RadioAid.com vs. Clear Channel Communications, Inc

Rob Vining writes "On July 16th, 2004, a decision was handed down from the National Arbitration Forum that took away ownership of RadioAid.com's website "ClearChannelSucks.net" and gave the website to the complaintant, Clear Channel Communications, Inc. The decision of the arbitration panel has left us (the founders of RadioAid.com) with only one choice. That choice is, to file suit vs. Clear Channel communications, Inc. to retain ownership of our outlet for free speech against this corporate monopoly. Http://www.RadioAid.com/sucks.asp We're raising legal funds in our suit vs. Clear Channel and would be so appreciative to have you spread the word to your readers and create awareness of yet another attempt for a billion dollar company to silence it's critics and squash free speech on the internet. Please help us spread the word about this and any assistance you could provide in posting this to other media outlets would be extremely helpful!"

Comments

Nuke Dissent

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

This is unbelievable you know. Not only does ClarChannel fill the airwaves with rubbish music 24/7, now we aren't even entitled to parody or saitirise them anymore. What would happen if someone instead started the site ClearChannelIsAMonopoly.net ? Do they get sued too? I'll bet the DMCA had something to do with this. And since it was a .net domain, were Verisign involved?

RadioAid was taken to arbitration instead of the US Judicial system
This part sickens me the most. Forget a jury of your peers. It would seem that important decisions are now left to private clubs. I wouldn't be surprised if some in the clear channel camp played golf/tennis/handball with some of the 'independant' arbitrators and chatted about the case 'off the record'. "Tsk,tsk. Those RadioAid Hippies. Communists, I tell you Bob. Sheer terrorist sympathisers. FORE!!"

The implications of this could be very far reaching. For instance, if Clear Channel can annex ChealChannelSucks.net, what else can they do? Can they SLAAP Google to stop referencing sites wich critisise them? Can they sue sites that critisise them because they used the ClearChannel name without consent? Will someone come after me for the above paragraph? Will they come after you for reading it? Linking to it? We NEED to be able to say out loud and in public CLEARCHANNELSUCKS!! THEY ARE AN EVIL MONOPOLY!! Without getting our asses sued off for unconformity. If we can't, then the slope just gets slipperier.
Fight the power RadioAid. I've never heard of you but I'm with you 100%.

Is clearchannelsucks.org still about? Or has it been blasted by too many censorware products picking up 'suck' in the url? How long until clearchannel get that one too, having been 'aided' by the decision in the favour on .net?

Re:Nuke Dissent

[ballpoint]

The answers to your question are successively:
- the same thing
- yes
- no
- anything
- yes
- yes
- no
- no
- no
- yes
- no
- between 1 day and 100 years

HTH

Re:Nuke Dissent

[4of12]

Unless RadioAid wasn't paying it's bills, it's hard to see where ClearChannel has much case. Does the National Arbitration Forum publish its decisions and provide a synopsis of what the thinking was that led to their decision?

IIRC, in the past, companies and political campaigns typically had the forethought to buyout in advance domains that were critical of them $MY_BRANDsucks.com.

So, are other domains available, such as

clearchannelsux.com
clearchannelstiflesdissent.com

It would seem to me that avenues for criticism are vital to preserve, that suppression of any speech outlet short of provable slander or libel should be viewed as quite dangerous to the public interest.

But I'm confused - didn't RadioAid have to agree in advance to use the National Arbitration Forum? Or was such a matter of "an offer they couldn't refuse" in the face of overwhelming legal onslaught from Clear Channel?

[I know Clear Channel sucks and don't dispute it, but I'd like to know exactly what the mechanisms are in our society that help them to stifle dissent. Knowledge is our only hope of acting correctly to change things for the better.]

Re:Nuke Dissent

[AKnightCowboy]

The answer is that you can start a protest site, just don't mention the company you're protesting ANYWHERE in the domain name. How about monopolistic-radio-sucks.com?