Louise Brooks Society website to be taken down

I am saddened to report that the Louise Brooks Society website (at www.pandorasbox.com) will be taken down. Over the course of the last year, an individual who has been trolling the LBS has managed to have the various LBS social media accounts (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc...) twice taken down by falsely alleging my pre-existing site infringed on his recent, 2019 trademark. And now, he has succeeded in taking down my website.

 

 

The Louise Brooks Society™ website was launched in 1995 as a "virtual fan club in cyberspace." It has been praised in the pages of the New York Times, USA Today, and Wired magazine. Besides considerable research, numerous articles, thousands of blogs, five books, and help in restoring two of Brooks' films, this website helped inspire the Emmy nominated documentary, Louise Brooks: Looking for Lulu, and, it helped bring both the Barry Paris biography and Brooks' own Lulu in Hollywood back into print. This site made a difference.... I am proud of what it accomplished. It has been a great run of 28 years getting to know Louise Brooks fans & scholars from around the world. To stay in touch with the latest regarding all things Lulu, be sure and follow the Louise Brooks Society™ blog (as long as it lasts).

 

How can this happen? Quite easily. If you have a registered trademark, all you have to do is wave the number around in front of an ISP or social media platform and they will remove any content that offends! It doesn't seem to matter if your claim is valid or not. The various internet platforms are - as they have explained to me time and again - simply following the law.

 

Pictured here is one of the pieces of "evidence" of trademark infringement which this person sent to my ISP. It is a recent snapshot of me (taken by my wife, no criminal she) wearing an old Clubfoot Orchestra / PandorasBox t-shirt which I personally bought from the musical group a long time ago at the Castro theater in San Francisco, following a performance in which they accompanied the film. Despite the fact this shirt is 10 or 20 years old, and despite the fact it was made by/for the Clubfoot Orchestra, and despite the fact that Louise Brooks' name doesn't even appear on the shirt, the troll person in question claimed it was a "knock-off" (meaning counterfeit?) product which violated his Louise Brooks trademark on apparel.

 

Such "proof" !

 

I am wearing that old wrinkled t-shirt today in celebration of tonight's Clubfoot Orchestra accompaniment of Pandora's Box at the glorious Paramount theater in Oakland. Long live Lulu, if not the Louise Brooks Society.

 

Sorry for the scary pic. I am getting old.
It's all those reels of microfilm I scrolled through.

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2023. Further unauthorized use prohibited.