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Rec.humor.funny Threatened by MasterCard
MotyaKatz writes: "The last article in the rec.humor.funny newsgroup comes from the editor (aka moderator), Brad Templeton
himself. Amazingly, after two years, MasterCard decided that this joke violates their "priceless" trademark and requested its immediate removal. The reply of Mr. Templeton shows the sense of humor only the RHF editor can have!"
Templeton's response was right on target. But I can't help taking a crack at it:
Getting the idea that you should protect your brands on the internet: free.
Hiring firms to search out and police such "violations": $millions.
Getting slammed with negative publicity because you're sending out cease-and-desist letters like a bunch of idiots, which makes your customers think of your stupidity whenever they see your commercial: $millions more.
Learning from your mistakes the first time you make them: priceless.
There are some experiences that money can't buy. For every other mistake you make multiple times, firing the executive responsible is fun too.
All the rest are belong to MasterCard.
Case in point: When Al wrote his first Star Wars parody, "Yoda" (parody of The Kinks' "Lola"), he managed to get permission from Lucasfilm, but he asked the publishing company controlling the rights to "Lola" for permission first, and they turned him down. Some time later, Al ran into Ray Davies, and asked him why he'd been turned down. It turned out Davies hadn't even been asked. Naturally, being a nice guy himself, Davies helped Al get the rights issue straightened out, and "Yoda" was finally released on Al's Dare To Be Stupid album. Since then, Al has always tried to go to the original songwriters to ask permission, even, in one well-known instance, contacting Kurt Cobain on the set of Saturday Night Live (through his friend Victoria Jackson) for permission to do "Smells Like Nirvana." (Cobain agreed, then asked, "Wait a minute...is this going to be about food?" Al assured him it wasn't.)
As for the "Amish Paradise" incident...Coolio isn't on the firmest moral ground himself, as he isn't really the original artist either; he borrowed the riffs and chorus of "Gangsta's Paradise" from Stevie Wonder's song "Pastime Paradise" (from the classic album Songs in the Key of Life). Still, yes, Al does feel bad about the whole incident, but there's no denying that "Amish Paradise" is a pretty damn funny song.
Al is not only a nice guy, but he's one of the more highly underrated comedic minds of our time, certainly the best known comedy musician of the modern era, and he sure looks a lot better since he got LASIK surgery and quit wearing those glasses all the time :-).
Eric
--
Be who you are...and be it in style!
Now that's interesting... The GOP recently pushed forward a bill that would make it harder for people declaring bankruptcy to get out of credit card debt.
Then to find that there is a direct connection between the GOP and Mastercard.
Well actually, not surprised. Just didn't realize the connection was so direct.
There's a fine line between humor and and outright poor taste.
There is, and thank God that you don't pick where that line is and that which side of the line a particular piece of parody is on has no impact on its legality.
The enemies of Democracy are
Not just you.
There's a lot of tragedy in this world. If you can't laugh about it, then how can you deal with it? It's a nice coping mechanism. People who can't laugh at tragedy have as their only recourse just not thinking about it, and I've never been fond of head-in-sand types of behavior.
I didn't find this funny when I read it, but that's because Mastercard slogan parodies were played out a long time ago. That, and I now associate Columbine with endless Katz articles and the mis-labeling of a clique of 20 rich kids as "outcasts".
The enemies of Democracy are
I think we are all missing the point. Copyright is not the issue here, but rather good taste. If such a sick parody is allowed to be made, what's next? It's not censorship to order the joke be stopped, it's responsible web hosting. I'm glad that someone is finally fighting for the children.
HAhahahahaha! Stop it! You're making my sides hurt!
But seriously, if you follow r.h.f, and I've been reading it for about ten years now, then you know that Brad has never shied away from "sick" humor -- or any other kind, for that matter. His only criteria for posts to r.h.f is that they should be funny. He's got a great sense of humor, and I'm glad to see him respond to MasterCard in such an appropriately funny manner. (And, BTW, it was Trademark infringement, not Copyright.)
Rec.humor.funny is one of the longstanding gems of the 'net. Long may it run!
