Starbucks Crushes "Mom n Pop Shops" By Any and All Means

08/15/2002

Starbucks coffee has attacked a local Astoria businesswoman-- they say she is guilty of using her own name on her store. Think you own your name? That you can use it wherever you want? Maybe not. Nearly two years ago, in October 2000, Samantha Buck of Astoria, Oregon bought a small coffee shop in downtown Astoria and named it Sam Buck's- after herself. One year later, Starbucks CoffeeR opened a Starbucks store inside Fred Meyers, five miles away. StarbucksR lawyers then served Samantha Buck with a cease and desist order: she must stop using her own name on her store, because they claimed it was causing confusion for Starbucks customers who might be led to believe they were patronizing a StarbucksR store when in fact, they were going into Sam Bucks.

They offered her $500 for the expense of removing her name from her store. Sam said no thank you, and soon thereafter, Starbucks filed a lawsuit. She must rename her store or an injunction will be filed, and assuming a properly corporate-friendly judge, will likely be issued and enforced. If Sam Buck continues to use her name on her store, she can be found in contempt of court, and can be jailed. StarbucksR of course, is under the impression that they own not only the name StarbucksR-which they plagiarized from Herman Melville's Moby Dick without attribution- but also anything that sounds vaguely like Starbucks.

This is the law of "intellectual property", which perversely twists what was originally intended to be a law to protect individual creators from abuse by predatory corporations into a tool used by predatory corporations to destroy individuals! This might just be a tempest in a teapot- except that it is not unique and it is emblematic of the rapidly progressing division of the world into fiefdoms controlled by globe-spanning corporations, each with their own exclusive logos, whose express purpose is to suppress all competition and destroy all diversity in their respective spheres of influence.

This is called "free market capitalism." Samantha Buck has received a great deal of local support and publicity in the local paper- in addition to stories in Portland and Seattle papers and Seattle IndyMedia. Patrons from Portland and Seattle make a point of stopping in to offer their help. She has the will to fight, and a little money. The store liability insurance may help a little- but she is going to need a lot more to do battle with a multi-national corporation.