My website – www.conjugalfelicity.com – was disabled today by my hosting service. Apparently they (and I) are getting sued by Sylvia Scott Gibson, author of the Latawnya the Naughty Horse books.

For copyright infringement.

This is going to be interesting.

Didn't that happen once already?

I sporked some of her books, including quotations and a few images from the books.

Did you read the spork of "Spicy Stories" or whatever? That was plenty to convince me. tl;dr she thinks there's some vast conspiracy centered around keeping her family Down. The Man is in charge of it.

If When you win this – you totally need to post a bit about this book on II. XD

When I saw the title of this thread, I was sure the Tesches were after you.

Good luck. She really does sound crazy.

From Wikipedia:

In August 2010, the author filed a pro se lawsuit against Amazon.com, Urban Dictionary, and Wikimedia, objecting to Amazon’s placing the book in their catalog, and Urban Dictionary and Wikipedia describing it. The text of the lawsuit is riddled with spelling and grammatical errors, and erroneously describes Urban Dictionary and Wikimedia as being located at the same geographical address.

When I saw the title of this thread, I was sure the Tesches were after you.

ditto. That would have been very interesting…

Latawnya the Naughty Horse .Wait, really? Really? REALLY? Really? If the judge reads that and bursts out laughing before throwing the case out, I will be a happy man.

You Americans and your wacky lawsuits ;P

In Soviet Sweden, crazy gets sued.

Same.

Same again.

If the judge reads that and bursts out laughing before throwing the case out, I will be a happy man.

Amen.

Good luck, Rorschach.
Also, keep us posted. :-)

I got sidetracked by memories of Latawnya and couldn’t read any further for the laughter.

Dude, I’m fairly sure you will win this one. The fair use defence is on your side.

Tee hee hee, Latawnya. Sorry for your troubles and I can give proper condolences in a moment, but LATAWNYA. I’d nearly forgotten about that thing. Lol!

Wouldn’t this all fall under fair use as a parody/critique? Unless you were quoting/posting images of significant parts of the book, I don’t see how it would count. That’s why we’ve got fair use copyright laws, after all, to protect people who want to critique/parody things.

@ swenson: The Fair Use doesn’t stop you from being prosecuted, it’s just a really reasonable defence.

So, Rorschach, what happened/is happening with this whole thing anyway?

I went and checked, though — no Latawnya the Naughty Horse (gigglesnort) to be seen anywhere.

Also, Rorschach, INCLUDE A DAMN COMMENTS SECTION! I wanted so desperately to comment on Crabs: Human Sacrifice, and I couldn’t.

Well all the best. Ridiculous that they would bother to go after a sporking.

So?

Are we allowed to come to the courthouse and cheer you on?

We can wave pompoms and chant:

The Gibsons are insane!
The Gibsons are insane!
In prison, people like them usually get shanked!
Because they are insane!

Ok, so it needs work.

Well?

Crabs: Human Sacrifice

WHAT???
:-o

See the Book Porn thread for pictorial evidence :)

I’m not being sued anymore!

The case was dismissed, as I discovered today, at long, long, long last. Actually, it was dismissed nearly a month ago. I found out today because the case had essentially been sitting in limbo for the past six months and was at the point where I’d practically forgotten about it (waiting to see if the Gibsons would continue pursuing the matter).

So. That’s pretty sweet. And now I need to actually write up a few obscenely long articles about the lawsuit and the general hilarity that went along with it.

Oh, excellent. The whole thing was ludicrous to begin with, of course, but still nice to get it out of the way.

And yes, you DO need to write something up about it. I want to hear all about it.

Why’d it get dismissed, by the way? Judge decide it was just too stupid, or did Gibson drop the matter?

And now I need to actually write up a few obscenely long articles about the lawsuit and the general hilarity that went along with it.

Oh yes! I love seeing authorial madness in action!

That is awesome. I look forward to a blow by blow account of the mayhem.

Why’d it get dismissed, by the way? Judge decide it was just too stupid, or did Gibson drop the matter?

bit of both, actually.

I think my favorite part of this entire affair is that according to her Facebook, Sylvia Scott Gibson is writing a book about the “Internet Thieves Who Entered My Family Into Pornography”. Then again, she also said that she’s forgiven the internet thieves who did all this.

I think my favorite part of this entire affair is that according to her Facebook, Sylvia Scott Gibson is writing a book about the “Internet Thieves Who Entered My Family Into Pornography”. Then again, she also said that she’s forgiven the internet thieves who did all this.

What.

Well…I guess it’ll be funny. And now you know that you’re famous. A wank author is going to write a book on how mean you were.

Please put the spork back up. I’d love to see it.

“Internet Thieves Who Entered My Family Into Pornography”

Is it bad that I really want to read this?

bq. “Internet Thieves Who Entered My Family Into Pornography”

THEY ARE HACKERS ON STEROIDS

“Internet Thieves Who Entered My Family Into Pornography”

What does that actually mean? How do you enter someone into pornography?

it brought up a porn website that also had a messageboard where people were talking about the Latawnya the Naughty Horse book. Hence, entering her family into pornography – since the characters of the horses are her family’s names.

