CNN Uses DMCA Against Parody

Anonymous Coward writes "Big corporate media also likes to use the DMCA to shut down web sites. Here is a blogger site which is under threat from CNN. CNN wants to shut down The National Debate becuase of a one web page parody."

Comments

DMCA and Trademarks?

[Col. Klink (retired)]

I thought the Digital Millenium COPYRIGHT Act dealt with Copyright infringement, not Trademark violations. So is CNN claiming that they actually wrote the parody story?

I don't think the DMCA gives them any take-down rights over Trademark disputes.

wait...

[BigChigger]

but CNN is a bastion of liberalism. You mean a liberal organization is violating someones free speach rights! But that can't be! According to all the liberals, they would never do anything like this!!

BC

Re:Listen...

[Mr. Slippery]

You can hear the liberal slashdotters' heads asplode...

Um, no. A true liberal beleives in free speech for everyone, even those he or she disagrees with. Thus you find the ACLU defending the free speech rights of the KKK and neo-Nazi groups.

However, it's worth noting that this parody seems to have directly copied the CNN content, including the logo, genuine CNN headlines, and even a CNN copyright notice. There are some valid issue heres - but they could be easily remidied by the parodiest (by making up their own close-but-obviously-bogus logo, removing the copyright notice that attiributes the content to CNN, etcetera.)

So: the parody itself, 100% free-speech. (Stupid, but free speech.) The stuff surrounding the parody on the page, though, CNN has genuine copyright and trademark claims about.

C&D Letters Are Not A Creature Of The DMCA

[John Hasler]

> Big corporate media also likes to use the DMCA
> to shut down web sites.

Copyright owners could send cease and desist letters in the absence of the DMCA. The difference is that without the DMCA they could also sue the site operator even if he took the purportedly infringing material down immediately.