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Not Amused

Burson-Marsteller, one of the world’s top PR firms, has sicced its legal team on Hampshire College freshman Paul Hardwin. His crime?

Hardwin allegedly violated the firm’s trademark by creating a fake Burson-Marsteller site. Hardin, unable to afford a lawyer, is mounting his own defense.

In his 57-page rebuttal of the charges, Hardin observes that Burson-Marsteller’s stated mission is "to ensure that the perceptions which surround our clients and influence their stakeholders are consistent with reality." That is exactly what his site is doing, writes Hardin, since he is providing the public with "academic and journalistic materials about Burson-Marsteller’s involvement with and relationship to, for example, Philip Morris and the National Smoker’s Alliance, a consumer front group designed to create the appearance of public support for big-tobacco policies; Union Carbide and the deaths of 20,000 people following the 1984 disaster in Bhopal; and political regimes such as that of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and, more recently, Saudi Arabia, following the events of September 11; and to properly associate them with the relevant Trademark so that they may be understood accordingly by Internet users."

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