--Jim
Mastercard's lawyers also know that sending off a bark letter when their client is offended is a slam dunk. It's cheap (for them), the hours are billable, and it's 100% within the law. Best case scenario, it could lead Mastercard to take rhf to court. Which would be lots and lots of billable hours.
Oh yeah...rights? Well, they're nice and all, but there's money to be made.
ObJectBridge (GPL'd Java ODMG) needs volunteers.
Finding God in a Dog
'educational use' is not a legitimate use of 'anything copyrighted'.
Funny thing, I'm not allowed to go photocopy textbooks or swipe stat software from campus computers for homework.
Why do you think readers cost so much? It's not for the photocopying and binding, it's for the copyright royalties.
IANAL, but I know that much.
Kevin Fox
--
Kevin Fox
--
Dunx
Dunx
Converting caffeine into code since 1982
most likely it's an artifact of frontpage. Frontpage makes it's authors look like morons by trying to get fancy with apostrophes. That's why there is the demoronizer
War is necrophilia.
But in the context of the parody (Columbine), "BlasterCard" is a much more appropriate substitute.
--
Consultancy: If you're not part of the solution, there's money to be made in prolonging the problem
Are they absolutely sure it's a real cease and desist?
/. from bashing Mastercard anyway. :-)
Seems like this guy would be a prime target for a practical joke...
I would say it is a joke, nothing more.
The reply is dated April, 1 (as seen in the URL).
Where the letter is posted, the title bar of my browser reads, "April 3, 2001". And the letter itself is dated April 9, 2001.
So basically, he replied to the letter on April 1, posted the letter on April 3, and was sent the letter on April 9. Not a very good practical joke.
But that won't stop anyone on
Are they absolutely sure it's a real cease and desist?
Seems like this guy would be a prime target for a practical joke...
A house full of new furniture: $15,000.
Porche: $60,000.
Fucking over a credit card company you know is full of assholes to the tune of $85,000 when you declare chapter 7 bankruptcy: Priceless.
There are some things in this world that won't get you sued. For everything else, there's Mastercard.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Every time there's a Slashdot story discussing a legal issue, one or more lawyers post and make the point that laypeople misunderstand the law, or often, that laypeople shouldn't be discussing legal issues in a public forum because they'll inevitably get everything wrong. And it's good that lawyers point this out, because the sad truth is that we *do* seem to get most things wrong.
There's the real problem - laypeople are expected to obey the law in a society whose laws we can't hope to understand. Shall we all hire lawyers to accompany us through life to make sure we don't accidentally break the law? I'm not trolling - it's really a serious problem, especially for people on Slashdot, who tend to be involved in Internet endeavors where the chance for accidentally committing IP infringement - and getting "caught" - is high. As you might suspect from my name, "plagiarist," I too have had these problems.
The effect of this is that people with lots of access to lawyers (i.e. corporations) have a very effective hegemony in regards to preventing the rest of us from speaking negatively against them. In other words, many people dare not speak out by parodying a corporation or otherwise speaking critically of them, for fear that a) "Big Brother is Watching," b) "I am Not a Lawyer, so I don't know what's protected and what isn't" and c) "therefore I'd better speak softly - and drop the big stick."
That's what I see as the real problem. Then again, IANAL.
Not quite. Brad's response included:
The Letter came from Baker Botts, a huge Texas-based law firm. (Y'all remember GWB's front man, James Baker, don't you?) No way they scratch for $500, probably the letter cost more like $5,000.
Should it, now? How interesting that you should say so....
Disrespect to whom? MasterCard? I don't believe they're paying MY salary!
The original joke was about as tasteful as distilled water and not entirely funny. However, if tastelessness were to be made criminal, Yoko Ono would have been behind bars years ago.
Strike while the irony is hot! -- The Freethinker
Back in the late 70s, Frank Herbert wrote a book called "The Dosadi Experiment" in which he made some keen observations about our legal system. Sadly, it is out of print. I quote now from p. 336 of the Ace paperback edition:
"ConSentient Law always makes aristocrats of its practitioners. Gowachin Law stands beneath that pretension. Gowachin Law asks: `Who knows the people? Only such a one is fit to judge in the Courtarena..."
