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Wikipedia has sent a cease and desist letter to a friend, what should she do?

5 points by imazio ↗ HN
Hi, a friend has received a letter from Wikipedia demanding for a change of an Instagram account handled by my friend. It’s handler is a game of words that sounds like Wikipedia. My friend is scared as it is the main source of income. Any useful advice??

7 comments

[ 8.6 ms ] story [ 204 ms ] thread
pwg
The proper advice here is: consult an attorney.
slater
^ That.
imazio
It is the obvious answer, I agree. But if your main source of income is at risk, there is a lot of uncertainty around standing up. Even if you think it is right.
imazio
Thanks for the advice, I said the same thing. They are scared and thinking about giving up and bending to the request. I had hopes on someone providing some argument convincing enough as to consider fighting this (unreasonable request from my humble point of view).
AnimalMuppet
This might be someone pretending to be Wikipedia. What legal basis does Wikipedia have for telling someone to change something on Instagram? (Unless it's removing Wikipedia content, which would be a reasonable - and legally enforceable - request.)
imazio
I am actually surprised as well. It is because the handler sounds like “wikipedia”, but it includes a bad word (not in English though)
[dead] GabbieReagan
Hi there I wonder why Wikipedia would even bother to write personally.