Why pissing off Encyclopedia salesmen is a bad idea

Ever since a judge ruled that Dan Brown did not plagiarize Lewis Perdue, I’ve been waiting for the next juicy lawsuit to show up. Luckily, the folks at PublishAmerica — everyone’s favorite vanity press masquerading as a real one — has cooked up a fine mess that’s landed them in one of Northern Illinois’ District Courts.

Seems that PA has an imprint that they originally called PublishBritannica, which is supposed to be the UK arm of their Vast Empire. But alas, PA didn’t seem to understand the whole concept of trademark infringement, and naturally, the folks at EB aren’t too happy, and have sued for trademark infringement.

What’s fun about the filing is that EB links to a bunch of news stories about PA’s practices to show that they aren’t exactly the most trustworthy bunch. And it seems that PA ignored the filing for a little while — until they made one concession, changing the site name to “PublishBritannia.” Whether that will work, of course, is another story…

Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.