resolve a dispute that opened the premier up to criticism that he’s thin-skinned. Glen offered to buy the domain from Cournoyer – who purchased it in April 2007 for $14 – although no financial details were discussed.”
But the story has Cournoyer saying although he’ll think about it, “I would have been a lot more amicable to dealing with it had the premier not sent a letter threatening a lawsuit right off the bat.”
Experts say Stelmach, “could face an uphill legal battle because the blogger isn’t trying to steal his likeness by portraying the website as belonging to the premier,” says the Calgary Herald, adding:
” ‘I think (Cournoyer) probably has a pretty good case,’ said Cameron Hutchison, law professor at the University of Alberta. ‘This isn’t misappropriating one’s personality for commercial gain’.”
Also see:
misappropriating Ed Stelmach’s personality – Alberta premier threatens local blogger, January 9, 2008
Calgary Herald – Political analysts tell Stelmach to ‘back off’ domain name dispute, January 10, 2008
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