The Raging Trademark Battle Between Southern Voice‘s New + Old Regimes

Do you even still care what happens to gay newspaper brands like The Southern Voice? After being sold for pennies to the publishers of Gaydar (which also bought Window Media’s David magazine) and leaving former SoVo editor Laura Douglas-Brown and Chris Cash without the assets (by bidding $9,000, or $1k more than Douglas-Brown and Cash’s offer), SoVo‘s new owners say their auction sparring partners illegally used the paper’s trademark to drum up support for its new project GA Voice.

Enter the cease and desist letters from Gaydar’s co-owner Matt Neumann, and claims that Douglas-Brown and Cash’s SaveSovo.com — the website launched after Window abruptly folded and left employees in a lurch — violated the intellectual property Gaydar now owns.

There’s also the claim that GA Voice has surreptitiously taken over the street distribution boxes that SoVo once used (see photo.) Nevermind that “the Atlanta Free Press – a Gaydar publication that struggled with staffing before it ceased printing in December – used SoVo boxes for distribution before the company purchased the assets of the former newspaper.”

Long live the stereotype that gays are bitchy.

[ProjectQ]