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Wal-Mart Parody Site Censored by DMCA
davidwr writes "Wal-Mart used the Digital Millenium Copyright Act to temporarily shut down a university student's parody of the Wal-Mart Foundation." The story's details are also available via BusinessWeek. From the article: "Papasian launched the Web site April 16 for an art class at Carnegie Mellon University called 'Parasitic Media.' The class teaches students about the political uses of satire in the media. He acknowledged using Wal-Mart's graphics on his Web site but said he believed he could use the images as part of a parody."
If you alter the content, they have no claim against DMCA. MalWart != WalMart.
--- Nothing clever here: move along now...
Exceptions to copyright for parody, fair use, etc. only apply to those who have lawyers.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
This is getting way to much press. Lemmie put it to you this way:
Walmart Foundation: www.walmartfoundation.org
Parody Site: www.walmart-foundation.org
Walmart is NOT bitching about this.
He basically has a site where people probably stumble onto when they are trying to go to a legit site. Walmart's ONLY beef was that he was using their images.
I can't tell you how we ALL have known since the web was invented that you don't steal other peoples graphics. Sure, there may be some grey area with parodies, but its the same thing we knew when we were just getting into making HTML.
But, since this kid wants press, he starts using "CENSORED BY THE DMCA" so we'll all cry fowl.
He rolled the dice and lost... and all it was was over the stupid graphics.
I say, "its an art class, how about making PARODIES of the IMAGES too?"
No extra publicity in that, though...
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
"The goal was to make the site look like it could be a real site from a company like Wal-Mart, but have text that was so ridiculous that anyone who read it would realize that it was absurd," Papasian said in a statement on his revamped Web site. "If anyone believed it to be a real Wal-Mart site, that is only a testament to the degree of absurdity that exists within corporate America today."
Due to all the retarded behavior that our fellow citizens exhibit on a daily basis I am never surprised when I see people falling for direct parody.
I am also not surprised that corporations are allowed to shutdown *what was likely fair use*. Sadly, someday, we will all look back on this and say, "look how free we once were. It survived 400 hits before it was taken down. They didn't even have to approve the webpage before it was posted."
there are very clear precedents stating what is cool and what isn't.
Making a parody is cool. Using the original artwork to create your parody isn't.
Even when making a parody of a song, you must pay royalties on the original and you must obtain permission should you use any portion of the original mechanical.
If you're gonna create a parody site, you simply cannot snag artwork from the original, and you certainly can't use the company's actual logo!
Jory
I thought the DMCA protected protection-schemes, not copyright law.. It's not like Walmart put copy-protection on the JPEGs. I didn't think the copyright would apply anyways, wouldn't this site be allowed fair use of the images? It's not like he's trying to compete with them.
I still hate the DMCA..
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
How to shoot yourself in the foot in three easy steps.
Simon.
If he hadn't leveraged any WalMart code or graphics he wouldn't have any problems. He could still do the site if he were to build a look alike from scratch. Some of the graphics he used were Wal-Mart property, and even in parody the use of their graphics would not be legally protected.
It looks like WalMart imports more than just cheap goods created by virtual slave labor from China.
Now they're further hurting our trade deficit by importing clamp-down tactics from the Chinese communist government!
I'm a big tall mofo.
Apparantly, its not just Soviet Russia. It happens in the USA now too. Quite sad, actually, that the cold war was fought for 50 years against a totalitairan regime, only to win, and take on some of the elements of that regime ourselves.
Reality has a liberal bias
"Literature should not be suppressed merely because it offends the moral code of the censor." ~ William Orville Douglas (1898-1980) US Supreme Court associate justice, 1935-75, professor of law at Yale
"Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books that nobody can read." ~ George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright & novelist
"The Internet treats censorship as a malfunction and routes around it." ~ John Perry Barlow (1947-) Wyoming cattle rancher, a lyricist for the Grateful Dead
"I believe in censorship. After all, I made a fortune out of it." ~ Mae West (1892-1980) American comedienne from "My Little Chickadee," 1940.
"Censorship is almost systematically the weapon of first resort for governments in uncertain political situations. So not only are the famous writers and bold journalists in danger; at every level of public and private life, the freedoms to think, read or write are denied. In the absence of a free press, other human rights abuses flourish unabated. Nothing is reported, criticized, questioned. The example of imprisonment, torture or execution imposes a further silence. A blindly obedient mob mentality is encouraged, driven by extremist religious or ethnic loyalties. The citizens do not know what is happening. Fear and ignorance permeate discussion." ~ Marian Botsford Fraser
"Censor: A self-appointed snoophound who sticks his nose in other people's business." ~ Bennett Cerf
[quotes from zaadz.com]
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
This guy lost all credibility with this one statement. What does the ability of someone to mistake this site for a real one have anything to do with absurdity within corporate America? This guy is just spouting off rhetoric. Plain and simple.
Wal-Mart does not care about this kind of bad PR. The people who would find this type of action detestable are not Wal-Mart's target demographic. Wal-Mart has continually eaten bags of poop in the mainstream media over their staunch opposition to unions and the way they've destroyed most mom-and-pop type stores, but this hasn't translated to lost sales for them, because the people who shop at Wal-Mart care about one thing, and one thing only: low prices. As long as this suit doesn't lead to higher prices, Wal-Mart will come out of it financially unscathed.
rooooar
'Scuse me? You want professors to offer a reward - presumably, higher marks - for producing specifically right-wing propaganda?
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
CHOOSING to shop at wal-mart, eat at McDonalds or believe in a mythical superbeing?
Sometimes there is no choice, the town has one WalMart and the rest of the small businesses go under leaving you no choice in where to buy -or- you must travel far away to go to a small independent shop.
