Five Steps Guaranteed to Produce
A 'Cease and Desist' Letter

The Internet makes it easier than ever to publish, and easier than ever to receive the infamous "cease and desist" letter from a lawyer. I know. After two years of trying my darndest to avoid them, I've gotten three. For the masochists in the crowd, here's my recipe for legal disaster:

1. First, come up with a brilliantly original idea. Then repeat after me: "There is no such thing as an original idea."

2. Once you've recovered from the rapture of invention, go to a search engine of your choice and find the 100 other people who are already exploiting your dream. See that enticing headline, logo or mission statement? Come up with something similar enough to get the webmaster's attention, but different enough to be distinct. Also take note of the names they're using and save them for a later step.

3. When you're designing your site, sprinkle it liberally with images, photographs and artistic renderings from popular culture. As a general rule, anything from Disney, Star Trek or Star Wars attracts legal eyes like flies to honey.

4. Come up with a clever name. The more clever it is, the more likely someone else is using it. Remember the names you saw in step 2? Change them around a bit, spell them differently, invert their order — it doesn't matter. As long as a lawyer thinks the name might be confused with an existing name, you're sure to get hit.

5. Submit your name to a search engine. Include as keywords the names of all of your competitors.

Dan Pacheco is the online producer for Technology Post. He's given up on creativity altogether.