Amazon Bookstore to Be Renamed True Colors

by Claire Kirch -- Publishers Weekly, 9/30/2008 8:26:00 AM

Three months after a transfer in ownership from Barb Wieser and a group of eight co-owners to Ruta Skujins, Amazon Bookstore Coop is changing its name. The 38-year-old feminist bookstore will now be known as True Colors Bookstore. The name change should occur within 30 days, according to Jess Chandler, the store’s manager.

Chandler explained that the store needed to switch its name because under the terms of an out-of-court settlement reached in a 1999 trademark infringement lawsuit brought against online giant Amazon.com by the feminist bookstore, rights to the Amazon name reverted to the Internet retailer if ownership of the 2,800-square-foot bricks-and-mortar store in south Minneapolis changed hands. “We’re changing the name to True Colors in keeping with the spirit of the store,” Chandler said, explaining that the store will continue to specialize in books by feminist and lesbian authors.