NY Times Sues Huff Post Over "Parentlode"
Blogger, Lisa Belkin, an AOL employee for nearly 30 years, writes on subjects of motherhood and parenting in a 3-year old blog she refers to as a "virtual koffee klatch with good friends." She calls her blog Motherlode, and distributes her work through The New York Times. Last month, after leaving her position with New York Times, she begins writing for Huffington Post. Her new blog, with the initial post on October 24, she calls Parentlode, and is, she says, an attempt to create interest and readership from other sources, "in an era when fathers are every bit the parent" and in hopes that her new blog will encourage equality through changing parental roles.
According to an article in Reuters, a lawsuit filed late Friday in US District Court in Manhattan, claims the blogs' names are too similar for readers to distinguish her current work, from her previous work. The lawsuit claims that Belkin clearly intended to create confusion for readers who followed her work through the similarly named blog, and requests that her new blog be renamed in an attempt to avoid having readers mistake authorship. NY Times' Motherlode blog, according to Belkin's final post on October 7, 2011, will continue.
Both companies which are based in New York, declined to comment.