Well, that’s what she gets for naming her characters after her family members. That sounds like a personal problem to me.

Yeah, Taku, never underestimate the ability of morons to come up with moronic children’s names.

There was, honest to god, a student at my work named Le-a.

Try to pronounce it, go on.

There was, honest to god, a student at my work named Le-a.

Yeah that’s a lie. Don’t lie on the internet. I will always find out.

Yeah, Taku, never underestimate the ability of morons to come up with moronic children’s names.

There is absolutely nothing moronic about choosing a name other than “Dave” or “Sarah” for your child. This is a writing forum, right? Have some god damn creativity. We don’t need anymore Daves or Sarahs or Rachels.

I’d rather be named Latawnya or Laquisha or LaFawnduh than Dave. Is your name Dave? I bet your name is Dave. Or Zach. You seem like a Zach. How does it feel to have someone shout your name in a crowded room and have no idea if they’re actually speaking to you, Zach?

How does it feel to have someone shout your name in a crowded room and have no idea if they’re actually speaking to you, Zach?

I have a very common name. This happens a lot.

Getting kinda racist in here.

Not you. But the undertone to some of these posts is “Haha, black people give their kids such stupid names.”

Names are almost never chosen for their meaning so that’s a pretty irrelevant thing to bring up. People name their kids Zach because other people named their kids Zach and they think it sounds good.

Not necessarily. Most people I knew actually do choose based on the meaning. That’s where mine and my sister’s came in, as well as most of my friends.

And yeah, there are plenty of people in the world who just might have God in mind with a name. I know a guy named Theodore. He was named that because it meant ‘gift of God’ and they hadn’t thought that they were going to have a kid. Not because of Teddy Roosevelt or the chipmunk.

It does actually happen. Even today.

Also, I’ve never actually met a Zach. Met way, way, way, too many people with names I had to see spelled out before I could properly say them though. While I’ll give that sound has a definite influence (hence not many Oswalds lately) but I think that meaning really does have a point. Hence why I prefer my name to something like Lucinda which was just flat made up by the guy who wrote Don Quixote.

Also, you neglect to note that people also name their children for family.

But the undertone to some of these posts is “Haha, black people give their kids such stupid names.”

I didn’t really see that. Huh.

I was thinking of some people I know (white) who think they they were being ‘original’ by making up names for their kids. They have this seriously pretentious attitude towards everyone around them for it too. It just sets my teeth on edge.

And Sues. I’ve been reading about why too many Sue names lately. I’d like a character named Amy or Mary or Rachel in one of these books. It would be rather nice for a change.

(Ironic for someone’s whose screen name is somewhat unpronounceable.)

Edit@Nossus: I did wonder. I guess I’ve just kind of accepted it and developed a kind of liking for my name.

bq. I’d rather be named Latawnya or Laquisha or LaFawnduh than Dave. Is your name Dave? I bet your name is Dave. Or Zach. You seem like a Zach. How does it feel to have someone shout your name in a crowded room and have no idea if they’re actually speaking to you, Zach?

Nope, sorry. My name means "he who gives" in Hebrew.

Quit trolling.

ಠ_ಠ

It was mostly directed at Willow and Taku. Especially Taku. If somebody had said something with that kind of undertone about one of his pet causes, he’d post a three page cryfest about it.

Aaand this is way, way off-topic.

I’d suggest starting up a new thread to discuss the merits of unique names, if anyone wants to continue the discussion.

I’m not angry.

Eh, I’ve lived in places where the weirdest names were given to white girls. I knew one girl in high school named Polly Esther Slack, and another named Candle Light. My sister had a friend named Celestial, and one of our neighbors was named Brittany, but she changed it to Ocean. The black girls at my school had names like Ashley and Brittany.

There was, honest to god, a student at my work named Le-a.

There is at least one other person with the same name (AND pronunciation), unless you worked with my cousin. She is a teacher and it WAS a student… but she lives in SoCal and I have some vague memory of you being in the midwest somewhere >.>

In NZ a while ago someone named their kid “Tallula does the Hula from Hawaii”. The registry that handles that sort of thing rejected it, though. From an article on it:

Officials had blocked Sex Fruit, Keenan Got Lucy and Yeah Detroit, [Judge Rob Murfitt] said, but Number 16 Bus Shelter, Violence and Midnight Chardonnay had been allowed.

@Pryotra: This has been bugging me for a while. How does one pronounce “Pryotra” exactly? Is it a name from some other media, or an original?

Holy crap this thread went crazy o.O

@Nossus

A coworker mentioned the student. I didn’t believe my coworker either, so I checked our academic records. Yep, that student exists.

@Sansa

I had no intention to be racist. I don’t even know what ethnicity Le-a was. Anyone can come up with an idiotic name. For chrissake, Gwyneth Paltrow named her baby Apple. Apple is not a name. Nor is Blanket. And calling your kid George is fine, but calling multiple children George is just plain mean.

Pry-OH-tra? Pree-oh-tra?

On first glance I’d say “pry-oh-tare-uh”

Now that I’ve looked at the spelling, I’d say “pry-oh-truh”

Would a Japanese person pronounce it P-ryo-tra?

I didn’t think so.