Greenpeace wins against Neste Oil in WIPO
Greenpeace gets to keep their parody site Nestespoilreturns.com, declares WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organisation) in a decision published on the WIPO home page August 6th. The Neste Oil group had filed complaints with WIPO against not only the original Nestespoil.com but also the sequel Nestespoilreturns.com for trademark infringement, in spite of earlier statements to the contrary. Greenpeace placed Nestespoilreturns.com with Binero hosting after a law suit from Neste Oil got the previous web host to shut down Nestespoil.com, rather than face a trial and possible damage claims.
-At web host Binero we welcomed Greenpeace to us, and we welcome the WIPO decision regarding them. Now that WIPO has also clarified that a parody with no commercial interest should be tolerated within the frames of free speech, we hope that Neste Oil will accept this and argue their case with the public, rather than the courts. We remain ready should they once again choose to take legal action against the middle-man, the web host, rather than the owner of the site, said Erik Arnberg, Marketing Manager, Binero web hosting.
Greenpeace opened the website Nestespoil.com as a parody of state-owned Finnish oil company Neste Oil’s website, in order to protest against the company’s large palm oil diesel production. Neste Oil sued the web host hosting the original Greenpeace website. The web host at that point, chose to immediately close down the web site. Greenpeace then set up the web page Nestespoilreturns.com with web host Binero.
Paragraph 18 of the Swedish E-commerce law regarding the responsibility of middle-men means a web host may be held responsible for all the websites of their customers. According to Binero this leads to absurd consequences and enables the suppression of free speech by action against vulnerable middle-men.
Neste Oil didn’t stop at a law suit about the content of the websites. They filed complaints with WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organisation) for trademark infringement against the domain names themselves in the form of a UDRP (Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy) process.
WIPO has made its decision. It has concluded that non-commercial criticism is part of the freedom of speech, and that Greenpeace has used the websites for a lawful purpose, without commercial interest. With the votes 2 to 1, Neste Oils complaint has been denied, which gives Greenpeace the right to use both domain names.
Neste Oil has withdrawn the lawsuit against the previous web host that closed down the website Nestespoil.com and has not filed any against Binero so far – nor any against the actual sender, Greenpeace.
For more information, please contact:
Erik Arnberg, Marketing
Manager, Binero: +4670 - 398 75 34, erik.arnberg@binero.se
Press photo: http://wwwbinero.se/omoss/pressinformation
WIPO:s decision: http://wipo.int/amc/en/domains/search/case.jsp?case_id=23640
Binero on the launch of Nestespoilreturns.com and the lawsuit: http://www.binero.se/omoss/pressinformation/host-binero-welcomes-greenpeace-parody-site-about-neste-oil-eu-directive-absurd
Binero on the complaint against Nestespoilreturns.com: http://www.binero.se/omoss/pressinformation/neste-oil-continues-fight-against-greenpeace-site,-in-spite-of-promises
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