Greed is the driving factor among everything these days, the competition is brutal and the labor is cheap....is this a lefty view? or just a rational one?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
To be honest, it's NOT WalMart that causes this (if it even really happens). It is the customers who do it to themselves. If we are all so price-conscious (read: cheap) that we shut down all the local shops in our home town... let's just say that we reap what we sow. The tragedy of the commons and all that jazz.
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You seem to believe that there is either left-wing or right-wing propaganda, that you must choose one or the other. I don't think professors should be rewarding any particular agenda. They should be rewarding reason, rationality, and thoughtfulness in their arguments. Instead professors seem to reward groupthink, which in this country, seems to be shoehorned into either progressive or conservative. There is no room for the individual view. You must choose one of the two camps.
Walmart is only objecting to the use of their logos, not the parody itself. This is a farily reasonable request. No one has actually been sued, WalMart simply had their lawyers send out a Cease and Desist letter. They probably send out several of them every day. WalMart is well within their rights to demand this. While the parody site was intending to make this look as much like an official WalMart site as possible, the can run afoul of trademark law. The right thing to do is to parody the WalMart graphics as well. Not a lawyer, but WalMart is probably in the right on this one.
bance.net
Is a rework of Stevie Wonder's Pastime Paradise. Who is taking from whom here? Of course, I'm sure Stevie was duly compensated.
Yes, people shop at Wal-Mart because of low prices but the reason they have to shop low prices is that their wages have gone down (in real terms) over the past 30 years.
As an example, my wife graduated from HS in 1974 and her first job was at paper plant. The job was union and paid $7 per hour and worked 40 hours a week. This, mind you, for a HS grad with no college and no special skills in a small city north of Seattle. By the time she left that job (in 1980) she was making over $10 per hour and getting full medical.
Then wages went into the toilet. Now kids are lucky to get a $7 job (at Wal-Mart) and work 20-hours a week.
In 1974 you could buy a house ($35,000 for a 3br/2ba home in the Seattle area) with a $7/hour job. In 2005 houses there average $250,000. Try buying one of those right out of HS.
So ya... people shop for cheap prices but only because we don't have much of a choice any more.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
Libel applies whereever you attribute something in writing to someone who does not hold that belief. It is always legally actionable.
Check out the Flynt case, before the Supreme Court. Said libel also has to be *believable.* Hence, when Flynt published things about Falwell's mother's, ah, *taste*, it was found to be parody because no one in their right mind would believe it.
That's kinda what parody is.
But what I enjoy even most is when this leads to the conclusion that it's because of the powerful corporations that these sorts of evil things happen.
This is the progressive circle of life. Progressives decide the establishment has a problem. Progressives pitch legislation that sucks to solve the problem. The legislation is enacted and then (shocker) it starts to suck. Progressives then use legislation sucking as proof that the establishment has a problem. Progressive pitch new legislation that sucks even more. Elton John starts singing ...
So I will not shop there. Target also sucks so I will not shop there either. It's amazing how I can find what I want off the internet or from a grocery store or smaller shops around town. It is easy not to shop at WalMart so why bitch and scream. Just don't go there.
When a huge corporation promotes itself as having a 'cleaner-than-thou' image, and then muscles down on someone who mocks this image in a tiny inperceptable forum, they often will generate a backlash in the media; the alternative media if not the major outlets.
Then the parody gets recognized far wider than it would have from its initial presentation. This brings recognition to the parodist and simulates discussion on the practices of the corporation and the contrasts between its business practices and its manufactured image. Smart business execs usually know this and will work to avoid publicity amplification. Walmart execs tend to be more mean than savvy.
Perhaps the clearest example of this publicity effect is the Disneyland Orgy which would have disappeared as an urban legend if clueless Disney execs had not have gone batshit when it appeared and mounted a huge effort to destroy it. As you can see, it lives now on the web forever. It still is pretty funny.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
This is yet another example of the DMCA being abused to silence legitimate free speech. If any more evidence was needed concerning the unintended consequences of this legislation then surely this most recent incident fits the bill. The DMCA has utterly failed in its intended effects, prevention of wholesale copyright infringement in the digital age, and it has manifested many negative side effects. The copyright infringement which is currently taking place on the file sharing networks is nothing that could not be prosecuted under pre-DMCA copyright law and any notion that hackers in Russia, China, and elsewhere give a damn about what US laws say about circumvention devices, or anything else for that matter, is living in la-la-land. Meanwhile the DMCA has been used to muzzle free expression, stifle innovation, intimidate researchers, negate fair use, impede competition, and browbeat technology companies. The DMCA has done nothing to advance the progress of useful arts and sciences in this country while causing tremendous collateral damage to free speech. The other problem with laws such as the DMCA, which is rarely mentioned, is that unjust, poorly written, and unfair laws breed contempt, even among otherwise law abiding citizens, for all laws and that is dangerous because it strikes against the barrier that separates civilized society from utter chaos and anarchy. One can only hope that the DMCA will eventually be struck down by the Supreme Court, but until that day most people will continue to ignore the unjust provisions of this legislation in the same way that they ignored prohibition and every other law which makes criminals out of honest and hard-working everyday Americans.
I see all this arguing going back and forth about whether what Wal-Mart is doing is legal or not. As if the legality of this issue means anything to you as an individual. People have taken action in the past regardless of whether what they were protesting was currently legal (remember segregation?). If you do not like what Wal-Mart is doing, stop shopping there. Use the golden rule.Stop giving them YOUR money to enable Wal-Mart to do things that you do not like. And stop finding excuses to go there and buy more crap than you really do not need in the name of convenience for you. Take a week away from Wal-Mart and encourage others to do the same, thats your strongest power as an individual.