Taubman Sucks is an award-winning short documentary

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 about a precedent-setting intellectual property

Intellectual property

Intellectual property is a term referring to a number of distinct types of creations of the mind for which a set of exclusive rights are recognized—and the corresponding fields of law...

 lawsuit

Lawsuit

A lawsuit or "suit in law" is a civil action brought in a court of law in which a plaintiff, a party who claims to have incurred loss as a result of a defendant's actions, demands a legal or equitable remedy. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint...

.

The documentary was written and directed by filmmaker Theo Lipfert, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Media and Theater Arts of Montana State University

Montana State University - Bozeman

Montana State University – Bozeman is a public university located in Bozeman, Montana. It is the state's land-grant university and primary campus in the Montana State University System, which is part of the Montana University System...

 in Bozeman, Montana

Bozeman, Montana

Bozeman is a city in and the county seat of Gallatin County, Montana, United States, in the southwestern part of the state. The 2010 census put Bozeman's population at 37,280 making it the fourth largest city in the state. It is the principal city of the Bozeman micropolitan area, which consists...

. An original score

Film score

A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...

 was created for the documentary by composer Stefan Hakenberg

Stefan Hakenberg

Born in Wuppertal, Germany, composer Stefan Hakenberg now resides in Juneau, Alaska. Reviewers have praised his music as "highly original," "dramatic and memorable," "creating strong musical expressions in a densely contrapuntal style." The integration of players of non-western classical...

 of Juneau, Alaska.

The six-minute film explores Taubman v. WebFeats, a lawsuit that involved the complex relationships between domain name

Domain name

A domain name is an identification string that defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control in the Internet. Domain names are formed by the rules and procedures of the Domain Name System ....

s, trademark

Trademark

A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or...

s, and free speech. As the first "sucks.com" case to reach the level of the United States Court of Appeals

United States court of appeals

The United States courts of appeals are the intermediate appellate courts of the United States federal court system...

, the decision in Taubman v. WebFeats established precedents concerning the non-commercial use of trademarks in domain names.

Screening history

Taubman Sucks premiered at the Seattle Art Museum

Seattle Art Museum

The Seattle Art Museum is an art museum located in Seattle, Washington, USA. It maintains three major facilities: its main museum in downtown Seattle; the Seattle Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park on Capitol Hill, and the Olympic Sculpture Park on the central Seattle waterfront, which opened on...

 on June 19, 2004. It subsequently has been screened at more than 30 film festival

Film festival

A film festival is an organised, extended presentation of films in one or more movie theaters or screening venues, usually in a single locality. More and more often film festivals show part of their films to the public by adding outdoor movie screenings...

s and has appeared on television several times. It was one of ten short films selected for the "Best of the Northwest Film & Video Festival Tour" sponsored by the Northwest FilmCenter

Northwest Film Center

The Northwest Film Center is a regional media arts resource and service organization based in Portland, Oregon, United States that was founded to encourage the study, appreciation, and utilization of film...

 in 2005.

External links

• Taubman Sucks on YouTube.
• Singing Pictures – Theo Lipfert's video production company.
• Stefan Hakenberg
  Stefan Hakenberg
  Born in Wuppertal, Germany, composer Stefan Hakenberg now resides in Juneau, Alaska. Reviewers have praised his music as "highly original," "dramatic and memorable," "creating strong musical expressions in a densely contrapuntal style." The integration of players of non-western classical...
  
   article in English edition of Wikipedia.
• Stefan Hakenberg article in German edition of Wikipedia.