Facebook, if you’ve been living on a deserted island, is eponymous with online social networking. Lamebook is a parody website recently created by Jonathan Standefer and Matthew Genitempo, two graphic designers from Austin, Texas. Lamebook highlights “the funny, absurd, and often ‘lame’ content that gets posted on the Facebook website” to provide fodder for its users’ social commentary. Lamebook does not provide social networking services, but allows “people to poke fun at and comment on the kind of pictures, comments, and messages that get posted” on Facebook. After receiving cease and desist letters from Facebook, Lamebook’s claim that it was a clear parody did not dissuade Facebook. Lamebook is now asking the Court to declare that it does not infringe or dilute the Facebook trademark and that its parody website is protected free speech under the First Amendment. The case is Lamebook, LLC, v. Facebook, Inc., 10-cv-00833 (W.D. Tex. 2010).
