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.'"

Comments

On a serious note, though,

[SumDeusExMachina]

Won't this just encourage corporations to sue over copyright infringement even more? I mean, Apple was able to sue over "look and feel", so what would bar these people from doing the same? Also, how in the world is software going to be able to tell copyrighted material from non-copyrighted material? This all seems to be rather ill-planned to me.

Re:On a serious note, though,

[ninewands]

Won't this just encourage corporations to sue over copyright infringement even more?

No. First, the WTO isn't a corporation, it's an association of governments, therefore, it is arguable that they can't even own copyrights except in the capacity of a trustee for their citizens.

Second, there has to be copyrighted material on the site to the extent that it falls outside the "fair-use" doctrine, which, in the case of parody, is a broad sword, indeed. I haven't heard any news about Microsoft getting ready to sue the owner of www.fuckmicrosoft.com, even though the graphics on the site are damn near a direct knockoff of microsoft.com

Third, don't confuse "look and feel" with copyright ... "look and feel" issues are generally dealt with in a body of law more closely akin to trademark law than copyright.

... what would bar these people from doing the same?

Three words ... Apple was losing. That's why they settled with Microsoft on VERY generous (to Microsoft) terms.

beyond the golden parachute

[apwingo]

these guys and gals, the yes men, do some seriously, seriously cool stuff. in the november issue of harper's, they print a transcript of a talk that these folks were invited to give at a textiles conference in Tampere, Finland, from folks that thought that they really were the WTO. A few snippets:

... How do we at the WTO fit in? Well, that's easy: We want to help you acieve those dollar results. We want to help make sure that nothing - protectionism, worry, even violence against physical property - stands in the way of your dollar results.

and some more:

... CAUSES OF THE CIVIL WAR: PROTECTIONISM
[Slide: Freedom]
Why did people fight and die and lose money? It comes down to one word: FREEDOM.
[Slide: Southern Happiness]
By the 1860s, the South was utterly flush with cash. It had recently benefited from the cotton gin, an invention that took the seeds out of cotton and the South out of its preindustrial past. Hundreds of thousands of workers, previously unemployed in their countries of origin, were given useful jobs in textiles. Into this rosy picture of freedom and boom stepped ... you guessed it: the NORTH.

it goes on, about how the market would have stopped slavery ("Involuntarily Imported Workforce") given time, moving production to the third world where things are cheaper, then it gets wack:

Now, we all known that not even the best workplace design can help even the most astute manage keep track odf hstaff. But our solution inables a lot more rapport with remote workers.
Mike, would you please?
[Unruh steps out from behind the podium to a drum roll. An assistant grabs him by the tie and belt and rips off his suit to reveal a golden spandex unitard underneath.]
Ah! That's better! This is the Management Leisure suit. This is the WTO's answer to the problems of maintaining rapport with distant workers and maintaining one's own mental health as a manager with the proper amount of leisure. How does the MLS work, besides being comfortable? Allow me to describe the suit's core features.
[Unruh unzips the from of the suit, then pulls on a rip cord that inflates a three-foot-long golden phallus. The audience claps.]

And it goes on.

The presentation, which Harper's describes as "well-received", was subsequently praised by the MC on three seperate occasions that day.

(I want to be a yes man :)

Reminds me of the Dialectizer...

[Zergwyn]

It seems sort of like a bigger versioin of the Dialectizer, a site that allows you to insert a url and then have all the text on the page translated into a number of amusing "languages," such as redneck, jive, elmer fudd, etc. /. readers may especially appreciate the hacker dialect. ^_^ Try this version of slashdot!(hit the dialectize button). CmdrTaco's gone l33+!

Two-Timed by Slashdot

[box2321]

When I submitted this story, I got this...

"2001-11-15 16:39:40 WTO Tells ISP: Remove Satire Web Site (articles,news) (rejected)"

... but now it appears under another's name. All the good lovin' I gave you, Slashdot, and how you are in another's arms!

For the satire impared, let me say it's not such a big deal. A tiny deal, not a big deal.

Re:What does this have to do with My Rights??

[Zeinfeld]

And I suppose the people that founded the USA never told a lie (the cherry tree legend not withstanding). Why is lying not a legitimate form of protest? It seems to be a legitimate form of political organisations like the WTO.

Why should anyone believe someone who is obviously telling lies? How do you know the truth from the lies?

One of the reasons I have no time for the anti-WTO protestors is that they appear to have no idea what they are protesting about. They completely fail to set out a coherent set of political goals or a strategy to achieve them.

For example amongst the protestors are people complaining that the third world is paid too little for the goods they export to the US and others who are complaining about the loss of US jobs. Denying access to the US markets is not going to help the developing world.

I don't see many of the anti-WTO protestors at the conferences trying to do something positive for the third world. Equally it is a bit odd being lectured on the evils of global capitalism by some teenager wearing a $150 pair of Nike trainers.

Re:What does this have to do with My Rights??

[Zeinfeld]

What's also not going to help the developing world is allowing U.S. corporations to exploit third world workers for cheap labor that is prevented by their own poverty and lack of political influence in their own country from unionizing.

Trade is not inevitably exploitation. You sound like the trotskyites used to.

I get the feeling that people want to have opinions on this subject that are simple, easy and comforting. Their real demands have nothing to do with trade, they are demanding that life be as simplistic as their ideology.

I find it interesting that both the posts I have made so far have been moderated up as 'Insightful', then down as 'flamebait' and 'offtopic'. The topic is the gatt.org site so the person who modded me offtopic is simply disagreeing. As for flamebait, it seems that these people don't like hearing any disagreements.

That could explain why they have to create their own WTO site.

incredibly hyperbolic, but not entirely off base

[fortinbras47]

There are two main themes I have noticed with the anti-globalization movement.

First, they have no alternative. The entire movement is defined by what it is against, not by what it is for.

Second, large sections of the movement have no qualms with using false arguments and violence to advance their agenda.

For example, the anti-trade (supposed parody) gatt.org flatly accuses AIDS drug manufacturers of genocide. Saying that creators of drugs which cure AIDS actually are killing people afflicted with the disease is not only audacious, but logicaly incoherent. However, gatt.org does not let facts get in the way.

The anti-globalization protests have PRETENDED to be non-violent (and indeed some groups are). However, there are a large number of groups which have no qualms with blatant destruction and violence, and even more groups tolerate those groups and are thus tacitly complicit. If the movement really was non-violent, why are so many police needed to prevent full scale riots like Seattle?

And when violence does occur, members of the movement engage again in misinformation by blaming the police. Last time I checked, it wasn't the police who were looting stores and setting cars ablaze. If one actually watches the news in detail, the protestor who was shot in Genoa was killed as he was attempting to hurl a fire extinguisher at the head of a policeman. (Sounds pretty close to attempted 2nd degree murder to me.)

Members of the anti-globalization movement at the BARE MINIMUM must confront why their message and method is so attractive to violent thugs.