‘Teenmagazine’ Web Address Sparks Suit

The publishers of Teen magazine said they have filed a suit against a New Jersey man who has registered the Teenmagazine.com Internet address and links it to pornographic Web sites. Attorneys for EMAP-Petersen Inc., the Los Angeles-based publisher of Teen magazine, said the suit was filed under a new federal “anti-cybersquatting” law, which protects trademark holders from speculators who register Web addresses hoping to sell them to the highest bidder. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Camden, N.J., targets Thomas Krwawecz, the 21-year-old chief executive of Blue Gravity Communications, which operates adult Web sites. Krwawecz said he will not give up the address and believes he is not violating the law because “teen” and “magazine” are common words that shouldn’t be trademarked. “We never registered the site with intent to force the magazine to purchase it from us,” he said. “We were going to put together an adult-related magazine site.”