Just to clarify:
"junk" email = spam, he apparently got signed up for a lot of strange lists

"miscontstrued" [sic] = would've been nice to have had a chance to clarify way back when - I'd add "mainstream" before "media outlet"; blogs vis-a-vis other sources e.g. NPR or Fox. Although blogs fuel the mainstream media today for better and worse (e.g. "Little Red Book" scandal at UMass), it's only a small percentage of the gen pop that gets its news directly from the blogosphere. Of course you have every right to publish anything you want and in the case of dispute have the right to due process!

business drives controversy = I look at Carl's Jr. and GoDaddy and chuckle. Why doesn't anyone think Coke Zero was on purpose?

Peter, now you're just being disingenuous. "Of course you have every right to publish anything you want" is most decidedly not what you were telling me three years ago. Rather, you were engaging in bully tactics by sending me a strongly-worded c&d. In case you've forgotten, here's what it says:

"If you fail to comply with these demands, please be assured that PUMA will vigorously protect its rights and will take all action necessary, including but not limited to, bringing a claim for damages and/ or injunctive relief."

Which is actually an utterly false statement: I failed to comply with your demands, and PUMA vigorously protected fuck bugger all. There was never any claim for damages, for injunctive relief, or for anything else.

A lot of c&d letters are like this: they seek to get people to capitulate without having to take them to court. And normally, such letters work -- most of the people who received that c&d did, in fact, take down the images, despite the fact that they weren't infringing your trademark and were within their First Amendment rights. One might even say that the main purpose of a c&d is to bypass the right to due process by bullyiing people into giving that right up.

As for your not having a chance to clarify way back when -- I can't say I feel much sympathy. You had my phone number and email address -- you could have got in touch at any point to give your point of view. Or you could have left a comment on MemeFirst. Or you could have published anything you liked on your own website. (As I pointed out at the time, it was very weird that the official Puma statement on the images only ever appeared in places like MemeFirst, and not on any Puma website.)

And Peter Mastrostefano has to deal with a lot of spam, just like the rest of us. This is noteworthy why?

Back in the mid-nineties there was a Rector skate pad (knee pad) campaign with a really similar image...a hot girl in panties on her knees, wearing the pads. No BJ recipient in the pics, though, if I recall correctly. I think it appeared in Giant Robot.

So it looks like we should be hitting Puma with a plagiarism suit.

The Rector ad spoofed/plagerized by Puma was itself borrowed from an old Santa Cruz skateboards 'Rob Roskopp' ad, which also got it's share of pos/neg attention, having been angrily pulled from Transworld magazine and leading to it's being glorified in the pages of arch nemesis Thrasher. (Oh the drama of the stuntwood publishing titans.)

There's only 12 scripts in tinsletown kids...