Liberal Party of Canada Sues Satire Website

Geekboy writes "Arguing proprietary interests, the Liberal Party of Canada has set out to force the closing (article mirrored in case the site closes) of a satire web site that takes aim at the new unelected Canadian Prime Minister, Paul Martin. The site in question is paulmartintime.ca, which is a satire of paulmartintimes.ca, but this opens a whole can of worms in regards to copyright and fair use of web content, and it involves the controlling party of Canada. Clearly there are mixed messages when one site mimics another, but where does one draw the line when it involves political satire and accountability?"

Comments

Before the Reactionism begins...

[ejungle]

...From the article:

Dave and I go over the site, and make a few changes to the design to make it less of an overt copy of Paul Martin's official site.

Then later when the C&D letter is quoted:

As you are no doubt aware, not only have you utilized LPC's art and graphics but, as well, you have, without alteration, made use of its style sheet.

and

Even your logo is an exact copy of that found at www.paulmartintimes.ca.

So, don't compare what is on the sites now. I'd like to see some screenshots before passing judgement. I just peeked at the stylesheet, and while its not comprehensive (the page is still laid out in tables) like any other code, whoever wrote it owns the copyright.

It sounds to me like these guys bit off a little more than they could chew and are now using the same sensationalism they use on their site, to rally others to their defense.

Sorry fellas, I'm not taking the bait. I'm not going to come to the aid of some listless hacks who were too lazy to do their own work for their own website. If anyone is the "SCO" in this case it is these guys. They are the ones who stole the material and claimed it as their own. Poor form, gentlemen.

I'm no liberal fanboy, but I have to take exception at some of the things the submitter said:

...the new unelected Canadian Prime Minister...

and

...opens a whole can of worms in regards to copyright and fair use of web content...

...then a bunch of inane questions after that.

Firstly, we don't elect our Prime Ministers; ever. We elect our local Members of Parliment, who from their ranks elect a leader. So by the logic of the submitee, all of our Prime Ministers have been un-elected. Therefore the point is moot, and should not have been mentioned.

Second; there is no can of worms here. Either they stole copyrighted material or they didn't. Sure, we might need a judge to figure that out, but that's what they're for. Given that they are posting the C&D letter in public I'm guessing they are trying to make themselves heard. Yet, they make no effort to rebut the claims made in the letter. Though we don't know conclusively without screenshots or archives (Google Cache looks new, and Way Back Machine comes up empty.) it seems as though there was an infringement.

Lastly, for the same reason there isn't a can of worms, it really doesn't matter that the party is the plaintiff. This is a civil case, and really has shit all to do with who's in charge. I mean, it's not like they are the prosecution in a criminal case, nor is the goverment suing anyone. How do we draw the line between infringement and parody? The same way we always have; with that section of copyright law pertaining to fair use and parody

People should really get their facts straight before flying off the handle. It's like insurance against looking like an idiot.

Re:Before the Reactionism begins...

[dolo666]

First off, I'll start by suggesting you think about the whole nature of this parody. They squatted this site as a political rouse, to hold into account a questionable leader, a leader who is very right wing, compared to other moderate center Liberal leaders from the days of yore.

"Firstly, we don't elect our Prime Ministers; ever. We elect our local Members of Parliment, who from their ranks elect a leader. So by the logic of the submitee, all of our Prime Ministers have been un-elected. Therefore the point is moot, and should not have been mentioned."

That being said, is true, but are you suggesting that when you vote for your riding's liberal, you are considering them and their qualities, and not the party leader? That's why Kim Campbell lost so bad after Brian Mulroney retired... because the Tories suffered from her lack of leadership.

When 99.9% of the people in Canada vote, it's like this:
1. Pick the Party
2. Rethink #1

You see? The leader is why people vote for the party, so in a sense, Paul Martin is unelected because nobody thought about him on E Day.

The voters thought about the terrible ad the tories ran that made fun of Jean Chretien's droopy mouth.

They took pity on Jean Chretien, or they were angry with the tories for doing the ad, so they voted him in.

Oh yeah, and the Red Book had a huge effect too. Notice how nothing suggested in it was ever done?

Someone who voted for Jean Chretien's Liberals could have sued them for faulty advertising, but those sort of cases don't ususally go anywhere (because judges have too much to gain from political alliances)

*sigh*

What democracy?

Re:unelected?

[Drakin]

Nope. He's elected by the liberal party, as thier leader (which, in a way is where the whole "unelected" bit comes into play, he supposidly used unfair practices to gain control of the party and influence the vote see Here on the PaulMartinTime.ca website for thier version of it)

He's the elected leader of the party.

Rundown on Canada's government process, for those interested

(Some of my details may be wrong, been a while since I looked in depth to it)

Re:While

[Lord Kano]

While I don't have a problem with this satire website, they are clearly cyber squatting.

Bullshit. Cybersquatting was when people would register domain names because someone would probably want it one day. Like when some asshole registered JuliaRoberts.com and tried to sell it to the real Julia Roberts at a huge profit.

There is nothing wrong with picking a similar URL for the purposes to political satire. As long as you're not trying to mislead people into thinking that you're the satired party's official representative, there is no problem, morally, ethically, or legally(at least here in the US, and yes I know we're talking about Canada, but like it or not what is now the internet is largely of American origin).

It's a very underhanded approach to getting your message out, and is completely inappropriate, regardless of legality.

Why is it underhanded? Because people can't type?

I have no doubt that many of the visitors to the site find it by accident, but so what? When experts-exchange originally registered www.ExpertSexChange.com (capitalization added for effect), I'm sure that many people misunderstood what they were all about. They changed it to keep people from laughing at them, not because of a moral or ethical dilemma.

There is no problem with this.

LK