This is what I see as the real problem. The legal profession has a strong self-interest in making the law as burdensome and as complicated as possible. That way, people must consult an attorney much more frequently than they otherwise might, which increases their power, status, wealth and influence in our society.
Are they also gonna get sued because of this: http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=19991212
If Mastercard wants to start bringing suit about this, they need to really dig and if they win, every person on the Earth would end up in jail. Satire, discussion, educational uses, comedy, are all legitimate uses of anything copyrighted.
What next, they're going to sue David Letterman?
DanH
Cav Pilot's Reference Page
Cav Pilot's Reference Page
UNIX - Not just for Vestal Virgins anymore
Fortunately I think this is the typical scattershot cease and desist letter a lot of firms send out just to look like they are pretecting marks and to scare people who don't know better.
I wasn't scared by it, but I did enjoy responding to a legal letter like that, and I wanted to get the message out to people not to be intimidated by such tactics.
But really, the picked the wrong guy. Aside from my history dealing with attempts to censor rec.humor.funny, I've also been a plaintiff in a free speech case before the supreme court, and I am chairman of the board of the leading free speech foundation for cyberspace (EFF). So while they did customize the letter, they didn't do to much research, did they?
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Here is his contact info:
Russell H. Falconer
BakerBotts
212.408.2564
FAX 212.705.5020
russell.falconer@bakerbotts.com
30 ROCKEFELLER PLAZA 44TH FLOOR NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10112-0228
I am sure he would love to hear more of those!
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Old legal joke: "Sir, you've examined this matter very thoroughly. There's plenty of documentation, and all the precedents are on your side. There's only one matter that needs to be settled before we can proceed. Exactly how much justice can you afford?"
Which is actually an even nastier joke than anything about Columbine. It simply doesn't matter whether MasterCard would win in court. What matters is that they can afford to go through the motions, and you can't stand on your first amendment rights unless you can afford it too. Once again, free speech is not free beer.
__
Some people scream, some people would rather laugh. Who are you to tell everybody how to cope with the terminal thing called life?
But they're not! When we have Mastercard bitching about jokes, SGI threatening anyone using the words 'Open' or 'gl' in their product title, the head of the MPAA keenly aware that 2600 puts a parody of his ugly face on t-shirts but totally oblivious to everything else, Fox trying to shut down the "Why Files", Time Warner getting frisky with Harry Potter fan sites, Scientologists demanding publicly available information be taken off /., laws being passed that make it illegal for us to figure out how something works, what are we supposed to do about these guys? Between them, they simply want to patent/trademark/copyright every word and witty expression in existence. While we might reach a 'peaceable compromise' now, they'll just come back next week with some other goody their lawyers dug up. And consider what each side's agenda consists of here. RHF: "We want to amuse people with this joke." MC: "We're afraid some stupid people will equate MC with guns, so we want our name taken off of that joke or we will bluster about and threaten to unleash our flesh-eating lawyers whom we pay solely to spend time in courtrooms erasing people like you from the face of the earth."
--
Dyolf Knip
Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2001 08:14:02 -0400 (EDT)
From: dante
To: bt @ templetons . com
Subject: Mastercard and Postal Service Violations
Brad,
After reading the cease and desist letter from Mastercard's lawyers, I noticed that they had sent you the notice via Federal Express. US law prohibits using private carriers to deliver first-class mail unless there is a specific need which the private carrier meets, which the USPS cannot. I do not see what need FedEx would fill which the USPS could not, as overnight delivery was unnecessary, and registered mail provides proof of delivery for letters from New York to California.
Legalspeak can be found here:
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/cfr/39p310.htm
While "calling the Feds" really would seem futile, sending them a letter to "cease and desist" using private carriers when not necessary
would certainly be funny.
-Anthony
Id just throw a semi-colon in there and call it a day.
There are some things money can't buy; for everything else there's Mastercard
I sorta like
I don't think that's all it was. One of the early "priceless" commercials was about the look on your high school classmates faces when they see you at the reunion in the fancy expensive dress. Turning that into a Columbine reference ("the look on your classmates' faces as you blow them away") is, in fact, a very pointed and incisive parody of the MasterCard commercial itself--making the point that they are, after all, just selling another kind of revenge fantasy.
