Slashdot Mirror
A Distorted Mirror: Automatic, Real-Time Web Parodies
Citing the DMCA, the World Trade Organization complained to Verio, the upstream provider of parody site gatt.org, a site we've mentioned before which jabs at the aims and methods of GATT and the WTO. Verio notified domain holder Jonathan Prince of the complaint, and asked Prince to remove any copyrighted materials from the site. The site appears intact for now, but read on to learn about the interesting software the complaint has spawned -- perhaps this isn't what the WTO had in mind.
As Andrew Bichlbaum writes: "The WTO could well have stepped on a hornets' nest. To counter the attack, Gatt.org managers The Yes Men have released a piece of open-source 'parodyware' that will 'forever make this kind of censorship obsolete. ... Using this software, it takes five minutes to set up a convincing, personalized, evolving parody of the WTO.org website, or any other website of your choice ... All you need is a place to put it -- say, WTOO.org, WorldTradeOrg.com, whatever.'"
The World Trade Organization is not an ordinary corporation; it's an international UN organization.
Imagine if the Red Cross wanted people to take down websites complaining about people who were infected by HIV via blood transfusions. Get it?
my old sig used to be funny, but then slashcode ate it and now it's not funny anymore
Well let me see
1. Its not trademarked
2. Its satire which has a special place in copyright law
3. Its political speech. The WTO are trying to censor legitimate protest at their attempts to screw the planet.
See that weird red, blue and green globe symbol?
That's trademarked. You can see it on the WTO website, and they have a nice (specific) notice clearly indicating it is theirs.
I'm all for parody. But there is no need for parody to make use of actual trademark symbols, or even trademarked phrases. It is much more funny, and more clever besides. Here's one example, in case you don't already know what I mean.
It's quite clear to me that the Yes Men are more interested in pissing off the WTO than in parody itself. This is not itself a crime, but replicating trademarks like that tends to fool people rather than to get the point across. The WTO has a legitimate complaint here.Trademark law is meant to protect consumers, not businesses, and (for once) the WTO seems to be using it completely legitimately. If the Yes Men aren't deliberately trying to fool the very people they are self-righteously trying to protect from the corporations, they should have no problem with getting off their duffs and altering the trademarked symbols on their website.
How is this unwarranted? You have a group that's
using a well-known term in a deliberate attempt
to confuse people. Free speech and parody are
one thing, fraud is something else. When you're
trying hard and succeeding in fooling people
about your identity and motives, that crosses
the line into fraud.
That's ridiculous. First, as others have pointed out, they are using the WTO's trademarked logo. Second, it's not clearly satire. Look at the site -- it looks just like the real thing.
If i post a bunch of messages, claiming to be you, and then say, "Well, it's satire -- people should have been able to understand that the real Alan Cox wouldn't have said such crazy stuff," that's no defense, and it's fraud.
If the site was obviously a parody, i'd support them. But it's not, and i don't.
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
if people that are opposing it are already rich
It isn't that the people who oppose this are rich. It's just that only those who are rich can afford to protest regularly all over the world. I'm sure alot of the people who oppose this would love to make hemselves heard, but they have to work at a job most of the time so they can eat.
I especially like the part you quoted where someone on gatt said that, basically, you can't defend people in third world nations because you're richer than they are.
Reboot macht Frei.
It was established some time ago that registering a trademark in order to place a site criticizing the trademark's owner is not "bad faith."
The WTO accused these folks of "harvesting" email addresses, but doesn't say what method they used...according to the site, the only method they used to "harvest" addresses was some "mailto:" links. WTO is annoyed by the mockery and is interpreting the facts to suit themselves.
Computerworld ran an article on this following WTO's party line on this issue so slavishly as to stretch anyone's definition of journalistic ethics. Most interesting is this passage:
The fake WTO site changed its look this afternoon so that it no longer exactly resembles the real WTO Web site.
Even so, the phony site contains so many references to the WTO that some search engines are directing people to it instead of to the official site. A search of AltaVista using the keyword WTO returns www.gatt.org in fifth place.
So, according to the WTO and to an incompetent journalist at Computerworld, establishing an anti-WTO site that shows up fifth in search engines is tantamount to site-jacking!!
Is this the type of reasoning that you wish to defend?
I survived the Dick Cheney Presidency 7 to 9 AM 7-21-07
One word - *NSync.
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
The direct issue with this item appears at first to be DMCA related, but in my view the root cause issue is a highly politicized agenda driven site which is trying to use ANY topic and ANY issue to score political points against global trade related organizations.
Examining the site, I would realize it is not the true WTO site, but MANY people are not as well informed. The site appears remarkably realistic, uses the WTO logos and nowhere does it say its a parody. The site is blatantly and unarguably attempting to use deception and fraudulent argument to advance its political agenda.
Imagine there was a linuxkernel.org which looked exactly like the REAL kernel.org but gave out kernels patched to provide root access on port 80. The point of trademarks is to provide authenticity to information and a product. Reading something in the New York Times conveys something about its accuracy and the source of the information.
When you have guerrilla groups attempting to use false trust to advance their agenda, not only is it cowardly, but it is against the law.
The accusation makes it entirely clear to anyone who is remotely familiar with the WTO, that it's a parody. Whether you think the Holocaust is a legitimate subject for that type of treatment, or whether you find it amusing or not, has no bearing on this argument. Do you really understand what freedom of speech means? Whether it's clearly a parody or not isn't even the issue. Even if it might seem to someone that it's not a parody, they have every right to what they have up there, especially considering that it's all factual.
I hadn't heard of people comming pre-dressed for battle before (but then I don't pay much attentiont to the protests). I'm open to the possibility that there might be a group of protesters who actually think that violence will promote their cause rather than contaminate it, but anyone who isn't the police and actually turns up to a protest in ballistic protective gear, a gas mask, and a balaclava, strikes me as being there (paid even) specifically to discredit the entire protest movement as 'just a bunch of hooligans'.
And neither would I, the problems with gobalisation are complex and we live in a sound bite generation. The reporter will choose the most sensational sentence - or even fraction of a sentence and air that (normally completely out of context). You know this is true. If you have no editorial control, you cannot tell your story in your own words.
I hear protesters have cottened onto how poor a job the media do and have started bring their own video cameras to protests. Good on them.
However, as much as I like the angle this parody site is presenting the WTO views from, I do have to agree with you that the WTO probably has a legitimate complaint here.
I dunno, I thought their little side note (with picture) that: "Jenna Bush's federally protected wetlands now open for public drilling." was pretty fucking funny myself. I'd like to see a machine come up with THAT.
Sometimes the best solution to morale problems is just to fire all the unhappy people.
Putting offensive words in people's mouth is a good definition of parody. Have you watched late night shows lately?
Besides, if the words are so offensive that you know they couldn't have been said by the WTO, then it is a clear parody. Alternatively, if you are not sure that it is the parody then either
- the words are not really so offensive
- You believe that the WTO can make such offensive comment in earnest.
In the second case this isn't just parody but world class top of-the-line fscking Jonathan Swift kind of parody.-- look, cheese ahoy!
Under those circumstances it is much more likely that everyone will agree rather than rock the boat.
Protesting about things which, after all, rarely affect the politicians' lives, for no gain in their own elections while causing a lot of irritation in their working lives is just not something humans of the sort that enter politics do.
Also remember how much the various protests have affected the lives of those at the meetings: not at all. With layers of armed guards around them, why should the WTO people care about the protesters? That leaves the WTO to only sort out the publication aspects of protest (the web, newspapers, books etc.) in order for everyone involved to have a quiet life, which is mainly what venal people like politicians really want.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"