Well, I’ve spent the last three days governing myself accordingly on this issue and edstelmach.ca. Here’s a bit of an update of what’s going on…
As was reported in the newspapers today:
Stelmach‘s chief of staff, Ron Glen, called Dave Cournoyer on Wednesday in search of a resolution to the fight over the domain name edstelmach.ca. Glen had heard Cournoyer might be amenable to settling the issue if he got a call from the premier.
Now, I’m still a little confused about who exactly I’m dealing with. Let me try to work this out:
1) Right before Christmas, I receive a letter from a lawyer representing Premier Ed Stelmach threatening me with litigation for misappropriating Premier Stelmach’s personality by owning edstelmach.ca.
2) January 8 – The Premier’s Office refuses to comment or become publicly involved with the issue. Alberta Progressive Conservative Executive Director Jim Campbell comments on it, saying the domain issue is theirs.
3) Afternoon, January 9 – I receive an email from the Premier’s lawyer saying that he is still waiting to hear from me or my legal representation.
4) Evening, January 9 – I receive a friendly phone call from Ron Glen, the Chief of Staff of the Office of the Premier (which didn’t want to comment or be involved with the issue the previous day), asking if there might be a way to amenably resolve this issue.
Understandably, I was a little surprised to get a phone call from the Premier’s Chief of Staff. I know that Mr. Glen is a good friend and long time adviser to Premier Stelmach, but I can’t help but be a little confused about who is handling the issue on their side of things.
Like I’ve said before, this has always been something that probably could have been resolved a lot quieter by a friendly email or phone call and not through a threatening legal letter (it’s kind of like shooting first and asking questions later). This said, I’ve never been interested in personally or financially profiting from this, so I will be taking a couple of days to weigh my options.
Here is some recent stories from bloggers and in the news about this story…
– Stelmach the bully in this web prank (Graham Thomson at the Edmonton Journal)
– Province threatens Cournoyer (The Gateway)
– Premier of Alberta threatens to sue blogging uni student for registering a domain with his name in it (BoingBoing)
– Premier Stelmach seeks truce over domain name spat (Edmonton Journal)
– Political Analysts tell Stelmach to ‘back off’ on domain name dispute (Calgary Herald)
– Expert expects preem to lose domain lawsuit (Edmonton Sun)
– Premier defends efforts to control internet address (Canadian Press on CBC Edmonton)
– Edmonton Sun Letter to the Editor
– Davberta punk’s Premier Ed. I love it! (Ken Chapman)
– edstelmach.com (Everybody has to live somewhere)
– Hard not to feel some sympathy for the Premier (David Climenhaga)
– Ed Stelmach threatens lawsuit over domain name (Ben Co.)
– Not an HRC issue, but blogger may be sued (timeimmortal)
– Alberta Premier vs Alberta Blogger (p2pnet.net)
– Alberta Premier threatens to sue blogger over cybersquatting ( The Agenda)
– On making Ed Stelmach look stupid (Cowboys for Social Responsibility)
– Unless you live under a rock (Alberta Tory)
– Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach vs. blogger (Alice the Camel)
– Craig Chandler bids for Stelmach’s domain name (La Revue Gauche)
– Hey Ed your domain is available (La Revue Gauche)
The Premier was also questioned about edstelmach.ca during his press conference this morning before he left for the First Ministers’ Conference in Ottawa.
