Trademark Enforcement Run Amok

Village Voice is bullying tiny papers all across the country

Fran Reichenbach ripped off the Village Voice and she knows it. When the 51-year-old started her Hollywood-area community newspaper in 1998, she lifted the blue and white rectangular design of the Voice logo and simply replaced "Village" with "Beachwood."

Why is the Village Voice Media conglomerate telling a tiny publication 3000 miles from New York that it lacks the legal right to be the titular "voice" of its community? Do they honestly think that Beachwood Voice is causing "confusion in the marketplace"?

Meanwhile, as Voice Media lawyers no doubt continue to size up new targets, Fran Reichenbach is still weighing her options in Beachwood Canyon. "I’m a fighter," she says. "I don’t have much money, but the people [here] are behind my paper. They’re horrified by the Village Voice’s behavior."

-- NY Press