With that said, Mastercard probably could not bring a successful cause of action against RHF. Not because parody and satire are always protected, but because the statements in this case could not rise to the level of an actual offense, e.g. business libel, deceptive practices, or other state statutory or other common law claims. The point is, don't think that you can insult, disparage, or mislead with impunity because you have labeled a statement "satire." Seriously.
The other point is this: Mastercard is not sending the letters because it wants to sue RHF, or because it is serious about making RHF cease and desist. For a large company like Mastercard, it is a worthwhile investment to have a staff of cubicled drones, supervised by a third-rate attorney, who is in turn supervised by far better atttorneys up the line, to mail merge and send threatening letters to people who refer to their trademarks, trade dresses, or other intellectual property in manners which they would not prefer.
The threat itself isn't supposed to be effectual, but the act of making a show to protect their IP is significant. It shows their competitors or actual, putative infringers that they are watching what's going on, and that they will take action if people get out of line. That way, when a competitor tries to appropriate their IP in a manner that they do not wish, they can prove to the judge or jury just how valuable their investment is, and how much they have spent in time and effort to protect it.
Write a newspaper letter using the term Kleenex as a generic name for tissue. If your letter garners enough attention, you will receive a letter from the Legal Department of the company that manufactures Kleenex for just that reason. They want to make sure that you understand the difference between Kleenex (proper noun) and the concept of tissue paper generally. They do not want you to dilute their mark in a manner that hastens its descent into public domain. But more importantly, they want to be able to prove that they care about how their IP is being used when a real threat to their IP surfaces.
I assume the Mastercard lawyers know about parody being protected. If not, maybe education in law is lacking something these days.
However, I understand their desire to not be associated with humor that so many people would find in poor taste (although I find it pretty funny). Do businesses today know anything about politely asking?
I rather liked the VIDEO of the couple gettin' it on in the upper deck at a ball game.
1 - 2 tickets to Major League Baseball game $60
2 - hot dogs and beer for you and girl friend $22
3 - the video of you fucking her, on the Internet - priceless!
Bwahaha!
Silly Rabbit: tricks are for kids.
Crack cocaine: $10 a hit
Decent hookers: $200 an hour
Legal fees: $68737.12
Getting your old job back after getting caught on video smoking rock with working girls: Priceless.
Some things, money can buy, yadda yadda...
OK,
- B
--
http://www.bradheintz.com/
- updated
Two relatively recent Supreme Court decisions which upheld parody and satire as forms of free speech:
Hustler Magazine, Inc. vs. Rev. Jerry Falwell, over a satirical account of Falwell's first sexual experience (with his mother).
2 Live Crew vs. Acuff-Rose Music, over a parody of the Roy Orbison song, "Pretty Woman."
rec.humor.funny ... does this mean that the rest of the rec.humor groups are unfunny?
All Mastercard was concerned with is the preservation of their trademark... with no mention that the subject matter could be slanderous.
Who wants to bet that this thing was found by a search script? Potentially automatically generating the cease&decist?
If: find ": $xx" 1-5 times, followed by "there are some things in life that money can't buy, for everything else, there's Mastercard", then send(cease_n_decist)
Think of how much the law firm could bill Mastercard for the work done by such a script! "Yeah Bob, we worked 10000 hours to protect your trademarks on the web this month, at $500/hour that's a cool $5M."
Further diversion from my subject:
Cost of Mastercard lawyer to come up with the idea for a script: $5000 (conservative estimate)
Cost to get a high school/college/university student to set it up: $500
Monthly revenue to the firm: $5 000 000
Partnership in the firm: priceless
There are some things in life that money can't buy, for everything else there's "moderate down".
And I *still* think that allowing one word to be trademarked, "PRICELESS", is ludicrous. I wish I had $billions to facilitate my ideas/ideology/dictatorship of the world!
Did anyone see the ad Nader showed on television during the campaign season? There was a link to it on the original article, but it didn't say a lot. I remember hearing about it, and later hearing how Mastercard had lost its suit against Nader. I doubt they'll have much more luck against a newsgroup. blizzardx