Australian PM Has Parody Site Shut Down

babbling writes "The Australian Government has shut down a parody website that mocked Australian Prime Minister John Howard. The website featured a satirical speech that 'apologised' for the Iraq war. The site was down for two days before a phone call from Melbourne IT advised the owner that it had been shut down 'on the advice from the Australian Government'. A mirrored PDF copy of the "apology speech" is available."

Comments

Parodies, "fair use" and Melbourne IT

[Dynamoo]

This is a Bad Thing, and it's quite possibly unlawful. In most countries, parody sites are protected under the "fair use" clause in copyright laws. If I wanted to create a humorous site parodying the UK government (where I live), I'd have certain protection by law to copy the "look and feel" of the other site. This is true of most other countries.

For example, some time ago there was a similar issue (reported here) about the UK Gov's "Preparing for Emergencies" site (the real one is here, the parody one here). There was some fuss about it at the time, but basically the UK Gov cocked up by not registering the .co.uk domain along with the .gov.uk, and there was no case to answer in law, because of the "fair use" clause.

Similarly, whitehouse.org and whitehouse.gov coexist. Indeed, there are probably hundreds of parody sites that work in a similar way.

Now, when I read the story, the quote from Bruce Tonkin at Melbourne IT set off my BS alarm. His claim that Melbourne IT reacts quickly to issues like this is simply not true. If you're involved in the anti-spam or anti-scam business, you'll know that Melbourne IT are one of the domain registrars of choice for phishers and spammers. In fact, Melbourne IT's procedures are so slack that they infamously transferred the panix.com domain to a third party without authorisation last year. The site was offline for several days because Melbourne IT don't work weekends. You'll see that Bruce Tonkin offered another bullshit excuse there too.

So, don't just blame the "Australian government" for this, as it's unclear who exactly intervened. A large part of the blame for this has to fall on Melbourne IT and their pisspoor procedures.. I bet they'd believe ANYBODY who rang up and claimed to be from the government. Shucks, perhaps I should give 'em a call and pretend to be John Howard.. although my English accent might give me away, though probably not.

Google cache

[Odiumjunkie]

Google cached the site http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:cQX3U8xCBCgJ:w ww.johnhowardpm.org/+&hl=en&gl=uk&ct=clnk&cd=1

Perspective of an Australian (ex) Lawyer

[Any Web Loco]

The Oz Government requested that the site be taken down on the grounds of a potential copyright infringement. It's unclear from the article how the request was made, but they usually come in the form of a "take-down" issued by the Australian Communications and Media Authority under the Broadcasting Services Act (Google 'em, I'm lazy) which goes to the orgainsation hosting the site and says that there's a website which uses copyrighted material without the authority of the copyright holder, please take it down within 48 hours (IIRC). Process open to abuse? Absolutely.

Take Down notices don't turn up as often as you'd think but even if one wasn't issued, when the Government called Melbourne IT, you can bet that they said "how high"..

Fair use. Yes, Australia has Fair Use exceptions within their copyright regime and they extend to the use of copyrighted material for the purposes of satire. This site clearly falls within the exception.

Further, Australians have an "implied right" of "freedom of political communication". Basically, the Australian Consitution "implies" that Australians have the right of free speech insofar as that speech relates to politicians and the political process (ie because your speech relates to the election of government and by extension politicians, you are free to say what you want - approximately accurate nutshell). It's actually quite restricted and has failed as a defence (it's not a positive right like the US right, only a defence) on a number of occasions, most notably when a satirical song was created about an Australian politician called Pauline Hanson by a satirist called Pauline Pantsdown. It was an hilarious satire using Pauline Hanson's own words but mixed up & rephrased (definitely worth googling).

I gues that the end story here is that the Australian Govt. have done themselves NO favours. Requesting the site be taken down was always going to make the press and was always going to go against the Govt. End result is better publicity for his piece.

And it's not bad - gets the tone right and doesn't resort to the usual "nah-nah-nah" that passes for political satire in Australia.

Pretty much spot on, content included.

And could someone do the guy a favour & mirror the PDF?

Re:Only ourselves to blame

[ttys00]

Parent is correct. The Australian Constitution does not guarantee freedom of speech. From Freedom of Speech and the Constitution:

The Australian Constitution does not have any express provision relating to freedom of speech. In theory, therefore, the Commonwealth Parliament may restrict or censor speech through censorship legislation or other laws, as long as they are otherwise within constitutional power.

The above page also states that Australians do not have free speech under the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights either.