Companies Get Tough on Rogues Studios and Fortune 500 firms target unauthorized Internet sites that feature their products.
Crackdown affects fans as well as foes.
And it underscores the difficulties in mapping existing intellectual property laws onto cyberspace. Anyone with an opinion and a modem has long been able to declaim online. Either way, it is unfamiliar territory for companies accustomed to enjoying control over what gets disseminated about them. By and large, they don't like it. Brandishing trademark rights and asserting copyright claims, Fortune 500 companies including Time Warner, Kmart, Gateway 2000 and Intel Corp. are sending in the lawyers.